Group Shooting Benched Vs Freehand

[baa]

After reading Brian's book, I decided to try some bench rested shooting to work on my ability to see the sights better during shooting. While the practice certainly helped me see the sights better and catch myself blinking while slow firing, my benched accuracy pretty much sucked. At 25 yards, the shots were hitting many inches high in a strange almost perfectly vertical string. Totally confused, I shot some groups freehand and went back to decent (and normal) clustered groups. Whats going on? Obviously, the gun behaves differently from a bench rested position (sitting with sand bags as support.) What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any input. This has me very confused...

[HSMITH]

Find a buddy to help you out. You hold the gun rested on bags or whatever sighted exactly on, HE pulls the trigger when HE is ready, you only hold the gun still for that moment. What you will find is that the problem is the trigger actuation on your part.

[AlamoShooter]

You may be grounding the gun at the mag well causing it to 'bump' in recoil. Off a rest just the dust cover on the front should touch the bags- not the barrel too - you do not want to rest on the barrel unless you are shooting a revlover.

I like an Old School method of resting just your wrist in the bags so that the gun is held in the hads the same way as if you were standing, the gun will recoil closer to the same that way. The groups will not be as small but you can work on just your trigger pull like that and it works good for final sight in.

[10ring]

When shooting an open gun off the bench, I've ended up resting my forearms on sandbags and allowed the gun to be completely supported with my hands. Something to do with the comp I guess.

[BBoyd]

are you aiming at the same point for each shot? when you shoot freehand, you see where your bullet went, then if you aim at it, you often can darn near hit the bullet hole again and give you a better group then from a ranson rest but......you moved the gun and reaimed to do this. from a bench rest you should be holding the gun in the exact same postion, aiming at the exact same point, which without it being in an actual device to hold the gun tight, is nearly impossible to do, just my opinion. shooting from a ranson rest, which locks in the gun, will tell you the actual potential of your pistol, trying to this free hand or from sand bags, i don't think is going to tell you much.