How would you like to shoot at 1,000 yards with open sights consistently like Anette Wachter? Maybe shoot like British Corporal Craig Harrison up to 2.
47Km (that's right, Kilometers) as a sniper in Afghanistan? Most likely you just want to be able to hit the game you hunt on a consistent basis.
That means practice, and practicing good habits.
If you think you are a regular Carlos Hathcock, but never seriously took the time to learn how to shoot without a bench rest, I can assure you that you need some work.
If you practice good habits, you should be able to constantly hit within 2 inches at 100 yards with a stock hunting rifle and a decent scope from the prone and sitting position.
Shooting from the standing position is the worst position.
Yet, when hunting we don't always get the luxury of being able to get into the prone or sitting position.
Kneeling works a little better than standing, not much though.
If you can kneel, you might as well take a seat and get off an accurate shot.
There are 4 key steps to making a good shoot.
Body position, sight focus, breathing, and trigger pull.
Body Position: As stated earlier there are 3 main body positions for shooting the rifle.
Each position merits having its own article.
The main point here is trying to use as much bone structure as possible.
The more you try to hold the rifle up without support, the more it wobbles.
Standing position offers the least amount of support.
There are two thoughts on shooting from the prone.
One is too lay at almost a 45 to your line of sight to the target.
Legs are spread apart your elbows underneath the rifle creating a solid bone support.
The other is to lay in line with the rifle.
The latter is preferred much more in competition shooting.
For the sitting position there are also couple of ways to do it.
Sit with your legs crossed at about a 45 degree angle to the target.
Bend forward and place your forward elbow on the flat of your shin below your knee and same for the rear elbow.
Make sure not to place the pointed end of your elbow on your knee.
Use the flat underside of your elbow.
The other sitting position is with your knees up and legs spread apart.
Again at about 45 degrees to the target.
Make sure that you lean forward to place the flat side above your elbows on your shins.
If you need to take a fast shot from the standing, square up to the target in a solid aggressive stance, almost like a wrestler with one foot slightly forward, knees bent, slightly leaning forward.
Your hand on the fore stock should be as forward as possible.
Your rear stock hand needs to be pulling the butt into the shoulder where your deltoid muscles attach, not on your collar-bone or on your deltoid.
Bring the stock up to your face.
In all of them your hand needs to hold the stock like a firm hand shake.
Put the first finger on the trigger just above the joint.
Sight Focus: If you are shooting open sights this is quite different from shooting a shotgun.
Focus on the front sight.
Line up the rear sight so the top of the front post is level with the top of the rear.
The target will be fuzzy, put the front sight in the center of what you aim at.
Just have laser like focus on that front sight.
Shooting with a scope uses a different technique.
Keep the cross hairs center in the scope on your target.
There should not be any shadows along the edge of the sight picture.
If there are, your cheek placement on the stock needs to adjust until no shadows exist.
Keep focused on the cross hairs, keep them on the target.
Breathing: Breath normal.
When you decide to finally take the shot, breathe out and pause.
Do not hold your breath for more than 3 to 4 seconds.
After that things get out of focus fast.
Trigger Pull: Make sure that you hold the stock firmly.
This ensures that when you pull the trigger you pull it towards your hand.
If you limp wrist the stock like a dead fish, you end up dragging your hand a bit towards the trigger.
This is known as dragging wood.
Slowly squeeze the trigger towards your hand.
The shot should almost be a surprise.
Stay on target after the shot goes off.
You should be looking at the same exact spot that you wanted to hit after pulling the trigger.
This is following through.
If you don't, after awhile people typically begin to move off target as they pull the trigger.
Follow through prevents this.
There you have it, the secret formula for shooting 1000 yards, minus calling wind, and ballistics.
I'll cover more on stances and shooting drills later.
Put some actual practice in.
Here's a YouTube video, https://www.
youtube.
com/watch?v=L-g-WrIPpeU#t=12, of an old timer with glasses shoot open sights at 200 yards and hitting in the black every time using these same basic methods.