Off My Palm

Last summer I was having trouble getting a particular rifle to shoot, so I went to see Junior, who coached me on my benchrest technique. Junior shot some mighty small groups with my rifles, but they weren't hitting to point of aim. One rifle in particular, I had sighted fairly closely, but when Junior shot it, it was hitting a good 4" to the left of where it should have been shooting.

I've pondered that mightily. When I shoot from the bench, I get some really nice groups, but when I shoot from a position, the shots tend to fall somewhere else.

Follow along with me for a minute. When I'm shooting from a bench, the rifle is resting, generally, on a sandbag of some type. It might be filled with sand, or walnut media, but it's a bag. When I'm shooting from my hunting stand, that rifle is recoiling from my hand and the recoil pulse reacts differently with the rifle. Maybe not much differently, but enough that it makes a difference on where the bullet falls on the paper.

Our mighty warriors in the sandbox, those guys who do long range gunnery with shoulder weapons, generally shoot from a bipod. Our Police marksmen shoot from a bipod when they can. That bipod is always attached to the same point on the forearm and the recoil pulse should be very consistent. Those guys are magnificently accurate. They've got good equipment and wonderful training. And, they strive to make one shot exactly like the last.

My rifles are hunting rifles. I don't own anything that might be considered a benchrest gun. However, I can observe and learn from the target shooters and they've made some real breakthroughs over the years. They also try to make one shot exactly like the last.

This past Saturday when I was at the range taking the Remington 700 for a test drive, I also dragged along my Savage 110 in .30-06. It's my go-to hunting rifle and when I'm in the deer stand, likely as not that's the rifle that will be with me.

I put it on the sandbags and cranked off two shots, then looked through the spotting scope. The bullets hit high about three inches, and off to the left. So, I pondered for a minute, adjusted the scope down one inch and gave it two more shots. Those two fell about an inch below the first pair. So, I adjusted the scope again, down one inch and sent two more to the target. They fell about an inch below the second pair. Three pairs of bullets, about an inch apart, four inches to the left of where they should be.

The rangemaster called for a cold line, so I stepped away from the rifle and pondered what I was seeing through the scope. Then it stuck me. "You idiot! When you last sighted that rifle, you sighted it two inches high, but it was fired off your palm."

So, when the rangemaster called the line hot, I got back on the bench, but instead of resting the rifle on the bags, I put my palm on the bag, gently cradled the forearm like the Army taught me, and sent three toward the target dot. All three hit the target dot, about an inch below the center dot.

That little three shot group measures just 0.685. It's a little low, but I was piddling with the scope. It's a little to the right, but that's easily fixed too.

It's time to get away from the bench and start shooting like I shoot in the field. I've only got eight more months till the hunting season.