Offhand tips?

I recently started some high power match shooting (Vintage Rifle and Service Rifle) and my Offhand is terrible. Any tips or tricks?

Using a sling and remembering the fundamentals of marksmanship?

Natural point of aim and knowing when NOT to pull the trigger.

It's so much harder to establish NPOA standing. Take the time to get it right. Line up, close your eyes, breathe, hold, open your eyes. If the sights are not on target, you do not have NPOA.

Make a shot procedure that covers each step you take when you go to the line.

If you break procedure (i.e. it takes to long to get the shot off) STOP and start over. Do not force it.

That's gotten me(occasionally) into the '80s. Dry fire practice at home and range time will hopefully add the rest.

Use of the sling is not permitted for offhand shooting, at least in CMP matches.

Offhand is definitely a challenge. One positive aspect: if you can improve your offhand a bit, it can make the difference in a match. Since most of us suck at offhand, if you can get to where you suck a little bit less, you can win medals and get all the hot chicks.

I think there are three main techniques people claim to use:

1) The Lazy Figure Eight: If you can get the front sight to settle into a horizontal figure eight pattern (or "infinity" symbol), try to let off the shot as the sight passes your aiming point. The idea is that you are never going to get that sight to sit still. You accept that fact, and try to get it moving in a predictable pattern, then work with that pattern.

2) The Sinking Sight: First get your best position and Natural Point of Aim, with your support arm firm against your rib cage, affording the best bone support possible. Notice as you inhale the front sight rises, and as you let your breath out, it sinks. This is the movement you want to work with. The idea is, you take a deep breath and then let it out, allowing your exhaling to cause the front sight to sink in a steady and predictable manner. As the sinking sight approaches your point of aim, you take up the second stage of your trigger, letting off the shot at the ideal point to send your bullet to the exact center of the "X" ring. Or at least to hit the paper.

3) My Technique: This basically involves trying to have the target blur near the front sight blur about the same time I jerk the trigger.

Matches are won offhand and lost in slow prone. I have yet to win jack or s%*t but I'm getting closer.

Without looking at what you are doing, it is extremely difficult to provide any pointers.

You could write a book on how to shoot offhand. Check out www.usrifleteams.com and go to the national match forum. Lots of great information there. The US Army Marksmanship Unit has some good information on line as well. The CMP should have some tips on their site also. www.odcmp.com

Find an Appleseed shoot, and if you want to compete, tell the RWVA instructors and they will help you find and perfect your no-sling offhand position, including help in learning your unique NPOA. Offhand "steady hold factors" are well-taught at an Appleseed.

Dry fire as much as possible.

Jerry M said:

Dry fire as much as possible.

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You can't go wrong with dryfiring.

This is how I do it. I start very close to the target (in my case a tiny little target scaled for 27ft taped to my basement frig). I dry fire for a set number of rounds with 100% confidence that I can keep the front sight on the bull the whole time. I proceed to increase the distance, slowly dry firing more at each new distance. Over time this distance increases considerably.

As soon as I start calling shots "out" I move a step closer. This in essence is training my brain to believe that I am absolutely as steady as a rock.

When I shoot at actual distance my thought process is this... I am a rock. Any motion I see is actually a little gremlin moving my target around. I can't do anything about it so I don't even worry about it... Just focus on the front sight and squeeeeze the trigger.

A little different perhaps.

1) The Lazy Figure Eight: If you can get the front sight to settle into a horizontal figure eight pattern (or "infinity" symbol), try to let off the shot as the sight passes your aiming point. The idea is that you are never going to get that sight to sit still. You accept that fact, and try to get it moving in a predictable pattern, then work with that pattern.

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I've also had this referred to as the "wobble zone." You accept that the sights will never be perfectly still, and center the wobble zone over your target. The trick is to then squeeze the trigger when you are ready, rather than trying to "ambush" a perfect sight picture as the sights wobble across the center of the target. Doing that almost always results in jerking the trigger, in my experience.

***Disclaimer*** - I have not actually competed in this discipline, but the fundamentals should still transfer.

All good advise, remember standing is one of the most natural thing we as humans do, establish the natural point of aim is crutial. dryfire is the key, when I did that a few minutes everyday with out my shooting jacket, when I went to the match and kitted up my scores went through the roof-mid to hi 90's each string.

What do you guys think about rifles and bullet combos that might be good or bad for offhand shooting?

For example, a high speed firing pin assembly, short barrel and fast bullet, all leading to reduced lock-time...

I note that some shooters use lighter bullets in the standing stages, reducing their wiggle error....

I have a BIG HEAVY precision rifle that I use up at Mayberry and other precision matches. I absolutely suck at standing. I do have a TIS sling for it, and have practiced, but my off-hand is only marginally improving.

JamesBailey said:

What do you guys think about rifles and bullet combos that might be good or bad for offhand shooting?

For example, a high speed firing pin assembly, short barrel and fast bullet, all leading to reduced lock-time...

Click to expand...

I'm of the opinion (and somewhat backed up by some fiddling with the settings on my SCATT*) that locktime and bullet time-in-barrel is of very little importance. The few milliseconds that can be saved** (about 15ms from the very slowest to the very fastest) don't really make much difference--your hold doesn't move very far in 15ms. Now, the way the trigger feels and how long from when your brain says go (or allows the finger to break the trigger, or however you think about the act of making the gun go bang) to when the trigger breaks is where the improvement lies. Most people will have about .2 to .25 of a second between the minimum aiming error and the shot release***. That's about 250ms that can be addressed--and *that* is worth some points. Reducing the time from when the hold is right to when the gun goes off by dry firing a whole bunch (possibly also by getting a trigger you are more comfortable with) is a much better place to chase down some improvements.

That's not to say I would prefer a gun with a slow lock-time. But, I would prefer a gun with a trigger that I like the feel of with a slow locktime to one with a trigger I don't like as much that has a fast locktime.

Also, the light and fast bullets will have less recoil than bigger-but-slower ones, and less recoil may mean you can shoot better offhand shots.


*an electronic trainer

**the bullet will be in the barrel for about a millisecond or two, and there's not much difference between a bullet at 3200fps and 2500fps--to use the extremes of what you might find in HP. And the fastest bolt gun lock times will be about 1ms, and the slowest GI AR-15 trigger about 15ms (with the match AR triggers as low as 4ms). So, from slowest to absolute fastest, you're talking about 15ms of possible improvement.

***from the SCATT. Most shooters exhibit a hold that settles down (whatever that is for each shooter), then try to break the shot after it's "right" The increase in movement from this minimum to the actual trigger break is the amount the gun wobbles during their reaction time and any movement of the gun induced by the act of pulling the trigger.

Awesome thoughts NateG- thanks for that detail.

How about a long v short barrel? For example, the amount of wiggle from a 28" barrel vs a 20" barrel. Not the time that the bullet spends in the barrel, but the amount of increased wiggle that a longer barrel has over a short one, both from weight savings and from leverage (wiggle gets amplified as length increases).

I shot better off hand with my 14.5" and 20" ARs than I do with my 16#, 26" bolt gun, despite the much longer lock time on the AR. Weight savings is key, but also the length barrel wiggle must be involved as well.

Maybe, but remember if the gun rotates one arcminute's worth of angle, then the longer barrel moves more at the end than the short one--but they're still pointing at the same place. (Though the longer barrel will keep the bullet in the barrel longer--although that goes back to my other post about how that just doesn't matter all that much) The muzzle is moving faster on the long barrel--and that might mean an increased effect on the bullet. But as far as wobbling, I'm not sure how much of an effect there is. Though I will say that smallbore 3P shooters (who shoot standing as well as prone and kneeling) tend to use shorter barrels (and add in bloop tubes) than the prone specialists. It might be a function of weight (I like heavy barrels offhand, but not everyone does), or it could be there's more of an effect of barrel time with the slower .22LR bullets, or it could be a placebo effect from *thinking* that the bullet will hit closer to call with the short barrel.

In other words, I don't really know. I think the effect is small, but if I can get less barrel time (or locktime) without giving something else up, I won't turn it down. But, I'm more likely to chase points in other ways. (I'll take the longer barrel for the sight radius, balance, and extra velocity, and I'll take a lighter mainspring which allows a lighter bolt lift and lighter trigger even though it means a longer locktime than a heavy one) This is probably one place where a whole lot of the benefit is in your head. Buy a new mainspring that promises faster locktime and, "gee, this fast locktime makes my shots hit inside of call now, awesome!" Or, buy a lighter one and, "gee, this lighter spring makes my trigger feel better, and I'm shooting so much better!". I happen to think the latter has more effect than the former (and think I have a decent rationale for it), but I think the placebo effect is probably stronger than the actual effect in either case. :-)

Yeah, I hear you on that placebo effect NateG. I have it in my head I suck at off-hand and that is what I get. I will keep practicing

Yup, when it comes to offhand, there's no substitute for hours and hours of dry firing. Shooting other standing-specific disciplines (silhouette, air rifle, are two excellent options) can help you break out of a rut in your primary discipline--and give you another chance to shoot under match pressure.

Now that I brought up dry firing, I need to get back in the habit of regular practice. Over the winter I was dry firing about 45 minutes a day 3-5 times a week, and my scores showed it. Leading up to Perry (Nationals), I had a lot less time to dry fire (had to load ammo, and had a newborn taking up some time, too. ) and my standing scores at Nationals showed that.

Oh, and for anyone who wants a whole bunch of information on shooting offhand, Ways of the Rifle is an excellent book. Really detailed and focused on smallbore/air rifle, but it carries over to high power quite well. (It also covers prone and kneeling) For practical/tactical/precision offhand shooting, it'd still have some good stuff in there, though more reading between the lines would be necessary for games that don't involve silly coats. Silhouette shooting would match up quite well to offhand in practical rifle matches, I would imagine.

Get comfortable, ensure your natural point of aim is aligned with the target, seek to limit muscle involvement in your position as much as possible and practice a lot.

As mentioned NPOA, dry fire a lot and make sure your service rifle is balanced. You want it to balance between the delta ring and halfway back in the magwell. Use a lead wedge in the butt if you have to.

Find a "reasonable" heavy gun ---mount the gun to your shoulder --- 75 reps a night; inorder to get the proper muscle sets. That's what a father taught his daughter, too help her become a champion trap shooter.
Keep pressing thru the trigger, even after the sear breaks.
Accept the wobble.
Rely on triangular bone support, rather than just muscle support.
Slight flex in the knees...majority of weight on the balls of your feet.
Take 3 deep breaths...exhaling thru mouth --- exhale halfway thru on 3rd breath --- take shot within 6 to 10 seconds; unless it does not feel good for the shot.
Do not stare at your target for long lengths of time, so you can break your plain of vision occasionally.
If you tend to shoot left, move your feet to the right a little; and vice versa.
Read a book...writen by David Tubbs --- on offhand shooting.