Artillery hold questions.

[dormitionskete]

I bought a Weihrauch HW97K a few months ago. When I was just shooting indoors at 10 yards, I could hit great with it, with fantastic groups. Now that it's warmed up enough for me to move outdoors and shoot at longer ranges, however, things have not been so great. My shots are going all over the place at longer ranges. I think it has to do with the way I'm doing the artillery hold.

I've watched at least a dozen videos on YouTube about how to do the artillery hold, but I still have a few questions that don't seem to be answered very well, or consistently on them.

1) All of the videos say not to pull the rifle tightly into the shoulder, but they aren't very clear about whether the butt should lightly touch the shoulder, or whether it should be held far enough away from the shoulder for it not to be a factor in the recoil, or what. What should I do in this regard?

2) The HW97K has a rather large ambidextrous cheekpiece. Is it ok for my cheek to rest lightly on it, or should I avoid cheeking the rifle at all when I shoot it?

3) Some say that the hand used to support weight of the rifle should be held as close to the trigger guard as possible, while others say to hold it at the gun's natural balance point. Which is better? Or does it matter, as long as I am consistent about it?

4) While I'm at it, we've had the windiest spring I've seen in my 21 years here. How much will the wind blow a .177 pellet around at 25 - 35 yards? I'm wondering how much of a factor that might be playing, as well.

Any help, advice, or insights about this would be *greatly* appreciated.

 

[JamesD.]

1. Hold rifle against your shoulder like you would a rim fire or centerfire. I’m a lefty so place whatever hand you hold forestock with at rifles balance point. Usually 1/3 to 1/2 way up from front of trigger guard. Now, relax a little but keep rifle taught enough to control freehand yet not so taught as expecting a scope bite from a sporter weight 06.

2. You definitely need a good cheek weld & proper eye to sight height relation. This needs to be repeatedly done. It should feel as normal as hugging your girl or slipping on a glove. You’ll know when it’s right.

3. See #1 & experiment until results are as desired.

4. Wind is a huge factor so shoot when there’s none. Early morning or at night with spot light behind you. Trust your indoor zero & only your vertical POI should be varying at a further distance if you’re not pulling off & no wind. Find pellets you can seat easily enough with finger alone. Seat the head as straight as possible into chamber bore. Good luck.

 

[addertooth]

dormitionskete,

JamesD nailed it. I would like to emphasize a few points, and explain why.

Where you place your hand on the foregrip matters. How firmly (or not) you grip the foregrip matters. I have springers where the best groups happen when the foregrip is simply resting on an open palm. I have others which gain a benefit from my hand lightly gripping it. I had to play around with hand position. I would shoot a group, then move my hand 1 inch and shoot another group. Once I found the sweet spot where the groups were the tightest, I played with half inch variation in position to find the "sweetest" spot.

How hard you pull the buttstock into your shoulder pocket matters too. My old RWS 48 liked being firmly in the pocket. I have Benjamin air rifles which prefer "lightly resting" in the pocket. Once again, shoot groups. You may discover when you find the best amount of buttstock pressure on the shoulder, the ideal hand position at the foregrip may change a bit. How both ends are positioned/held affects the other end.

Cheek weld is critical, especially if your scope is not parallax corrected for the distance you are shooting at. If you bob your head left to right/up and down, the crosshairs should stay on the bullseye of the target, if you see the crosshairs move off the ideal target spot, then your parallax is not matched for that distance. On fixed parallax scopes, the only "fix" for this is ALWAYS placing your eye/face in the exact same position behind the scope every time. Once again, if you bob your head, and the crosshairs seem to move around, then that is how much your shot Can be off based upon eye/face is behind the scope; you want to reduce that error as much as possible.

Final hint is a common one. Springers vibrate and loosen stock screws; this is VERY common. An springer action which is free to move around within the stock can cause significant changes in recoil and pellet strike. I often see people complain about a sudden loss of accuracy with a springer, then they learn their stock screws had vibrated loose. The number two problem is frequently scope creep, where the double-recoil has caused the scope to move, which causes a change in where the scope is aiming.

I wish you luck, a HW97K is a fine air rifle, and it should offer you excellent accuracy. There is no reason why you can't make nickle (or smaller) sized groups with that air gun on a windless day at 25 yards.

 

[aklonewolf]

Yup, and with an empty chamber just practice, and what feels comfortable to you try it take a couple shots. Breathing is also important.

 

[boscoebrea]

 That all is great advice, for sure check all your screws,another thing is how you stand,it is all about balance and to be comfortable.

to reiterate,be comfortable in your stance and make sure that your head,neck are not straining to get a good "sight picture" through your scope;

The way you mount your scope is important,you may need higher rings,mounts or bring your scope closer to your eyes....shooting offhand vs. shooting from the bench can change how you look through your scope.

Do one step at a time...I am thinking you control the rifle just enough to find it's "sweet spot"and be able to do it every time.

One other thing is follow through,like you are not done with your stance and sight picture until the pellet hits the target,=trigger awareness,a study pull not a jerk......all this reminds of lyrics to many songs about women...

 

[NotSure]

Really good advice so far, I will share two thing that I am working on that really helped me.

Trigger and sight picture follow through, after the shot, hold the trigger to the rear for a count of 1.

Also, after the shot keep the sights/scope on target like you are trying to bore a hole in the target.

I will say my HW97k is real sensitive to cheek weld, might be due to the high comb, lots of leverage to cant it off target.

Also not all my springers liked being benched, I have had some really nice groups after going to shooting sticks and a bucket.

Observe, Remember and Compare.

Good luck and share your findings as you progress.

 

[dormitionskete]

Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate it.

When I got into airguns again last year, I wanted something better than our old Benjamin Sheridan 397PA multi-pump jobber. Initially, I wouldn't even consider a springer because of the hold sensitivity factor; but a PCP just was not within sight (still isn't). But after seeing how accurate a springer can be, I reconsidered my stance on them. Boy has it been a rocky road, though. I hope it all falls together soon.

As a monk, I've been a little out of practice with a woman for a couple of decades now. Maybe I'll have to try to remember how that all went so long ago... to improve my shooting, of course!

Thanks again!

It is appreciated.

The weather looks pretty nasty out there today, so I'm probably going to be limited to indoor shooting today unless it clears up. I'll keep in touch how it goes.

I think my best groups were made using a cheek hold with moderate pressure, off set by similar pressure on the grip the other way. Maybe I'll have to start making notes, since I've lost track of what all I've tried.

 

[shambozzie]

Great stuff guys. Would like to add one thing. The THUMB. Point that baby In stright up position in center of receiver. Thumb in that position provide a sturdy base to squeeze trigger. Works for me.

 

[profsrgary]

If you are shooting in the wind you will have no idea if any changes are actually helping or hurting you. I suggest you go to a website like shooters calculator .com and enter your numbers and come up with a dope card. My B.C. on 22 cal. pellets is only about .020 which means wind drift at 30 yards on a 90 degree crosswind is about 1/4" per mile per hour. That equates to over 2" when shooting in a 10mph crosswind. Then the wind drops to 3 mph and you are approx. 3/4 inch off. These are round numbers but you cab see what I am talking about. As far as hold, I use my trigger hand to pull the rifle into my shoulder and gently pull the entire time I am aiming. The fore stock lies in the palm of my other hand. My advise is shoot in a no wind situation until you get your hold down. Another thing you will find makes a difference is the pressure you put on the pistol grip with your thumb. The author of the previous post nailed it. More pressure will raise the poi. IMO when trying to find the potential of a rifle/pellet combo or how a hold affects accuracy, wind is your enemy and should be avoided until you have the hold down and the pellet/ rifle combo established.

 

[dormitionskete]

I had a chance to work on this a bit more today.

I checked the screws. All tight. I'd learned that lesson the hard way already, but it doesn't hurt to check again anyway.

One of the things I had changed was that when I was shooting indoors, I always used an old broken camera tripod for a support. The legs on it wouldn't extend, but since I almost always shoot sitting or kneeling, that wasn't an issue. I attached a piece of blue styrofoam insulation to the place where the camera would attach, as padding. I'd rest my hand on it, and the rifle in my hand.

When I moved outside, instead of using it, I would take out a 5 gallon bucket and a rolled up towel secured by a cloth military belt. I'd put the bucket upside down on the ground, and again, I'd rest my hand on the towel, and the rifle in my hand. For some reason, I thought that'd be more versatile or something.

So I went to my indoor shooting range and fired a 5 shot group using the bucket and towel combination. Nickel size at 10 yards. Not good. Then I did a three shot group using the tripod. One hole, slightly larger than one pellet, but otherwise it wasn't distinguishable that it was more than one shot. Ok. This is what I'm used to. Boringly accurate at 10 yards. A boredom I can deal with.

So I took the tripod out and set up a target in a different area than where I normally shoot, so I could shoot into the wind, rather than with a cross wind. The wind wasn't bad, but it wasn't still, either.

At 25 yards, the shots were still all over the place. I moved up to 15 yards. I got the groups down to nickel size. Then I moved back to 20 yards to work on it further. In this process, I came to the conclusion that my main problem seems to be follow through.

It doesn't seem to like me to try to hold the cross hairs perfectly still over the bullseye. I seem to do a lot better if I try to use the old breathing method I vaguely remember being taught in the 1970's. Take a breath. Let it out. Take another breath. Slowly let half of it out. Stop. Aim. Slowly let out the rest of the air and fire somewhere along the process of letting the rest of the breath out.

Also, in that firing sequence, it seems like I need to have the cross hairs moving slightly and smoothly towards the target, and my trigger pull timed so that the pellet would hit the target at the same time the cross hairs would be over the target.

Kind of like bird hunting, where you have to lead the target, but also follow through.

The wind started picking up, and I got worn out trying to shoot groups, so I set up a single 2" bullseye target at 20 yards. I shot 18-20 shots using four different pellets. I had two fliers just outside and to the right of the bullseye that were clearly from me jerking the trigger; but all the rest were within the bullseye. More than half were in the X and 10 rings -- the inner 1". Not great, but progress.

Oddly enough, though, it also seems like I do better if I pull the rifle into my shoulder and hold it just firmly enough to dampen the vibration a little, rather than letting it bounce freely all over the place like the videos all say to do. I'm still experimenting with that, though.

Then on the way back in, I stopped at one of my favorite "rock hunting" grounds. I picked out a small pebble. Took aim through the split windshield on "my" golf cart. Although the aim was anything but steady, I used that follow through to time it for the cross hairs to be over the rock when the pellet should strike it. Smack! I could hear that pebble shatter even with my lousy hearing! Nice.

So thanks again, everyone. I'm not where I want to be with this yet, but maybe there might be a glimmer of hope for me out there somewhere...

I'd hate to think I have a 10 yard German air rifle!

 

[dormitionskete]

I finally just got permission to set up a 20 yard indoor range in one of our buildings at night when nobody is in there. The boss had not been very keen on letting me do that up until now; but he finally gave in tonight when I explained the difficulties I've been having with this.

 

[cea1960]

I'm a lefty so i support the forearm with my right hand. I've found that if i wear one of those "brown jersey" work gloves on my right hand, the rifle slides without sticking to my hand. It definitely improved my groups.

 

[dormitionskete]

"brown jersey" work gloves -- I think we have something like that already. I'll give that a try, too. Thanks!