DYING. SHOOTING STYLE

I have a re-settable steel rabbit target set at 25 yards from my porch that I shoot free handed. The target I have has three size kill zone sizes so as you improve you can decrease the kill zone. I try to shoot it every day and work on my breathing and trigger pull. Some days I shoot well and others I don't. My approach is the same as when I shot a bow a lot, if I'm shooting well I shoot until I start getting tired. If I'm shooting poorly my secession's aren't as long, it helps prevent me from picking up more bad habits than I already have.

But can you hit an egg at 300 yards standing unsupported....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUtasDhjpI4

I used to be decent off hand until I got a trigger stick tripod. Should have never got the tripod.

I want to hit what I'm aiming at. Off hand to me is for bb guns, that's fun !

I prefer off hand shooting. When I was serving you did your first shooting pron supported then standing unsupported and then kneeling unsupported. What’s the point in trying to shoot some one but having to wait to find some type of support. Yes being supported fireing at targets is a lot better and you get dammed good groups but to shoot unsupported and get good groups is harder to master hence you work harder on your style.

being as I’m getting older I’m moving to suppoted more each week.

I've noticed that at 54 I'm not near as steady offhand as I used to be at 14 with my Sheridan 5mm.

Here Here! At nearly 60, I'm not nearly as stable as I was at 20. Something about those intervening 40 years really threw my steadiness out the window!

Try the David Tubb method. Seems weird but it works. Instead of tilting your head to the rifle, you keep your head upright and tilt the rifle to your head... Worked for me. 

someone showed me that technique before with the scope canted and yes it does work he even shoots it off a bench/bipod like that (the gun is canted on the bench the cross hairs plum)

outdoorsman, my hats off to your off hand shooting skills.....Nice shooting!

Desoto airgunners' FT matches usually have one lane that you have to shoot offhand. It separates the men from the boys.

@jps2486, from what I read above that means that the boys do better off hand than the men.

Haha ironlion. Centercut, thanks for the tip on the David Tubb method. Tried holding my head up and adjusting a scope back on the rails and then swapping out medium mounts for high ones.

Biomechanically, for me at least, it meant standing up straighter and sweeping my trigger shoulder back (right-handed), with the rifle sitting higher up on my sternum and backed higher up on my shoulder. 

Was late at night so didn't get to shoot groups, but I immediately felt more stable. Dunno if the feeling will stick, but pretty neat to try the new stance out.

"sonny"outdoorsman, my hats off to your off hand shooting skills.....Nice shooting!

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Thanks, while I've been getting pretty good at off hand shooting, I'm soooo much better using the shooting stick, I'm using it all the time now. I'm blasting those 2 inch ice targets at 50 yards now. Just went out to shoot my knock down squirrel target which requires getting inside a 1 1/2" hole to get a knock down. Made it on the first shot from 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 and then 50 yards. The stick is super light at 11oz and using it the way I do allows very quick vertical angle adjustment. Perfect for squirrel hunting as well as general plinking. I'm spoiled now.

I think there's a myth about shooting freehand, though my next gun will be very light so I can do more. The myth, I think is that it was always the preferred method of shooting. Back in the old muzzle loader days, the military lined up and shot off hand, but, they did volley shots, so the entire line acted more like a big shot gun. Accuracy, and I mean pin point accuracy has always required some support. Even as far back as the French Musketeers, shooting supports were used and of course, for muskets, required.

​I did a lot of free hand when younger and .22 long rifle was $5 per brick. Cheap ammunition made for learning a lot of bad habits I'm still unlearning. Even then, for really long or accurate shots, I tended to lean across the hood of the car (Bonnet for our British friends), and stabilize the shots. I was never that good, though I could hit a ground squirrel on the run at 50 yards (sometimes!).

​Europeans do off hand shooting on the driven hunts, but when shooting a pig on the run the target zone is bigger than the bench rest targets we extol at Extreme Bench. I think I'm trying to say, there's different accuracy levels depending on the type of shooting. Pigs require one type of accuracy with maybe a 4 to 6 inch kill zone, where extreme benchrest is more like 5.5 mm.

Even hunting doves and pigeons gives a fairly large kill spot compared to bench rest shooting. So, I guess accuracy is all in the purpose. Right now, I'm working on bench and not hunting, so off hand isn't really in my playbook, where if I change to hunting, I'll still look for a support, but take the off hand shots when offered.

Steadiness seems to come and go with me. At 68 I am almost always more steady in the mornings and shaky as heck later on in the day. Used to shoot hunters pistol and small bore rifle metallic silhouette NRA matches in my 30s and really had a ton of fun ... all that was standing ... and some folks thought I was pretty good. When I was younger in the military I don't really remember too much free hand shooting in basic training, fair amount lying prone and sitting and one knee tucked under but combat was almost always finding some cover and shooting from there. We'd fire 3 magazines on full auto and switch to semi afterwards depending on who spotted who first. 

I know it's not right but I do so little off hand these days because of back problems and the lack of enough patience to wait for the cross hairs to settle down.

See if this works as well for you as it does for me......
First shoulder your rifle, on target, and begin counting. You'll probably notice that somewhere around 5-7 is your steadiest window of time. From that point on DO NOT hold the rifle up and on target for longer than 1 second past your window.
Practice putting rifle to shoulder and settling on target in that time period (you can practice this inside without shooting if you want). Just don't hold the rifle up for longer than your pre-determined time. 

The next step is to forget about SQUEEZING the trigger.....go ahead and just pop it. After 8-10shots you'll be able to pop the trigger without pulling off target too much, just practice it. It's all that slow trigger squeezing and struggling to stay on target that is the biggest shot killer. Forget about all that slow squeezing nonsense, just shoulder the gun, wait for your steady window, and pop the shot. It's all about confidence and being deliberate about it.

You gotta realize that your steadyness isn't gonna get any better after your time window. For me it is 6 seconds. I either pop the shot at 6 seconds or I unshoulder the gun, re-shoulder and try again. You might miss the first few times but you will start ringing the bell pretty quick I bet, as soon as you accept that it is ok to pop the trigger (I don't like to say "jerk", because that's a bad word) ?
Just confidently and deliberately POP IT.