I think it would be interesting to get a bunch of posts, no BS, for offhand average groups with the weapon(s) configured as you normally hunt, dressed in clothing you normally hunt in. Sitting, knealing, prone or any artificial rests are excluded. Lets say the number of shots per group is 3 to 10 (please indicate), 100 Yard distance. Time not a factor.

Here's what I can do, from records, on average, 5 shot group, offhand, no wind, 100Y:

.375 A-bolt 1-4x scope: 5.61"(last 10 groups)
.243 M-700 3.5-10X: 3.38"(last 10 groups)
.44 mag DW M-44 8", iron:8.2" (6 rounds, not 5)(last 10 groups)

Multiply by about 2/3 for a 1 out of 5 good group, multiply by about 1.5 for a 1 out of 5 bad group. These are w/o slings as I don't have one on my rifle when I hunt, it's in my pocket.

Wes

We did offhand at 90 meters, standing in a light rain. we shot at beer (coke) cans placed into a gravel pile.

I nearly split with pride when my 13 year old son hit his can with his first shot! with a winchster 270 model 70.

I was next up with a merkel 8X57R double rifle that was made in teh thirties. with a nice Kahles 3x9 scope. man was I relieved when I hit the can with my first and second shots!! from standing offhand. Needless to say he was impressed enough, and we did not shoot any thing the whole next weeK!!except a bout a dozen grouse, with our 28 gauge shotguns. The local could not believe we would flush birds to shoot them..

I've made some great shots(nothing on the order of 500 yard though, sorry, 456 is my longest kill), and I've made plenty of brilliant misses, but for the most the animals end up dead.

What I find particulary impressive Wes is that you are shooting roughly an 8" group with your iron-sighted .44 mag at 100 yards, that's far more impressive than your rifle groups, although I must admit those are excellent off-hand groups as well.

I would think your pistol's front sight would completely obscure the target at that range. But obviously you've found a way to deal with that. Way to go.

Don Martin.

You're one of the "straight shooters". Offhand I'd be reluctant to take a shot past 100 yards. Face it after a stalk, you're out of breath, heart rate up at seeing game, the wobbles start.

My hunting partner & I did some test shooting at 225 yards trying to hit an A3 size piece of paper. Out of 3 shots from a 375 H&H aiming for dead centre only 1 shot hit the target and even that right on the edge. We had a front rest (a fallen tree trunk) but not a very comfortable shooting position. Still we had a rest & no pressure as to time. Really made us take notice & we started talking 30-30 & open sights cause our shooting ability sucks! So we think, but really we are not that bad as what game we aim for we hit & put down. We'd been conditioned by all those articles that said what we should have been able to do with that "long range flat shooting cartridge".

If someone can really hit out at 500 yards, good luck to them but when does it become bad sportsmanship with the risk of wounded game? (Heck I can't see that far on 9x)American magazines especially go on about cartridges for 400-500 yard hunting. Unless I could take along my benchrest, laser rangefinder, 20x bullet drop compensating scope, I think 200-250 yards is a realistic maximum.

I like you think that there is a fair bit of BS that doesn't come out of a bovine's rear.

BTW those groups are good shooting for offhand w/o sling.

Regards,
JohnT

Funnily enough I'm a better shot out stalking than on the range. When I look at a deer through the crosshairs everything else just vanishes.

I'll shoot a muntjac off sticks up to 100 yards. Off a tree a bit further and off a high seat up to 180. I like to be 50-75 though. The biggest advance in my shooting had little to do with practice or calibre but the the confidence that comes from knowledge that if I screw up my dog will help me out. On average I miss 1 in 10 shots.

From the above I reckon I will hit a 4 inch square 9 times out of 10 out hunting at those ranges (allthough in truth shots over 130 very very few) with those supports.

The biggest contribution to reducing my miss rate has been to convert from the 'fancy/precision' school of shooting to the 'put a hole in the front half' school of thought (again dog related) I cannot reccomend this no nonsense approach for small deer highly enough.

I can write a book about all the shooting exploits people claim for themselves.

I had one man come in here asking for 240 Weatherby ammo. I asked him to bring his rifle in, so that I can develop loads for it. He told me teh rifle was in Pakistan, and said "just make me something that shoot as well as the factory made ammo"

I made him some, and while doing it asked him what he shot with it. He said he had a farm, and eagles eat his newborn animals, so he shoots the eagles with his 240 Weatherby.

I asked him how far does he shoot them, he said "very far, around a kilometer".

My next question was what scope he had on it. He said "Oh, I don't like scopes. I use an open sight!"

Another great one is when someone comes and asks me to mount a scope on for him, and say "can you make it shoot straight at 200 and 500 yards?"

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

I shoot year around, and try to spend extra time shooting my 22 at a 8" gong in the back yard at 80 yards just before we go on Safari.

I practice off stix, offhand, and all kinds of positions.

I am like Saeed, in that I could write a book about "shooting exploits" I have encountered.

So I will give two examples:

First was told to me by a PH I had. He had a client out at the range with a new Dakota, Custom, $7000 rifle and big scope.

The guy sat at the bench and put 5 shots in one hole at 100 M.

As we was putting his gun away, PH asked if he could shoot tht milk jug laying by the target frame.

As the fellow say down, he said," No, just lean on the tree here, and make believe that it is as Warthog."

7 shots later, he has not hit the milk jug yet. It ended up being a long week for him chasing wounded animals.

The best shot I have encountered, was a French Canadian at Elk Camp in Montanta.

We were checking zeros on our rifles, and he was being picked on by the other hunters about his Win 88 308 Win with a peep sight.

So he reaches into a guys shirt pocket, and takes out his Luck Strike cigarettes. Now Luckys have a nice red circle on the pak.

He walks over to a fence pole at about 75 yards and sits the pak on it.

Walks back to the truck, picks up his M 88 and shoots the cigarrette pak of the pole with one shot OFF HAND.

Puts his gun away, and says "Next?"

I have had guys shooting 30-30 ammo in a
M 94 32 Win Special and wonder why the bullets are keyholeing.

Every trip to the range is a new adventure.

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May I be half the man my dog thinks I am.

That said , with a steady rest and a KNOWN distance out to 350 yrds the animal is pretty much mine. Thats no big brag tho, Im pretty lousy with estimating distance, past bow-range, and really need a expereinced guide or shooter if the distance is past 250yds to "range me". I dont shoot over 350, and dont much like over 300yrds.

So no long shot stories out of me. But If I pull a trigger then the animal is, for me, killable. I dont launch 600 yrd shots like a few boneheads I know, funny, but Ive never seen anyone actually make one of those shot's, tho ive heard thousands of stories of them, and seen a few attempts. Ive seen a lot of cripples in the game herds so I know a lot of guy's are trying them, what with their fancy lazer whatcha-ma-call-its and their 600 yrd rifles.

I'll be frank here. I just dont believe these stories I read, and hear about, of all these 500+ yrd kill's on game. Im not going to call a bunch of bytes on the screen a liar but the snickering you hear in the background will be me...........10

As far as shooting from a standing position, I do practice it, but seldom use it when shooting at game, unless the game is very close. As I can shoot about three times more accurately by sitting down with a sling, or by going prone with a bipod. No doubt about it, standing is one tough way to shoot accurately.

FN

My theory, they either (1) can't estimate range, or (2) like to tell stories.

I can shoot about 2.5 moa in all unsupported positions, with the aid of a sling, and while sitting crosslegged with a sling and my 7 Rem I have actually shot three shot sub moa groups.

I don't position shoot often as I find it to mentally exhausting, what I do quite often thou is snap in at home. I also feel that the more you psoition shoot the lasier you get, as this happens you concentrate less and begin to slack off producing bad results. This leads to a lack of confidence.

This is where you really learn how to shoot from my experinece.

In the Marine Corps we would spend days, and even weeks at times snapping in on targets, from my experience it works quite well.

[This message has been edited by Bill (edited 06-21-2001).]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Stonecreek:
Shooting offhand standing on your hind legs, any deer-sized game at 100 yards or more is a VERY challenging shot for most hunters. ANY kind of stabilizing rest -- a fence post, a tree, a log -- will make a 200% improvement in hitting ability.

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During a dry fire session last night I put up a picture of a deer at the end of the hall; the size of the picture would work out to about a 150-yard shot based on measuring its chest vs. the subtension of the reticles in my scopes. I was using a 2-7X scope set on 2X (because any higher magnification puts the target hopelessly out of focus at such close range).

I found that from offhand I was probably at about 30% hits (obviously based only on calling my "shots"). From sitting, probably 90%. The big surprise was that standing and resting my left (forward) hand against a corner of a wall was much more stable than a standard, braced kneeling position without a sling. Shooting sticks would be even better.

As for all those mighty 500-yard shooters, I would suggest that most of them don't know how to estimate range before *or after* the shot.

Even pacing it off will throw you off significantly if you don't know how long one of your steps is. I'm tall and lanky but when I had to take my pace count on a track (for a land navigation course) it worked out to 122 paces for 100m (call it 110 paces for 100 yards). I know from pacing across real hunting-type terrain and measuring my progress on a topo map that my real world pace count is even higher.

So if I were to equate paces to yards, I'd have a built-in error of at least 10%; I'd make that more like 40% if I were slogging uphill in the mud with rifle and pack. That kind of error turns a barely-reasonable 300-yard shot into a 420-yard fish story in a flash.

John

Preparing for my Namibian safari, I took my brother's advice that I try strictly offhand shooting with my 25 inch medium-heavy barreled M700 (10.3 lbs) at 100 yards until I could consistently hit a ten inch circle in 2 or 3 seconds.

I barely managed it. I guess I had an 80% probability of grouping my shots into that size if I fired quickly. With considerable effort I could keep the groups down to half that size, but it took many seconds of steadying effort with a sling and I would quickly tire.

My best position was sitting. I made some 2 to 3 inch groups that way. Prone, even with a sling, wasn't as good.

With my Model 71 using a receiver sight I can hit a beer can at 50 yards with some consistency, but its much easier to point and hold steady with that rifle. Even so, my accuracy falls off a lot at 100 yards.

In Africa, my performance was mainly good (4 one-shot kills) and partly not so good (2 bad shots that required "fixers"). We used shooting sticks most of the time, which I thought would be pretty straightforward. I found that these required a particular method for best results. Its well worth practicing. My worst shot was taken prone using a sling. My best (steadiest) was taken using a sling and a sitting position. I later missed twice by grossly mis-estimating the range and being in too much of a hurry to recheck it. That was the most humiliating experience that I can remember. It was absurd.

The main lesson that I took away from my experience was that I have to take a steady shooting position or just pass. I have to know the range, not guess. Thats it. Doesn't matter how fleeting the opportunity. I learned that its infinitely more satisfying to take my time and do it right even if I have to pass up some "opportunities".

The last time I shot offhand at 100 yds I put shots 1 and 3 into the 10 ring on a 50 slowfire pistol target. Pretty good, huh? Except shot #2 was not even on the stupid paper!

I have a long way to go to shoot like some of you, but trying to get there is half the fun. Keep practicing without that bench, Bill

If you want to get good at offhand shooting, try NRA high power rifle shooting. 20 rounds of slow fire offhand from 200 yards at a 13 inch bullseye.

If you are shaking after stalking your game, you need to get into shape. The farthest I have had to drag/carry a deer back to my truck was approximately 3/4 mile and I wouldn't have even tried it if I wasn't in pretty good shape.

The thing I don't have good feedback on, and the thing I hope to get here, is some good feedback on shooting larger rifles in the 50LB+ recoil class. I find this at the same time challenging and frustrating. They seem very sensitive to hold, much more so than, say, a 10 or 20 ft-lb recoil gun. Also, I find that I don't use my favorite stance when target shooting, as it kind of breaks down under the recoil of big guns. This makes me wonder: How much better can I get with this thing? I'd love to hear lots of guys say 3" 5 shot 100Y, because I'd then know that given the proper equipment, technique, and practice, I'd get to 3" instead of nearly 6. For me, holes in paper are a good guage. Holes are irrefutable proof that that's where the bullets went, like it or not. Also, a good, but not perfect, way to compare ability among shooters, and, for me, one's own progress over time. I'd really like to shoot this .375 at longer range (200Y offhand for me) animals, but until and unless those groups come down under 4", the .30's will do most of the work if I'm thinking beyond 100Y.

It will be interesting to find the level of the bar for .375, .416, and higher shooters. Lets include sitting, kneeling, squatting, and other variants along with offhand, as many of you seem to favor those in the field, but include the stance in the group size / number of shots / caliber / weather.

Wes

To at least in part address your question about the big boomers, in my experience, gun fit is even more important than with lesser recoiling rounds. My .450 Watts fits me like it was made for me even though I bought it used. I can consistently place 3 shots in 8 inches at 100 yards if time is not a factor. This is better than almost any other rifle I've owned except an 1898 Krag rifle, and my NRA highpower rifles. I have competed a lot in both highpower and smallbore, and learned that rifle fit and building a good position are more important offhand than anywhere else.

One of the keys to position is, to the maximum extent possible (even in a hunting situation) point the rifle with your body rather than your arms, and move your foot position to adjust windage.

With regards to rifle fit, make sure your head is level side-to-side, when your cheek is on the stock. If your head is tilted, your middle ear tells your body that you are off balance, and your wobble increases. Tilting of the head is common when you shoot a rifle (or shotgun) without enough cast-off.

My confidence was ruined after a kudu ran off from what I considered a perfect shot. I went downhill from there. I suspect it was slightly high, but should have been meat on the table.

I found out later the .308 Nosler Protected Points that I was using did not open at 308Win velocities. I shot a warthog end for end and another side-to-side with exit wounds of MAYBE 40 caliber. I had not heard of Noslers doing that before.

I am practicing offhand every trip to the range now.

Don

I'm not sure if this is in the spirit of the post or not, but try some tall shooting sticks. If you have time to take up target style stance and all that stuff, you have time to deploy the sticks. The are also great for glassing off and make a perfect "Remote Control" for your dog!

Pete