Like LRRPF52 said, "fall asleep on your rifle" my coaches sometimes had us actually try and fall asleep on our rifles just to know that thats how relaxed we should be.
Like LRRPF52 said, "fall asleep on your rifle" my coaches sometimes had us actually try and fall asleep on our rifles just to know that thats how relaxed we should be.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
John Stuart Miller
YY:Originally Posted by YutYut
Can someone ever be too relaxed to shoot well?
LR1955
physically i personally don't think so but mentally yes. (This is mainly speaking for the prone position) The mind has to stay fully awake. Kind of like when you first wake up in the morning but you're so comfortable your body doesn't move an inch, yet your mind is fully awake. . what i was taught was to sight in, close my eyes and relax. take deep long breaths for a few minutes then open my eyes slowly and i should be at my natural point of aim. if not, repeat the process until i find it.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
John Stuart Miller
I don't know your age but when you are relaxed in a quiet place you might try slowing your heart rate by using your breathing rythm. It's not so much your respiratory rate buy when you exhale in a relaxed but complete and extended way your atria fill more completely and your rate slows. As you gain control of your heart rate check your natural point of aim. Close your eyes as your rate slows then open and see where your crosshairs are. Shift your hips to side to side or front and back to make that reticle be where you want it when your eyes open. Sorry if I'm telling you something you already know. You'd be surprised how much difference this can make. (See Appleseed Project online)
Alex
try not to treat an analog problem with a digital solution. My heartbeat perturbs the point of aim cyclically. All I have to do is make sure my body position is right so that I'm on at some point in the cycle, any point. Then I just have to keep my trigger activation consistent across that curve. Don't try to beat the heartbeat, you can't. You have to work with it. I'm only able to pull off .3 MOA on a good day so I'm no BR shooter but holding sub-MOA isn't really hard.
Alex and others covered every other point.
I appreciate all the replies, gentlemen (I assume everyone in this thread is male).
It took a long time, a lot of factory ammo, and sheer luck in reloading, but I finally discovered that the issue wasn’t me so much as it was the gun/ammo combination. Until a couple weeks ago, all my “precision” shooting was with factory ammo. I spent a fair amount of coin on what most would consider good ammo for the 308, 223, and the Grendel. I bought and shot Fed GMM, Hornady Amax Match, AA Lapua 123, and other quality loads for those three calibers. On occasion I’d manage a ¾ MOA five-round group, but most five-round groups hovered in the 1 to 1.5 MOA range when I felt confident that I had done a good job behind the trigger. I just assumed that some of these factory loads were capable of much smaller groups, hence I was the weak link in the system. I attributed my inaccuracy to heartbeat artifact, because although I could minimize it quite a bit, I could never completely stop it. I thought I couldn’t time my shots well enough between heartbeats to shoot groups smaller than 1 MOA, so that’s why I started this thread.
In February of this year I purchased a 24” heavy barrel in .264 LBC from Les Baer and planned to use that as my target gun for punching paper, steel, and a container or two of Tannerite at the machine gun shoot. The LBC tube had a glowing reputation and an accuracy guarantee with their target ammo. I read good things about Satern tubes, but for reasons I can’t recall, I decided on the LBC. I took great care in assembling the upper. Got the gun to the range with a couple different LBC loads and one AA load. Perplexingly, the best I managed was a 1.1 inch group at 100. Successive trips to the range with a couple other different loads, Hornday and AA, never consistently bettered that first group size. How could none of five different factory loads, known for spectacular accuracy in other folks’ Grendels, shoot well for me? Had to be the driver that was the problem, or so I assumed.
A few weeks ago I finally picked up a set of Hornady dies in Grendel and put together loads with five different charge weights. I ran 107 grn Sierras over different charges of BL-C(2) and CCI 450s. The first two loads I tried shot about the same as factory loads—one printed about 1 MOA and the other about 1.5 MOA. The third group went into a single, ragged hole, and I was convinced it wasn’t just luck. I got back out to the range today with a few dozen rounds of the same load I used for that tight third group, and while I didn’t print any 1-hole groups, shooting sub-MOA wasn’t difficult. I’ll try tweaking that load to see if I can shrink group sizes a tad, but it’s a relief to know that while I do still have to contend with an amount of heartbeat artifact, I believe my aiming error due to heartbeat artifact is closer to ¼ MOA instead of the 1 or more MOA I thought it was.
When I look at any precision rifle that I'm getting into, the thought of purchasing "match" ammo for it is so foreign to me, it took your above post to remind that it was still an option. Every .308 rifle I have purchased only had hand-loads run through it by me, starting with load development until I found an accurate & fast load. Then that load gets mass-produced and nothing else is fed through it. This is why getting into the Grendel, or .260 Rem was never based on factory-available ammo for me.
I've shot some pretty intensive shoot schedules chasing accuracy at least 3 days per week, from 0900-1730. I learned to recognize barrels that don't shoot with a particular load, and those that just drill holes like it's easy. When you come across a load/rifle combo that just clicks for you, it is one of the best feelings in the world, and your confidence has to be kept in-check. I find that sticking to the basics and maintaining a calm sense about me as I squeeze through a great sight picture comes easy when performing many of the techniques mentioned in this thread. Hydration...body asleep...mind awake...visualizing nothing but holes through my exact point of aim...settling the gun to find natural POI with eyes closed...checking sight picture after a good settle...squeeze through perfect crosshairs on center of smallest POI...discharge...maintain position...re-acquire sight picture...slowly release trigger reset...repeat.
Why not just take a Bata Blocker?
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