Do you ever offhand your rifle?

Friday

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Or do you always use a bipod, rest, or support of some kind?

I often find myself gravitating to shoot the rifles offhanded, for no purpose other than the challenge. After dialing in with support to confirm the rifle is doing it's job, I immediately go to offhanded to see just how good or bad I am.
It's a humbling experience, especially with the stout calibers..and ammo starts to pile up. Recently did this with my 30-06. I was able to hit the 6 and 8 inch steels pretty good, and after about 13/14 rounds I was ringing the little 3" steel.

I finished the box and then I picked my shoulder up off the ground and went back to the house. :D
 
Not as much as I should. I use any solid cheater rest I can find when shooting. When walking the property I've used t-posts, locust posts, trees, 4 wheeler rack, (carefully!) truck surfaces, tractor...you name it!


CHRIS
 
Off the bench only to confirm zero, possible group sizes and point of impact. Then offhand. Impact point shifts a bit due to the harmonics and change of support positions, but it's the real test of if you can shoot well and accurately. Now move over to black powder with a much longer lock/ignition time v centerfire and the shooting fundamentals become critically important. I've seen black powder guns shoot less than a 1in group off a bench and to POA and when shooting offhand, same gun, load and shooter go 2in high from POA, not unusual at all.

In the North South Skirmish civil war style competition I shoot in, ALL shooting is done offhand standing and revolvers with just ONE hand. So to practice, I shoot a couple off the bench to confirm sights and then switch to offhand with muskets and carbines. Follow through is critical. Raise the head to see what you've shot will cause a miss of about 4-6in at 100yds. After a session with the 58cal muskets, I'll sometimes go more modern with an AR or an AK. Head shots on a steel shilouette at 200 are boring, more fun to see if I can hit a 4in skeet on the 200yd berm offhand with an AR or AK and yup, I've done it more than once. I attribute that to the ingrained attention to fundamentals that the black powder shooting demands carrying over to the modern centerfire stuff. That skill is quite perishable, don't use it, you WILL lose it!
 
Prone/bench for zeroing rifle. Other then that its field positions and homemade shooting sticks. I also use a sling either M1907 or USGI web.

Deer hunting in pop up blind.
IMG_14664.JPG


Pdog hunting, did have a Harris bipod on it but took it off as it was too low (6-9" model)
aab0d1e9-463b-428c-8e7e-b5278d3620cf.jpg



CD
 
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After everything is lined up (sights, scopes, whatever) I try to do most of my shooting either from an improvised rest (tree branch) or offhand using the sling to help steady the gun. Bench rest is a fine thing, but I have never found a bench conveniently placed in the woods when I'm hunting.
 
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Field and Stream offhand practice

The Range Regimen
Here’s how to practice shooting offhand: Get a .22 rifle, as close a match to your centerfire as possible. Get as much ammo as you can buy, beg, or extort. Get a package of 100 NRA A-17 paper targets, each of which has 11 black bull’s-eyes about the size of a silver dollar.

Set your scope at 4X and start from 20 feet. Shoot strings of five rounds per bull; a hit anywhere in the black counts. Zero hits through two is pathetic; three is so-so; four is not bad at all; and five is outstanding. Your initial efforts are likely to be so bad that you will go into shock and require hospitalization.

As you improve, move back to 25 yards. Once you are shooting mostly fours and fives, switch to your centerfire rifle, and shoot from 100 yards at an NRA 50-yard pistol target with an 8-inch bull. Shoot no more than 20 rounds per session, and try to get all of them in the black. Very few shooters can do this; if you can get 18 or 19 into the 10-ring, you’ve done very well.
 
Do have some prone pictures from my All Army Matches
200 meters
sitting02_RZ.JPG

9809rz_100_0659.JPG

300 meters
9809george_300yd_prone3_RZ.JPG

500 meters (prone at 1000 meters with M14/sling/irons too but no pictures)
9809rz_100_0647.JPG


Air rifles are great shooting aids for the backyards.


CD
 
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Combat Diver said:
Prone/bench for zeroing rifle. Other then that its field positions and homemade shooting sticks. I also use a sling either M1907 or USGI web.

Deer hunting in pop up blind.
IMG_14664.JPG


Pdog hunting, did have a Harris bipod on it but took it off as it was too low (6-9" model)
aab0d1e9-463b-428c-8e7e-b5278d3620cf.jpg



CD
Click to expand...
Is that the same rifle with a stock swap?
 
Friday said:
Or do you always use a bipod, rest, or support of some kind?

I often find myself gravitating to shoot the rifles offhanded, for no purpose other than the challenge. After dialing in with support to confirm the rifle is doing it's job, I immediately go to offhanded to see just how good or bad I am.
It's a humbling experience, especially with the stout calibers..and ammo starts to pile up. Recently did this with my 30-06. I was able to hit the 6 and 8 inch steels pretty good, and after about 13/14 rounds I was ringing the little 3" steel.

I finished the box and then I picked my shoulder up off the ground and went back to the house. :D
Click to expand...
And of course not one holler across the ridge for me to come over.... I am starting to think you don't like me... :cool:
 
Muddy said:
And of course not one holler across the ridge for me to come over.... I am starting to think you don't like me... :cool:
Click to expand...
I never did like you. :p
J/K it'll be you me & Festus soon. I was gonna call you both and have you over this weekend but then the weather turned to crap.
 
When I shoot off-hand, I usually sit on both of my hands until they are numb, so that when I go off-hand it's like a stranger is doing the shooting.

jazz-hands.gif



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Most of my shooting is off-hand, except to confirm zero, and anything with substantial distance. Most of my practice is CQC distances, 50y and under - speed, transitions, reload drills and such. I definitely need to do more distance stuff.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk
 
Since we're showing match pix, here's a couple of mine. I'm the guy in the glengarry and yes, you're probably seeing my best side.....and yeah, it's all offhand.

original-b51abac4a96b3bc839de959e696f88ae.jpg


original-8dd2585879f485f6e8d45eae3375f2bf.jpg
 
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Muskets, minie balls and black powder make for one very interesting shooting experience.
 
I used to shoot offhand a lot when I was young and strong. Gun was like a rock, never moved.
Now the whole world moves. When I shoot at distances over fifty yards (scoped) and am trying to kill something, it will be off sticks, bipod, against a tree, side of a building, something to make sure the sight picture is dead steady.
When I shoot open sights I'm still pretty good off hand but the scope sight picture moves to much without help.
 
The only time I shoot offhand is during a 3Gun match. And it shows. =(
 
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When a friend and I get together to shoot our Garands we always shoot at least a clip offhand.
Being in our mid 60s it keeps us humble.
 
Its a pretty wide mix for me. I've got a few rifles that are dedicated bench queens, but the vast majority do get shot offhand sometimes. My 357, 44, and 30-30 lever guns are shot almost exclusively offhand. Same with my AR's and Mini 14.

Last year I spent a ton of time working on offhand marskmanship, and I got pretty good, but the last few months I've got slack in my practice.
 
Friday said:
I never did like you. :p
J/K it'll be you me & Festus soon. I was gonna call you both and have you over this weekend but then the weather turned to crap.[/QI KNEW IT!
Click to expand...
Friday said:
I never did like you. :p
J/K it'll be you me & Festus soon. I was gonna call you both and have you over this weekend but then the weather turned to crap.
Click to expand...
Sounds good. I am squaring the yard away for winter this week up through sat. but we always shoot on a sunday anyways so I should be free whenever after that...
 
I have managed to do as good or sometimes even better when shooting offhand after shooting off the bench, indoors at 25yards. But that is not really a challenging rifle distance.
 
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