It's been a long winner and hardly any trigger time at the range. But, I did get
to an indoor range this week. Probably only shot 25 rounds until my fingers
seized from the cold. But, sometimes, less can be more. Well, maybe.

I was shooting a 1712..only 50ft but at small target areas. My experience brought to
mind a comparison. Not long ago I acquired
an old Walther .22 target barrel with a hunting style stock. I shot it a few times off
hand. The target picture was remarkably easy to keep after firing. Nice gentle straight back
and forth recoil. But, with my other rifles I have had a problem, seemingly more so with
the 1712. It torques to the right and down...same as my impact grouping, but more so.
Shot groups, per five rounds, were about 3-4 inches. My left hand hold is a fist with fingers
facing me, so the front stock is nothing more than resting.

What could I be doing that leads to this torquing action? I have two thoughts:
I do cant the rifle a few degrees to the left;and, my natural point of aim tends
to be the right...which I do because I prefer a closed stance since it feels like
it tightens up the larger set up.

So many variables. Perhaps, what I really need is an expert eye to see it all first hand.
Meanwhile, curious, if there are some variables that I can play with while dry firing in
the living room.

Often, Off Hand shooting errors can be magnified and observed by dry firing with a scoped rifle. Start with a
"Holding Only" exercise. All indoors, get a black piece of paper and cut a perfect circle out of it about an inch in diameter, put a stick on post note to create a white background. In the offhand position, at around 25 feet try to hold the crosshairs inside the white "bull". If you can do it with ease, make a smaller white bull. Keep at it unitl the bull is smaller than a dime. Don"t dry fire at it. Just learn to hold inside the white.

After you have done this till you think you have lost your mind, make a 2" white bull. At the same distance,
dry fire a the bull and observe your crosshairs for movement of any kind.

Holy moly, I was under the deluded impression that even the better shoots wobbled and learned to
pull the trigger at the right time. My hold only set up, now, is from the house to an outside metal
globe...3inches in diameter at 50 ft...with a sightron scope that goes up to 24x. I see all the little
wigs and wags. I might get the wobble within the target but this tight of a wobble is not going to
last longer than two seconds. The way I try to compensate is using my breath. On the exhale
I get the cross hairs to move up on a vertical line. Somedays, moves right to the center and pauses
long enough for a clean shot.

If I need to adjust my expectations about how tight and how long for the gold standard of a wobble,
then I need to rethink my approach.

Still, what I take from this is to get more success by setting up a closer distance prior to moving onto
50 ft. Just not sure if the sightron scope can get much closer. I'll check.

You can throw shots left or right with a very small amount of "off" NPA. Sometimes in our club iron sight swinger matches 10 on the same target I will move my heel just a bit instead of changing sight wind settings. It's a CLA ram plenty of width my misses are almost always high over the back when the front sight goes fuzzy, but still better to be centered up. This is masked in regulation Silhoutte when you go down the line one target to the next. Dry fire all on the same you are more likely to notice drifting off one way or the other

On how long you can hold a good shot. The old "Russian" book has some graphs showing quality of hold. It's not long most settle down in a few seconds hold fairly still for a few seconds then bobble, come back again for a shorter period of time, then it's all down hill. Unlimited time Better to put the gun down if the shot won't break right away. Silhouette pays to give it another chance, however two trys is my limit can't get a sight picture come out of positon and go back at it again. Would rather get 4 good off than break misses on all 5. In pratice I always have time for all 5, Sometimes the last one have to rush it.

Iron sight matches due to my eyesight I figure I have about 1 or 2 seconds to break my shot when the rifle settles down. Go back to Scope sighted matches see the target fine take more time, and my strikes are not as good. Way I figure it when you see the shot take it, not going to be better later.

Boats

Sounds to me like your hold needs work. If you have trouble holding a tighter area you will tend to jump on the trigger when your wobble is where you want it to be. So in essence you are going.... Wobble, wobble, wobble, OH LOOK I'm inside the target I should probably pull the trigger now. By then it is too late. When you improve your hold you give yourself more opportunities to see the shot you want to make happen. When you can get that you can work on the minds eye simply seeing what it wants to see and the trigger finger goes off without thinking about it and in such a way that you aren't imparting any extra forces with your other fingers gripping the stock with your trigger hand. If you are jumping on a shot when it suddenly appears using the thought process you will tend to squeeze the entire hand IMO.

Those other fingers are all linked so it is hard to isolate the movement to just one finger on the trigger if you are reacting in a rushed manner. When you see something falling like you drop your cell phone for example. You''ll instantly see it falling and reach out instantly from your mind saying "Catch the damn phone!" so you reach out there and use your whole hand in that split second instance of time to try and grab it as it falls. Why? You could just catch it between two fingers all Bruce Lee like and pluck it out of the air. But you don't because you are suddenly seeing something and reacting. You want to just have the very tip of that finger react on the trigger when you see the animal and the sight picture you want to break on and freeze it in time for that split moment. I hope this analogy makes sense (I'll admit I am tired and 2 bourbons in ) It is a simple over reaction to the sights. So you reduce your hold and DECREASE the size of the wobble and INCREASE your possible shot opportune moments and reduce the stress on the mind to tell the finger pull the trigger. It becomes a instinctual reaction. If your eye has to tell your finger to pull its too late usually.

Honestly if you want to learn to hold your rifle will do that if you put in the time and do as above with hold drills and dry firing. I am guilty of needing to dry fire myself But to shoot and get trigger time and have fun nothing will make you shoot and follow through completely like a 10m Target Air Rifle. I shoot mine inside at 10m and hold inside a circle smaller than a dime using around 38x magnification. I aim at sharpie dots marks or I just shoot a hole in blank card stock and then try to put the rest right through that hole. Amazing how you can get to where you shoot one ratty hole and sometimes a really small one. No ones holds dead rock steady but you can learn to hold very small. Oh and NPA both Horizontal and Vertical are not to be overlooked as they can induce tossing of shots. Also perfecting your NPA for each shot before trying to hold on the target should in itself improve your hold (wobble area) if you are doing it correctly. Wobble comes from fighting the sights the more you fight the more you wobble. The better your NPA the more relaxed your are and the smaller your hold.




Dee

I don't know if I will ever get to a dime sized hold nor shoot an airgun through the same hole,
but I'm gonna have fun always pondering why not better. Speaking of airguns, I have an FWB300s
soon to be delivered from an overhaul. Addictive.

That is a dime at 10m not 100m! At 100m scaled up that dime is the size of the bottom of a coffee can. You can do it. The FWB300 will help you just shoot it all you can.


Dee

FWB 300 is a fine rifle. Not used much in competition anymore less expensive than the current PCP guns, just as accurate. Hot shots don't like to cock every shot. Don't know if they can mount a scope though. Want to see hitting a dime every time at 10M look for formal ISSF matches. 10 ring is just a dot. doubt if it's 1/8 inch. College kids with air rifle matches are amazing . I take the scope off my Walther 10M gun every winter and shoot a few with them, very humbling.

Boats

No worries the FWB300 is easy to scope.

Dee