I was just watching the "Zambezi Adventure" episode of Africa with Craig Boddington and Ivan Carter. The hunter was just about to take a shot at a Cape Buffalo, and he rested the barrel of his rifle directly on the shooting sticks. Ivan subtly reaches over and adjusts the hunters rifle, putting the stock on the sticks instead of the barrel.

That has always bugged me watching hunting or shooting shows, and see the shooter place the barrel or the stock directly on a hard surface.

Also, nice touch to cover yourselves with brown blankets when you crawled up on those Hippos. I haven't seen that before.

Great show!

Yeh, with the blankets, the hippos think you are asleep.

I agree and cringe when I see a rifle barrel resting on something hard like shooting sticks or a rail on a blind. Better yet, one should put his/her hand under the forend.

I started shooting center fire rifles only after I came to NZ 18 years ago. I started reloading a year later. I did black powder loading of old paper shot shells in India. I had read a fair bit in the previous 20 years and a lot more since. It is so common to read about stock bedding, case uniformity / sizing / trimming, neck / bullet concentricity, seating depth etc. But you almost never read about rifle resting to ensure reliable Point of impact and accuracy.

Initially I used a 243 Remington classic as my primary deer rifle. It shot well but was not free floated. I tried various loads and was able to get 1" groups or less with a few loads. But certain days I would have serious problems with groups and point of impact. 1" groups last month would become 2.5" groups & they would be printing 2 " higher and to the left or right. One day it dawned on me that the most consistent results were when I rested the rifle on the magazine over a sand bag or with my palm under the fore end. Resting the stock further forward always created big variations. I found this to be the case even with my Tikka with a free floated barrel bedded on a steel block. I learned this lesson about 15 years ago but have never read an article on the subject in any gun magazine.

I guess with hard recoiling big bore DG calibers the chances of flyers are increased if one rests the barrel or fore end on a hard surface.

I was at my club range a few years ago and noticed another shooter with a nice looking rifle. It was a custom by Jim Cloward, a respected local smith. The shooter was using a bipod on the bench, and his groups were poor. I suggested that he put two or three layers of carpet under the bipod legs, and the groups tightened right up.

quote:

Originally posted by JudgeG:
Yeh, with the blankets, the hippos think you are asleep.

LOL.