counteracting horizontal parts in recoil patterns

[impact]

Hi folks,

 

I'm currently trying to improve my recoil control but since this can get very ammo intensive ( =expensive) pretty fast I gues I could benefit from some help that leads me in the right direction.

I would like to leave out equipment talk as much as possible and focus on skills and shooting technique instead. I know that with well tuned equipment I can tame down the effects of recoil to a great level, but I would like to try to get down to the causes as close as possible instead of fighting symptoms.

 

What I currently don't like about the way my dot moves is not it's magnitude, but it's direction. It's up and to the right (right handed shooter). Very close to 2 o'clock. So even slightly more to the right than up.

I don't like that because the scoring zone typically is significant taller than it is wide.

At around 25m (~27yards) with the dot starting inside the widest area of the A-zone of a classic target the dot moves up to the right just a hair outside the target, making the timing of follow up shots/2nd shots extremly importand since pulling the trigger just a tad too early will cause charlies easily, creating deltas on occasion or worse. I had no timer with my the last time I did these tests but I would suspect the splits to be around .25 when I got a solid stance and stable upper body. So these are the numbers.

 

I watched a lot of videos on the topic, I tried a lot of things out, but even with clamping the carbine super tight between support hand/arm and shoulder this horizontal part won't seem to go away. At some point it even gets worse when clamping super tight, since returning to the desired aiming point seems to diminish.

When I shoot right hand only (stable shooting stance, no support of support hand but buttstock placed firmly in shoulder pocket) the rifle recoils pretty straight up. As soon as I start to apply the typical (not over aggresive) C-clamp support hand grip the pattern goes up right again (however with a LOT less magnitude)

I understand that the path indicates in which directions I'm failing to apply forces, however I find it hard to impossible to create a platform that will cause the dot to go straight up.

 

So yeah, I know I could take a MBX brake and index it at 2 o'clock and might be good to go, however I would like to learn something about shooting technique instead.

Any thoughts on this?

Edited July 17, 2019 by impact

[Hi-Power Jack]

Guess it's around noon in Austria ?

 

You'll have to wait a few hours for our experts to awaken.

 

BTW, great question - I'm waiting for the answer myself.      

[impact]

17 minutes ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

Guess it's around noon in Austria ?

 

You'll have to wait a few hours for our experts to awaken.

 

BTW, great question - I'm waiting for the answer myself.      

Absolutely!

No problem, I can wait. May the experts have a good nights sleep and be clear minded when they answer the question in the morning (or whenever)

[MemphisMechanic]

Move the gun well inboard of your shoulder pocket, keep your chest square to the target instead of bladed off toward the side, and put the heel of the stock on your pectoral muscle pretty much below your right eye. Shoot chest-mounted instead of shoulder-mounted. This may require you to shorten your stock. I run nearly fully collapsed these days.

 

Most shooters have the gun recoil up and out away from the centerline of their body because the gun is mounted into the shoulder, so it has the leverage to twist your torso as it recoils. (If you were able to mount it dead-center on your chest it wouldn’t move laterally at all.)

 

As best as I can currently run a PCC, my current stance looks like this:

 

 

Edited July 17, 2019 by MemphisMechanic

[vgdvc]

Hello. So typical forum disclaimer of YMMV but I have put some efforts into counteracting the up right torque and how to negate it for a right-handed shooter with the carbne. For human influence I have found that a grip such as the BCM mod 3 allows me to get my hand higher up on the receiver and a little more straight up and down forcing me to keep things tighter into the shoulder. It also allows me to get on the safety  up high so I can actually "ride" the safety when shooting. The other thing I have done ,and I'm continuing to experiment with is, using a small finger stop on the bottom handguard in which I hook my support hand trigger finger over the stop and thumb pointed at the target parallel to the barrel, similar to how I would grip a pistol. I have used the DPMS Miculek brake on 5.56 caliber carbines and yes that is designed to index as you wish so the 1:00 position does do some help. According to Adrian at MBX the compensator they make is most efficient in a straight up and down position and not designed to be indexed. If you are able to have your own load development keeping the bolt velocity to a minimum we'll also aid substantially in a predictable and minimized dot movement pattern. These have been my experiences so far. Hope it helps and I look forward to learning from what others are able to contribute.

[vgdvc]

Also pull in and tight with the pistol grip. That will help keep things stabilized and allow the support arm to be a little more flexed and relaxed for transitions ,indexing Etc

[gerritm]

My combo of 115gr 125PF rounds, Taccom Extreme BCG/no weight & 3-stage buffer with JP barrel & pinned tac comp  pushes the dot straight back on my PCC,, but being left handed I have always fought this on my AR rifles no matter what comp.

 

I cured 90% of this torque by drilling the holes on the top & left side (9 & 11 o'clock) of the comp out 2 sizes larger. That pushes the gun into my right hand. Holding far out on the guard.

 

Of course this depends on what comp you have if it will work.

 

gerritm

 

[Bwillis]

If your getting up and right dot movement, flex your right shoulder into the stock more. With a direct blowback you’re going to have more core rotation and shoulder rotation from the force of recoil. How to negate that is strong core and rolling shoulder into the gun more. . I’ve tried the stock from all the way in to all the way out and all the way works the best for me.( Everyone has a natural lop find that and stick with it) . For my support hand I place it close to middle of the hand guard while gripping as hard as possible. 

 

 

Here’s a video of Adrian and myself talking about our buffer setups and load data if it helps give a starting point. (Homie gave me the load data.) 

[rowdyb]

You're not holding the gun firmly enough and/or not in the right spot. Your shooting position is breaking down and isn't repeatable shot to shot.

 

There is a difference in shooting a 'classic' rifle position and then trying to shoot as fast as possible.

 

-less bias with your feet. less blading with your torso

-press the gun firmly back into you. you're doing more than simply holding it steady. hold it strongly with both hands, forced back into you.

-a little more medial or some other change in your shoulder pocket keep the gun of a moveable part of your body. the more the point of force, the butt of the stock, is to the side or on a weak/moveable spot on your body the more it will move an change shot to shot.

-a little more forward weight bias

-slight cant of the rifle itself.

[longbeard]

Backing up what others have said.  Drive that gun into your shoulder.  Like gripping the pistol, the more you do it the tighter the groups.  Remembering to do it in the midst of a stage is always a challenge.

[impact]

Hi Folks! Thanks for all the answers. I hope I can adress them all.

 

For the platform/stance, I actually tried canting the carbine inwards/ccw what actually helped a little with recoil control, and also feels a tad more natural and strain free in my neck. So I guess a win/win.

Mounting the gun further inwards on my chest also seems reasonable, I'll give that some time to work on it. Initialy, I didn't like it because I feel I need to mount my reddot a litle higher to get a better platform without straining my neck too much.

Originally I placed the stock into the pocket just between shoulder and chest, where the collar bone seems to dive a little in making place for a stock. Buffer tube/barrel axis below the colar bone.

I also didn't push forward that much with my right shoulder, since I didn't like that when shooting Precision rifles or AR15s for precision (It would give me more fliers). I just kept it at a natural/relaxed position and tensed it up as I applied rearward pressure with my support hand (kind of like pulling a rope or... trying to push a lance straight through your body...).

 

Here's a video of me shooting a match earlier this year. It should be representative of what my shooting platform looks like:

 

 

As for the pistol shooting analogy... what I learned when shooting pistols is that over aggressive pressure/tension won't really help. There's only a certain amount you need to stop the grip from moving inside your hands (a good firm handshake) and the rest to me was bulding a proper triangle and especially learning how to use the muscles in your forearms that keep your wirsts stable. It didn't took a lot of force to do that, just learning how to use certain muscle groups and how to (directions) apply tension/forces properly.

 

I felt this to be similar with the carbine. Just pulling the stock inward harder (after a certain level of tension) won't really help, it even made things worse and stopped the dot from returning naturally to the desired point. So I think the trick is to know how and where and in which directions to apply force, and how to mechanically build a stable platform, instead of just tensing and pulling the crap out of it.

But moving the gun inward on your chest seems to make sence, from an mechanical standpoint. Is there also any muscles in your torso that you use to counteract that twist, a off-the centerline push creates arount the spine (simplified modeled), kind of how you keep your wrists strong when shootng a pistol?

 

I also tried some different foregrips (BCM kag, Magpul afg gen2, handstops, pure vertical grips as handstops) and didn't like any of these that much, even though I kind of would have liked to make the kag to work. The thing that felt most natural was just a small hook for the left trigher finger, but it didn't really do much besides giving me a index point.  

 

I didn't use the pistol grip much. I just noticed I get a little better hits when providing some upward twist tension (kind of like supporting the gun only with the firing hand as you take off the support hand to keep the barrel level. Otherwise I try to keep it as relaxed as possible to "save" dexterity for trigger manipulation.

I use the fat ergo tactical deluxe since this grip feels like making my hand and the grip one and gives me really good control and confidence when running uprange one handed. It also provides more distance from the back of the grip to the face of the trigger. I like that too since I got larger hands and dont want to manipulate the trigger with the middle segment of my trigger finger.

My Thumb always rests on the safety, I got the strike switch set fo 60°, however I'm not really pushing anywhere, just resting it there as a reference and beeing able to put it on safe immedatelly (I sometimes do when having longer or trickier movements between shooting positions).

 

I'll let what you guys wrote sink in a little and do some more testing today. We'll see where we get...

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2019 by impact
Typos and additional info