LARRY338

I was a little surprised at the lack of response to my post this morning about offhand practicing with centerfire rifles. Seventy something people read it and nobody mentioned shooting rifles offhand. Let me ask another question, How many rounds of centerfire rifle ammo do you shoot a year(say the avg. for the last three yrs) and how do you shoot it? like bench shooting, or at prarie dogs, or out the window of your car in front of the crack house, he he , or whatever. Im curious about just how much shooting of centerfire rifles actually gets done. Just wondering. Larry

FlatTop

I shoot about once a month at the range, about 50 rounds from each rifle. I would say 45 or so are from the bench/ shooting sticks and then a few offhand. I have only attempted a shot at an animal without resting on a tree or using shooting sticks a couple of times.

Briman

I read the post but was at work and didn't have time to respond. What I like to do is set up various sized objects at 100 yards such as plastic soda bottles, milk cartons, and coffe cans. I then shoot them off hand and try to keep them in the air as much as possible. If you shoot any of these objects, most likely they will go flinging 10 to 20 feet in the air. I try to chamber another round and anticipate where its going to land and hit it again as it hits the ground. I've gotten good enough where I could hit a milk jug about 9 out 10 times with open sights.
Another one I like to do with a .22 is do the same thing using a tennis or golf ball. Sometimes I switch to kneeling or sitting positions just to add variety. Over the last 3 years I've probably only shot 50 -60 rounds a year with centerfire rifles, but thousands of rounds between .22's and handguns. Since this last summer when I got into Mil surplus rifles, I've shot well over 700 rounds through centerfire rifles. Milsurps are cheap to shoot<img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle>

Pro-Line

I shoot centerfire's fairly often, but like to shoot 22 caliber's more. (223 and 22 both) They're cheaper, and still keep me in the practice of &quot;holding and squeezing&quot; which is what it boils down to anyway.

denclark

i shoot quiet a bit mostly with a 22 win mag but i do shoot my 243 lots too i only shoot off a bench to check to see were the gun is shooting but everything eles is on my knee on the ground or offhand i find the more i practice actual field positions i get a little better

eyeballjr

I go to red castle about twice a year with my step-dad and shoot at least 100 rounds between a couple of rifles, and my brother in law has a range set up at his house and normally go through 20 or so rounds every weekend there. Plus at least 2 this year 3(special hunt) shots a deer a year nomally more. Then some yote's and turtles and so forth. I shot more than i can afford thats for sure.

billyb

Larry
I read your post on off-hand practice and was going to reply but got stuck in the brown stuff all around the shooting at 700 yard deer size targets. Be real and you'll get better responses.
I always off-hand practice at the range but to have a safe backstop there is NO ranges anywhere NEAR 700 yards available to us near here and the range compensation one would have to adjust into their scope at that distance let alone tapered bases would be too dangerous to live beings in the next county. At 9 power my crosshairs would obliterate the target and it would be like winning the lottery to even nick the target at that range. 700 YARDS OFFHAND???? Get real and we'll talk.

LARRY338

billyb, I dont want to talk to you anyway, I would much rather talk to someone who knows his butt from a hole in the ground.

1SHOT_1KILL

Larry, I read the post on 700yds offhand shooting. I have no problem with doing that on the range for fun and games, as long as (and I am sure that you took this into consideration) down range was safe, ie., good back stop. I personally do not practice off hand past 300yds. Anything past 300yds is kneeling, sitting, or prone.

Over the past 3 years, I've averaged about 3,500-4,000 rounds per year. This does not include the 3,000 or so pistol rounds. Out of these, maybe 100 were fired at game, from groundhogs to deer. About 2/3 of what I shoot is either offhand, kneeling, sitting, or prone. The other 1/3 is shot off the bench, zeroing, confirming zero, or working up test loads.

LARRY338

I was once shooting NRA highpower silhouette at Ft. Benning, thats how I first got interested in shooting offhand at longer ranges. We have a swinger at 700 yds that is about 3 1/2 ft square that we shoot at sometimes. As for the cardboard deer targets, I said that we shoot at ranges out to 700, I didnt say we ever hit them, LOL, seriously though, its fun shooting at the cardboard deer targets and we do pretty good at ranges out to about 350, but it gets real hard to hit a deer sized target at any more than that offhand. I feel like it doesnt hurt to try something hard sometimes though, ammo is cheap, and if you dont push your limits you wont improve. PS, the people who live in the subdivision behind our range gripe all the time about bullets flying through the playground, but we dont care! LOL...........just kidding!!!