Has anyone any thoughts about how hard you should hold rifle butt against your shoulder? How much does this have to do with follow through? Should pressure against your shoulder be done only with trigger hand?

I hold quite a bit of pressure on my shoulder. It has an awful lot to with follow through, in my shooting style anyhow.......For a while I was just loosely gripping the grip on my thumbhole stock, and holding little pressure into my shoulder....then I started noticing that I was dropping a lot of shots straight down out of the 10 ring and into 7 or 8 when shooting indoor......so I started to hold a fair amount of pressure into my shoulder, but I still do not hold the grip tight, and it has helped immensely........so far I have been able to hold steadier, and follow through much better, the amount of dropped shots has decreased .........I only hold the pressure with my trigger hand, I loosely grip the forearm between my thumb and pointer finger of my left hand

You should NOT grip the gun with your non-trigger finger hand.

This is some thing I was discussing recently with my wife (Sport Psychologist). I learned this past year that I was practicing differently than I was competing. What was happening was that I was real comfortable during practice and my cheek weld was solid and sight picture was full view. Everything felt 'right'. Then during competition I was having a lot of issues with getting a good view through the scope (eye relief was wrong). I would constantly shift my head around trying to get that 'right' feeling. What I realized was that the stress of competition was causing me to grip the rifle tighter into my body which in turn pulled the scope back closer to my eye ruining my sight picture and cheek weld. My wife was able to help me recognize what I was doing under match pressure.

Just something to be cognizant of when setting up your rifle, and recognizing subtle differences in your hold.

I now have my rifle setup for a tighter hold. Like Buckshot mentioned I think there is less influence on the rifle during trigger pull if my grip is tighter.

Trent wrote:This is some thing I was discussing recently with my wife (Sport Psychologist). I learned this past year that I was practicing differently than I was competing. What was happening was that I was real comfortable during practice and my cheek weld was solid and sight picture was full view. Everything felt 'right'. Then during competition I was having a lot of issues with getting a good view through the scope (eye relief was wrong). I would constantly shift my head around trying to get that 'right' feeling. What I realized was that the stress of competition was causing me to grip the rifle tighter into my body which in turn pulled the scope back closer to my eye ruining my sight picture and cheek weld. My wife was able to help me recognize what I was doing under match pressure.

Just something to be cognizant of when setting up your rifle, and recognizing subtle differences in your hold.

I now have my rifle setup for a tighter hold. Like Buckshot mentioned I think there is less influence on the rifle during trigger pull if my grip is tighter.

Wow.... Ihave the same problem.... That something to think about....

All things aside, the most important thing is that you are comfortable, steady, and most importantly of all consistent............

Some people like to shoot with their elbow in their hip/ribs relying on bone structure to help the hold......

Others like to shoot with their front arm vertical, and off of the body..........

It comes down to what works for you, it just so happens that I like to shoot with my left elbow in my hip, and holding pressure on the stock keeping it tight to my body......it doesn't look real pretty, but it is comfortable, and I can do it consistently.....so it works....

Buckshot1822 wrote:All things aside, the most important thing is that you are comfortable, steady, and most importantly of all consistent............

Some people like to shoot with their elbow in their hip/ribs relying on bone structure to help the hold......

Others like to shoot with their front arm vertical, and off of the body..........

It comes down to what works for you, it just so happens that I like to shoot with my left elbow in my hip, and holding pressure on the stock keeping it tight to my body......it doesn't look real pretty, but it is comfortable, and I can do it consistently.....so it works....

I jokingly tell the kids (4-8 grades) I have coached 4-H BB the past 16 years and whose bones are like rubber, that I don't care if they stand on one leg to shoot, as long as it is the same leg EVERY time. Consistency and repeatability. Some appear to be so out of position but are scoring well. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. (Within reason)
BTW - Do as I say not as I do.

Gator

Personally....for what it is worth, I do not hold anything tight at all. I try to have the rifle primarily balanced into my forward hand. I could almost let go of my trigger hand completely and have the rifle stay there. It is in an effort to avoid muscular stress anywhere, in any joint. To me, a little firm is alright, tight is not. Too much muscular tension anywhere can cause instability. I am not saying I know this is the proper way to do it, it is just the way I approach it.

Jerry (non-G haha!)

Jerry I think that you have a great trigger pull that avoids putting pressure on the stock. I know full well that I anticipate the shot and tend to flinch downward when I pull the trigger. Holding tighter to my should helps mitigate that.

When I shoot my 54MS with a 6 oz. trigger I held the gun with very light pressure. I started shooting Hunter using the same type of hold. I bought a used 1712 FWT. The gun weighs 7.5 pounds with a 2pound 4 oz. trigger. My scores were a lot lower with my Hunter rifle. I began holding the 1712 like I was shooting a .308. My scores went up. I think with the lighter rifle and heavier trigger I was pulling my shots.


JIM PENDLETON

I found that the light pressure that I had been using to make it to master class in both smallbore classifications was entirely insufficient to use in highpower silhouette. It took me several matches to figure out the exact problem, but I was sighting in off the bench like I sight in any highpower rifle, pulling the butt in fairly tight to my shoulder. When I stood up and got in silhouette stance, I fell back to my habit of light shoulder pressure. This resulted in quite a lot of variance in my point of impact, as much as four minutes higher than the POI that I had on the bench but usually around 2-3 minutes. After thinking back through what had happened, I did finally realize that the variance in shoulder pressure was what was causing it. Since then, I have been working on using the same pressure for both smallbore and highpower, and have noticed that my scores have increased slightly in smallbore also. I'm not to the point that I am always consistent with shoulder pressure without having to think about it every shot yet, but I'm working to make sure my trigger hand position is on the stock in the same place each time and that I use the same amount of shoulder pressure. Before any of the big endurance matches with hundreds of shots for score, I'm definitely going to practice on a much more regular basis to get it committed to muscle memory and get the muscles conditioned.