Are there any good DVD's or Books that have drills and such that one can complete on their own?

I know Gun SIte and others have courses but I do not have the money to attend those courses as well as be a way from work another week.

I know there are some good tips posted here.

In short I am looking for a book that lays out a training guide or a schedule to improve one's hunting marksmanship.

Thanks for your help,

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Singleshot03:
In short I am looking for a book that lays out a training guide or a schedule to improve one's hunting marksmanship.

Jim

Craig Boddington wrote a book titled Shots at Big Game. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is outstanding in its instruction and, like everything Boddington writes, it is an easy read.

Nobody has mentioned this yet. Book a hog hunt in Texas where you can kill multiple hogs. Say about a dozen. Find a place where you can spot and stalk. It would be a hell of a lot more fun than a shooting school and probably cheaper.

I was talking with a PH today on the phone and mentioned that I shoot at a 10 inch gong at 200 yards every week from the sticks. He thought that was an excellent drill.

Once you can ding a gong at 200 yards, try increasing your speed, so you can do it as fast as you can. Also practice a bit at 300 and perhaps beyond. If you can take stuff at 300 yards standing using sticks you won't have any problem.

Thanks for all the advice; I will probably do all threee.

Jim

"Hunt" as much as you can. Shoot whatever you can that is legal ... I know that may be hard to do, but it is what makes good hunters good. Experience. You can only cram so much experience into a short timeframe.

Short of hunting, shoot from field positions at targets at varying ranges and distances.

While a pig hunt where you can shoot a dozen pigs is a good idea, finding that hunt is damn near impossible, outside of a penned hunt. And shooting a dozen of his penned pigs might get expensive!

Wendell, thank you for the advice. I have a buddy down in TX who can probably get me the access I need to hunt some piggies.- he has invited down before.

THanks

Jim

1. Unload your gun.
2. Put on one of the safari TV shows.
3. Dry fire at the animals from various field positions.
4. Shoot quick and do quick follow-up shots.
What you practice, you will do, Grasshopper.

I believe you can set up the practice that you need with a bit of thought. Get a set of sticks and practice standing and kneeling. For seated shots which some areas permit use a set of short sticks.

Get to know your limits and ranges for the different positions.

Shoot groups and also shoot at things like balloons blown up to around a 6" diameter, for immediate feedback.

Dry fire! Practice getting set up on the sticks quickly! (Can't stress this enough).

I also quite like the Boddington book, although nothing earth shattering in there. I can also recommend Wayne van Zwoll's books.

ARWL & Blacktailer, thanks for the advice. I will do all the above.

Jim

A fun afternoon out can be had by taking paper plates out in the woods and fields and stapling them to dead trees, fence posts, stumps; any safe background. Then use your 22 with a scope similar to the one you'll be using, and take the "course"...shooting off sticks or natural supports at different distances. If you live in an area where you can use the actual rifle you'll take, that's fine too, as long as it's safe. The skills you want to develop are shooting off sticks, shooting at unknown ranges, and shooting at a target that doesn't have an aim point on it.

Funny I'm going through this right now too. I bought some snap caps and have been practicing dry firing standing free hand and from various positions while aiming at a small distant object. This gives a great feel for the trigger as well as getting used to holding the gun steady free handed. After a few sessions of this I can tell I'm much steadier. I also plan on going out to the national forest near my area and setting up some over ripe fruit and shooting them from different positions.

quote:

Originally posted by bgomez:
Funny I'm going through this right now too. I bought some snap caps and have been practicing dry firing standing free hand and from various positions while aiming at a small distant object. This gives a great feel for the trigger as well as getting used to holding the gun steady free handed. After a few sessions of this I can tell I'm much steadier. I also plan on going out to the national forest near my area and setting up some over ripe fruit and shooting them from different positions.

I can't speak for double rifles, but you don't need snap caps with a bolt action rifle. I have been dry firing for 30 years every day and never had a problem. If you are worried about it, use some empty shells with spent primers.

Use a bolt action .22 LR in lieu of your bolt action center fire and practice shooting offhand. All other positions are less demanding and will be easier by comparison after this skill is improved. One half inch groups at 100 yards off of a bench is a test of the rifle and says little about the shooter. It is great to have an accurate rifle but irrelevant if it cannot be hastily employed with accuracy. Time should allow for use of shooting sticks and the shot will be more sure as a result of the offhand practice.

Squirrel hunting is my favorite way to practice. I try to stalk as close as possible. I use a set of homemade sticks and a 17Mach2 rifle. You will have no trouble with plains game if you can consistently make quality hits on squirrels from 10 to 50 yards off sticks.

...don't use a bench ...

Around my place there are ground squirrels known locally as sagerats. They are great "little" targets. Using a 22 or 17HMR is great sport and a great way to keep the shooting eye sharpened. Shooting off sticks, prone, kneeling, or simply driving around on a four wheeler. So far this spring I have shot over a 1,000 of the critters... won't tell how much ammo that took

quote:

Originally posted by armorer:
Use a bolt action .22 LR in lieu of your bolt action center fire and practice shooting offhand. All other positions are less demanding and will be easier by comparison after this skill is improved. One half inch groups at 100 yards off of a bench is a test of the rifle and says little about the shooter. It is great to have an accurate rifle but irrelevant if it cannot be hastily employed with accuracy. Time should allow for use of shooting sticks and the shot will be more sure as a result of the offhand practice.

While I shoot plenty of .22, it is no substitute for shooting a centerfire rifle; the size is wrong, the triggers normally stink, and the ballistics don't match. Do you shoot at 200 yards? No, so you scale down...to what? Hitting a 4 inch target at 50 yards? That does not give you the same level of confidence when it comes to shooting in the field.

Here is the other thing I notice with .22 shooting: the ammo is so cheap, it is easy to just start "plinking" without practicing technique.

I am a much bigger fan of using .22 centerfires for practice, but before a hunt, I start shooting my bigger guns. If you want to take shots beyond 200 yards, then you need to shoot beyond 200 yards, and do plenty of it when the wind is blowing.

The whole purpose of practicing is to understand what you can and cannot do, and work to turn the "can't" into "can." One should never take a shot "hoping" to connect; rather, one should be thinking, "I have done this a million times before and know how to do it."

When I dry fire, I do so shooting sitting with shooting sling. I use a 20X scope and try and hit the globe on a flagpole. The globe is about twice the size of the intersection of the crosshair. Holding it on that small spot is once thing; coaxing the trigger to break while holding on it is another. This has taught me trigger control (shooting a target pistol one handed is also a great way to learn trigger control).

But I do agree offhand is a great way to practice. While I can ding the 10 inch gong at 200 yards every single time off the sticks, I am only about 80 percent shooting standing.

I recommended shooting with a .22 LR because I believe repetition builds good shooting traits that transfer across all of your shooting. This is especially so for newer and less experienced shooters. A low/no recoil caliber affords skill building via one hundred or more shots per session, something difficult for many reasons with a centerfire. After a week of "snapping in" with an M14 at scaled targets on a post at Parris Island I observed other recruits immediatly begin shooting qualifying scores out to 500 yards. For many, these were the first shots they had ever fired from any firearm. One Chicago ironworker finished at 237 after our three weeks on the range. Improvement in shooting requires self critical discipline and, in my opinion, a facsimile rifle that builds skill and muscle memory. The fundamentals are the same until the round is discharged so the .22 LR (snapping in) helps to perfect shooting skill prior to experiencing the recoil and noise of a centerfire caliber.

Lots of good ideas here.

I have been practicing dry firing off sticks, currently set up in the bedroom and dry firing at a photo of a caribou at the other end of the hall. I figure it is close enough to a 100 yard gemsbok. (As long as my wife stays downstairs with the TV.)
I also took up smallbore silhouette shooting. The smallbore matches are a lot easier to find than the highpower ones.

My copy of "shots at big game" is also going to get some more attention.

Thanks for all the tips.

Pratice from "sticks"---standing and kneeling. Sitting with a leg of the stick and your knees as rests....out to over 300metres and in your face