Thread: Marksmanship drills / exercises

I'm interested what drills, targets etc do you guys use for practice of general hunting marksmanship.

So not combat or IPSC drills, more the type of stuff you would find in the typical Deerstalkers compo.

Things like dot drills, know-your-limits etc ?

I reckon you can't do better than shoot 50m Running Boar but there aren't many DA ranges with a functioning one these days.
In many EU countries you have to shoot a certain score on the Running Game at 100m as a pre-requisite to being granted a hunting licence.

Static air rifle at home is good, standing off-hand of course. Anyone can shoot off a rest, standing scores are what sepparate the wheat from the chaff at most 3P or 4P target events.

Ray.

Big fan of dot drills at the moment. Amazing how many mates that are good shots on a normal target completely go to hell with the dots

Originally Posted by ishoot10s

Static air rifle at home is good, standing off-hand of course. Anyone can shoot off a rest, standing scores are what sepparate the wheat from the chaff at most 3P or 4P target events.

Hell yes !

Air rifle shooting and standing unsupported teaches you balance, good sight picture, trigger pull. All the basic fundamentals that will fall into place when shooting bigger calibres inside/outside/prone/in the bush/in the rain. Plus you can shoot 100 times for @$5 in ammo

I'm doing plates timing training with an airsoft under the house and it's helping for sure. Practise and trigger time is pretty hard to beat.

Originally Posted by Grue

Big fan of dot drills at the moment. Amazing how many mates that are good shots on a normal target completely go to hell with the dots

+1 dot drills make most guys break out in a bit of a sweat

I enjoy targets like dart board or billiard balls, shot from various distances, various positions. Try to keep it practical, so off-hand, off-hand against a post/tree, kneeling, sitting, prone, snap-shots etc.

come along to one of gillies feild shoots that will teach you everything you will ever need to shoot deer.

Whats a dot drill?

Originally Posted by Dama dama

Whats a dot drill?

here's the one we used for IPSC pistol

pistol-training.com » Dot Torture

you can make up any variation for rifle, different shooting positions etc

^ yup!

For rifle we do ten 1-inch dots. 100 yards. 10 shots only. No time limit. Breaking the outer line of dot counts as hit. Score out of 10.

Nice little competition for end of the day at the range. Looser buys a case of beer for that night

I practise in my shed with my hunting rifles and live rounds.

Well almost live rounds.

Take an empty primed case, push it into a block of bees wax up to the shoulder, pull it out and you should now have a wax plug in the case neck.

I set up targets inside the shed at distances of 5-10meters and shoot the wax plugs at them.

Teaches good trigger control, doesn't make too much noise and no fear of damage from the projectile.

Cheers
Pete

How do you clean the barrel afterwards P38 ?

Cool, would make for great practice using a .22. I'll give it a go.

As the saying goes "get out and shoot" I go target 22 shooting at least once, if i can, twice during the week so 52 rounds @ $15 incl range fees not to bad. I do 22 as its really un-forgiving and it also isolates your faults so you can work on them. For myself I have a weakness in trigger control, so I pull to the right and shoulders can tense making me should to 5 or 7 oclock. Then I try and shoot 20 odd rounds of 308 most weekends, the wind is the bugger IMHO, mostly the 50, 60 and 70 year olds are best at the wind...shear practice....

regards

we do paper plate games. awesome.

it really shows you where your weeknesses are,
one inch circle in the center of the paper plate stapeled to a tree
5 points for a dot hit 1 point for hitting the plate, 3 shots at each plate running between each shooting position
10 points for the fastest run thru
plates stapeled to trees at varying distances

good low cost 22 fun