Hello Gentlemen,

Quick lunch break question:

I have a 375 coming sometime later this summer and am wondering about a practice load and a practice regimen and/or drills I could perform regularly to practice shooting with.

Does anyone have their's they'd care to share?

Jeff

Once it's sighted in with the load you want, get away from the shooting bench. Shoot off sticks and from varying distances to gain familiarity with the rifle, and you'll be good-to-go.

I'm a big fan of dry fire exercises. You can practice your field positions right in your living room sighting at a dot at the end of the hall of while watching your favorite safari TV show . Also for the preceding year, I only hunt with the rifle(s) I'm taking on safari (or at least ones that have the same action/safety).

Practice loading from the shoulder (ie with the gun still in the shoulder instead of bringing it down to waist height).

Make yourself totally familiar with the gun with your eyes closed including cycling rounds, loading rounds, shouldering and firing (but of course practise doing the shouldering and firing without ammo until you get to a place where it is Safe).

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Find a local shooting competition and participate.

Nothing like the stress of needing to perform to prepare you for such in the field.

"Practicing" alone only reinforces the knowledge and habits (good and bad) that you know.

Make up a set of dummy inert rounds to use during the living room practice.
High power rifle instructors also use the dummy rounds. The instructor loads the rifle and the shooter does not know which round will be the dummy. The technique helps cure flintch as well as recognizing a misfire and reloading quickly afterward. It is aslo excellent practice for DG hunters.

Just my opinion here, your mileage may very.

Find a range or if you know of someone with some land and they will let you, set up your own makeshift range and practice actual shooting as often as possible at different ranges, angles, times of day, whatever.

Practicing working shells thru the chamber after a shot with out taking the rifle down from your shoulder is excellent advice also.

I try to reach a point with all of my rifles that once I have them hitting where I want them to, I rarely ever shoot again until shortly before a hunt.

Then I go out to our range, fire one round, and if the gun is hitting where I want it or within an inch of that point, the gun goes back in the case.

I do the same basic thing when traveling for a hunt, as soon as possible after reaching my destination I find someplace to fire a round to see if the gun is still where I want it.

All the little tricks and tips youhave andwill be given here are great and will help. In the end two things will have to happen. first you will need the bennch work to find the load you and your rifle like the best. It is assumed that the load will have been determined to be appropriate for whatever you want to hunt. Next comes the fun and at times not so fun part. It also can get pricey unless you are loading your own rounds and even then isnt cheap. Practice, practice, practice! You should do this both from sticks and improvised rests as well as offhand etc. After you get proficient at this go to multiple targets and change up your shot sequences l to r, r to l, l r l, etc. so now your feeling pretty good, you can put all your shots into a 9 inch circle. Did I say you needed to do this for 100, 200, 300, 400 yrds? Oh and by now you should know the exact drop for your load and rifle without looking or thinking about it. Now you have graduated to the next level. Here you must have some idea of the size of the game you will be hunting. Why? Because now you have to quickly shoot at unkown distances. You can have a friend set out a bunch of different sized targets at different distances while you have your back turned. Once you start call your shots as you go. Speed counts but accuracy even more so. Anyway, you get the idea. Lots of trigger time develops muscle memory, quick reflexes, and makes the cognitive part so ingrained you really dont have to think about it.

I thought you were suppose to be the bullet!

Maybe its just me, but Hog hunting is great practice for me. It gets me physically and mentally "in the game" and sharpens my skills with my main weapon in odd situations, like shooting up hill or on bad footing.
Range time is very important, but so is getting in the field with that weapon and working your other skills too.

Just My opinion, John

quote:

Originally posted by Phatman:
Maybe its just me, but Hog hunting is great practice for me. It gets me physically and mentally "in the game" and sharpens my skills with my main weapon in odd situations, like shooting up hill or on bad footing.
Just My opinion, John

Very true.

Getting into a mob of them - pigs (or anything else like Donkey's etc)
really does get your skills up.

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One more tip -

It isn't enough to just practice manipulating the bolt from the shoulder. You also need to practice getting on aim and pulling the trigger quickly after each round is chambered

Work the bolt from the shoulder facing whatever you've chosen as a practice target, and as you close the bolt start counting as quickly as you can (one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc)....if you get past "one thousand and three", stop and start over by working the bolt again. Anything beyond "one thousand and three" is too slow for effective repeat shots in the field.

The object is to get the gun reloaded, back on target, and the shot fired within 4 seconds...to start with. Working the bolt takes one second. Target acquisition, and smooth trigger pull (not "yank") can take up to three more seconds, max. Later, with continued practice, you will get faster than that.

BTW, a lot of that practice with a Mauser or other double pull military-type trigger will considerably smooth the trigger mechanism too....

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
I thought you were suppose to be the bullet!

I achieved that once in practice, but since at that time in my life, I was also one with the universe, I ended up shooting myself.

Nowadays I just use the sights.

Find some old refridgerators to shoot. Thats what I did with my 375.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...e=player_profilepage

300 grains Barnes TSX reloads.

I have a cast bullet load that runs almost 1800fps. I shoot a 50 round box once or twice a month.

Rich

When I was about 16, a hunting friend of my dad told me to just practice with my airgun, to practice with firm right hand grip, both eyes open and squeeze the trigger while keeping my eyes on the target even after the shot. That was 40 years ago!

I have a 9.3X62 which I want to hunt with but do not get the opportunity for appropriate game her. So I shoot it at the range. It has double set triggers and so i just practice dry firing with the DST - I aim it off hand at the telephone poles about 200 to 400 meters away - I aim at the birds on the pole, at sheep and cows in the paddock far away. I find this really good practice to feel the DST go off while I have the sight picture.

In our local club shoot, I score as well with the 9.3 as I do with my 7mm08, despite the much heavier recoil.

I like to walk in the Idaho desert about this time of year and shoot Rock Chucks off hand with full power loads. When you walk you must be quick to shoot..Later in the year rabbits and you get some long range shots and short range quick shooting. Year around in my part of Idaho coyotes are like fleas on a dog, you can shoot 10 to 15 per day driving around in the pickup, and you can see as many as 50 on a good day, but they are way out yonder and on the run. This makes one a real good rifle shot, if you can shoot off hand and at running animals you can shoot from any position and under most conditions. I never get much out of bench rest shooting other than load development and rifle testing.

Most everyone can find something to hunt year around within a reasonalbe range of their home, but if not then off hand shooting at the end of a range session is aways good practice.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
I never get much out of bench rest shooting other than load development and rifle testing.

Best way to learn about effects of wind, too... IMO