How good is your offhand shooting?

[thekyrifleman]

When I shot 50 ft indoor small bore, I was pretty good in the standing position, however that was a long time ago!! over the years, my capability has gone down hill.....lack of practice I guess...longest offhand shot was a little over 300 yds on a whitetail doe. About 20 years ago, I had a Ruger 77/22 rebarreled with a match bull barrel to simulate my "big" rifles. Carried it squirrel hunting, and practiced at the range. Cheap shooting, right??? Ha!! Not anymore.....

 

[Trickymissfit]

38-55 beyond half a mile

this simply amazes me. Open sights, off hand 1000 yds 20"X32" target.

I only hope to shoot this well off handed.

I have an 1885 hunter model in 38-55, and with the tang sight. I don't see how he did it!
gary

 

[gohring3006]

Upper body strength helps, but have teenage girls do really well (tough on the ego gotta say) Maybe working power saws would help.Nobody I know holds perfectly, myself I like to anticipate a shot by a controlled lowering of the barrel, my forearm directly under the rifle.I was taught to call the shots to, even when dry firing.Kind of a game.Any thoughts , tips?

Practice, and strength training helps my saws and my bow I think helps also it helps with strength and with aiming the sight pin floats around like my scope crosshairs

 

[bigngreen]

My off hand is decent, shot indoor small bore and my standing scores were often in the top 5 in the state, I also shoot Schuetzen with a 40-65 BPCR at 200 yards which I find just stupid fun but a marathon putting 25 round on paper with that kind of rifle!

 

[FEENIX]

No where near Ryan Cleckner's ...



gun)

 

[Greyfox]

We shoot 22 silhouette. For shootoffs we set up the chicken at 100 yards and shoot offhand standing. At about two inches in size, it's difficult target but with practice ot can be done pretty consistently. That's about 2 MOA. The problem with hunting situations is that if you are forced to take a shot offhand, you usually don't have the same time and conditions to duplicate that kind of accuracy. I generally limit my off hand shots at deer sized game to 200 yards, and that's only if I'm not winded and conditions are right.

 

[tony m]

Thanks for all the feedback.In my opinion, anybody that can consitantly keep his shots I the 8 ring at the range is a potential hero of mine.I've seen shooters keep them in the 9 ring, but these were not standard sporting rifles.Hunting, I take a solid rest everytime I can.The rifle really has to suite a guy to be effective..What do you folks use? Good to see Canadian bushman here, hey I am not making much progress with turning my own bullets idea...it is like introducing a third language to the great province of Quebec...people are uneasy...

 

[bubba41]

i;m going back to it . all of these new modern scopes with elevation, windage dials have sucked my natural ability right out of me . my 06 has a leupold on it 3x9x40 . i'm getting back to shooting ! no rangefinder no charts. pick a target and see if you can hit it!!!!

 

[tony m]

I gotta agree, every time we learn to rely on another man made gadget we loose a little bit of instinct. We all learned using iron sights, a reciever mounted peep site is surprisingly effective at shorter ranges for myself...Doesn't fog up much..

 

[FearNoWind]

38-55 beyond half a mile

this simply amazes me. Open sights, off hand 1000 yds 20"X32" target.

I only hope to shoot this well off handed.

Whether you're shooting offhand or over your shoulder with a mirror, it's simply a factor of how many times you shoot and how many shots takes for one of those rounds to hit the target. He happened to connect with the third shot after a couple of practice shots. I didn't see him duplicate that with a fourth shot.

 

[Jud96]

I do a lot of off hand shooting because I'm a member of the North South Skirmish Association and all of our small arms shooting is done off hand. Now these are not modern firearms, all have to be Civil War issued arms that are either originals or approved reproductions. There are many categories of competition, from revolver and smoothbore at 25yds and 50yds, to rifle-musket, carbine, repeater, and single shots rifles which are shot at 50 and 100yds. There is even artillery matches involving full scale field guns and mortars! For the small arms, there is both individual and team matches.

Individuals shoot paper bullseyes for score at the same ranges that team matches shoot breakable targets such as clay pigeons and 4" tiles that are either suspended from a frame or placed on a backer which is attached to the frame. For individuals the goal is to shoot the highest score on the target and the team shooters must break all of their targets as fast as they can and their time is recorded. Each team event is a maximum of 5 minutes and shooters must clear their targets before time runs out and they get penalized for their non-hit targets.

Teams and individuals are broken into classes depending on there skill, and compete against those in their class but if they are continually shooting higher scores that match or beat those in the next class up, they are bumped up to that class. It is a really fun sport because you must be deadly accurate with your arms that you compete with, but also fast and keep calm so you can clear your targets precisely and quickly. I personally do not shoot individuals, but our team competes in the rifle musket and carbine matches and I'm a 3rd Generation shooter at the
N-SSA so it is a lot of fun to shoot alongside friends and family and doing what you grew up with.

 

[justgoto]

I'm not bad with the right rifle. This years deer was shot offhand at 120 yards with an ultra light muzzleloader. I would have gone more supported, but vegetation was in the way of a sitting or kneeling shot; so for the first time, I used the offhand position as R. Lee Ermey uses.

Lately, I have been shooting my AK offhand to use it more like a defensive weapon instead of a hunting rifle; and this morning I tested a load's POI with an offhand shot.



Yesterday when I took 2 shots quick, I realized I can hold that rifle a lot steadier than my other rifles. Maybe because of the forearm not being so far forward?

 

[SidecarFlip]

I shoot a light 308 (less than 7 pounds all up) but I still use a tree or whatever is available if standing.

Offhand pistol, I'm good at but then I shoot competitively offhand. Practice improves any stance with any forearm.

 

[tony m]

Good feedback,the north/south association ,is it a large group?It sounds it.Must give you a sense of what these soldiers went through under these conditions.I wonder how capable they were with small arms?Video suggestions,Jud? I am better with a lighter rifle for offhand shooting myself, shooting lots with it works best for me,must be a muscle memory thing-and its fun.What is the effective range of a ultralight muzzle loader?Cheers