Benchrest Technique

[rickhem]

My new home has enough property for me to shoot easily up to 50 yards right behind the house. I have a big old picnic table that I'm using for a bench, and have constructed a nice target frame that I can move around to whatever distance I want. I have been playing around with my new .25 AV Avenger, and a couple of .22RF rifles occasionally as well. I have a decent front rest, made from an old lab stand, with an owl ear bag. I'm also using a rear rabbit ear bag, and the sight picture looks almost motionless when I shoot, there being just the slightest hint of pulse beat movement. I find that I'm getting groups of about ½ to ¾ inches, but I occasionally get fliers that open things up to more than 2 inches. I don't sort pellets, and while that may be the cause, I want to make sure that my technique is solid, if only to eliminate that as a possible issue.

I have shot Bullseye and Highpower for decades, so I'm not a new shooter, and things like trigger control are well established from those disciplines, I know I'm not jerking. But I have some questions as to how best to support the rifle, shot to shot, for consistency. Should my rifle's forearm be resting on the front rest at the far end of the forearm, or is it best to rest it closer to the trigger guard, more central to the balance point? Should I use firm cheek pressure on the comb, or just light pressure from my cheek on the comb? Would it be better to apply firm pressure with my trigger hand on the stock and pull it into my shoulder, or is very light contact more desirable? I know that many bench resters shoot "free recoil", but those are rifles designed to ride the bags, and my Avenger (and my .22s) are not, with thin rounded forearms and are mildly top-heavy.

Any advice for technique, or thoughts on what else may be at play here is appreciated!

 

[mmahoney]

I find the less contact between my body and the gun the better. I can see my breathing and heartbeat move my aimpoint while looking at targets at 40-60x magnification. Therefore, I have a light cheekweld and light pressure in my shoulder pocket. My gun rests at the far end of the forearm but the gun still tends to bounce a little if I do not apply downward pressure in the grip while firing. I can always tell when a miss was caused by this bounce because the crosshairs invariably are pointing exactly where the pellet hit after the shot.

The above is what works best for me. Others might have a better solution that works with their gun and rest setup.

 

[dizzums]

that 'pulse beat' can be an issue .. to eliminate that you need a rest setup thats going to not be affected by that .. im cheap and dont have an elaborate setup lol, couple of bipods etc, but those arnt so great either .. when im sighting a gun and its not a rush job and want to eliminate all variables i get on something solid and roll some towels up front and rear or at least in the rear and use a bipod .. it needs to be on a solid table, window sill, brick wall lol etc ... but set it up so the towel in the rear holds the sight too low and you need to push down slightly in the rear to bring it up to the target bull, you dont want to be messing with the front, it needs to be steady and seated well but no pressure anywhere, but lean into the rear of the stock some .. thats how i do it .. with a gun thats capable i can hold it under 1/4" at 100 with that ...

 

[Centercut]

Basically I hold my .22 DS RW HP the same way, except I use a tripod on front and a nice rabbit ear bag on the rear. If only I could get my gun to do 1/4" at 100 yards... ;(

 

[L.Leon]

@centercut, maybe @dizzums, meant 1/4" at 100 feet.

 

[JimNM]

However you do it....do it the same every time. Easy to say, tough to do.

 

[rickhem]

On my Avenger, I have adjusted my regulator down to about 1600psi, which is roughly where the yellow and green bands on the gauge come together. I did this for shot count per fill. My hammer spring is all the way out with about a quarter turn back in. I typically shoot one or two fills worth each session. I'm also noticing that my best groups tend to come at the point where my air pressure is at about 2500psi or lower. Maybe because I focus more, knowing that I only have a limited number of shots left. But I still will get some shots where the crosshairs appear motionless, everything feels right, the shot breaks clean, and it's over an inch away from my aiming point. And as was mentioned by MMAHONEY, very often my crosshairs will have jumped in that direction as well. I can see the pellet flying wide of the vertical crosshair before it passes through the paper. Very frustrating.

A friend that was a very good shooter off the bipod with his boltgun used to say to use very firm pressure with your cheek on the comb, and pull the rifle firmly into your shoulder. His reasoning was that it was easier to duplicate that hold, than to chance having a leg on the bipod catch on a rock or clump of grass, or allow uneven contact of the stock with his shoulder during recoil. Again, as was previously mentioned by JimNM.

I have not yet tried letting the front picatinny rail on the forearm rest on the front bag, but having the support points be further apart should be more stable. I'll have to try that next. And my usual pre-shot approach is to get my crosshairs aligned with a point above my target by a few inches, then let my breathing slow as I squeeze the rear bag and bring the crosshairs down through the target to slightly below, and finally let the stock settle in that rear bag to drift the crosshairs back up slightly onto the center of the target. Once the crosshairs settle, and only show the slightest pulse beat, I'll apply trigger pressure until the shot breaks, usually a second or two. A common adage in my other shooting was to "take the first ten you see". I really don't know if that works best in benchrest though.

 

[theLBC]

hmm, i am not sure i should opine, being that i am new to shooting pcp rifles, but there are probably dozens of experienced airgunners that can give you the exact same advice, so mine may be different in a helpful way.

the closest thing i do to this, my main hobby, is shooting handguns and a 7,62x51mm Scar 20S, where recoil management is key to success.

with my .22 airgun shooting 940fps, there is virtually no recoil, so i just focus on having a "natural point of aim", where i can relax and the poa doesn't move.

i am using a bipod (i think it is more consistent than resting on a bag) and midweight rear bag that gets more solid under pressure. typically i would let the rifle "ride the bag", but since there is no recoil, i can use constant cheek pressure and the bag to adjust elevation. i am not pushing on the rifle with my cheek, but merely a solid consistent and repeatable amount of contact to fix my eye behind the scope.

one thing i can suggest if you are not sure if "it's you" and you're not seeing it in the scope is to record yourself while shooting and watch to see if you do anything different. if you can, get some method of recording through your scope.i was zeroing my sightmark and i just happen to have an example of what i mean.

here i take my time to get settled in, and didn't rush it for the sake of the video. i can relax and the poa doesn't shift, and i can rip off 8 shots in just over 2 seconds.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od8kOn29J1c





here you can see the poi wander. this demonstrates that although it was too fast for me to know what i was doing, while i was doing it, i was able to see that i had forced the poa onto the bull, and then let it wander to its natural point of aim (to the right), in the seconds needed to pull off all 8 shots. this is me and the video clearly shows it.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxRdG33nNao

 

[thomasair]

Pcp rifles in the low power category don’t need much intervention to do their best. Light touch is good, but it probably doesn’t matter too much if you are really hanging on to it, either….so long as you do so consistently.
If you restrain the rifle from rearward movement, you will likely see a higher poi. 

If you could attach any sort of flat block to the forend about 3” wide or so, you could more easily manage the top heavy tendency to roll one way or the other…thereby lessening your need to hang on to the gun firmly. Once you lessen your grip to the minimum…you will not have pulse bounce to contend with.

Most BR shooting is 25 bulls per card. it’s not easy to make a gun that can shoot 25 shots in a row with no flyers. Even if you can shoot 25 in a row without a flyer…you still have to get all 25 to happen on the same card. If you happen to succeed and get all 25 good shots on one card…you can probably guarantee that you will have a flyer or 2 on your next card. This flyer will not be due to operator error….it’s just the imperfect nature of guns and the cyclical nature of chance. Often, the only real difference between an expensive gun and an inexpensive one is the frequency of flyers.

You may not be doing anything wrong. You have to manage your expectations according to your level of investment. The most skilled shooter in the world cannot prevent a gun from throwing flyers or predict where they may go. With your background in other shooting disciplines, it’s probably not you that is the core of your erratic accuracy. I suspect fine tuning your technique will not yield you much gain on average. You can easily frustrate yourself and develop all sorts of overly scrutinizing behavior when trying to make a 80% gun shoot like it’s 100%. 

Mike 

 

[bigHUN]

I have a Q, may sound stupid in BR airgun Target competition world, ,,, but my background is the archery competition shooting with compound bows and crossbow.

I had stabilizers, many sets of them - for different styles and different disciplines, the common setups are the front and one-or-two side rods = not sure that you know about those things but to translate...if you tune the stabilizer precisely this can keep you circling a dot inside the ring, sometimes circling slower or faster sometimes the pin is doing number 8ths and if zig-zagging that is no bueno. Many people were using single side rods (that is side-torquing in my view) I was using two side rods in V-shape.

Is the stabilizer rod allowed to attach to the airgun? for competition in my interest?

Edit: I see lately somebody started promoting some new "harmonic barrel tuner" (or you can call it whatever)...now, in my mind I don't trust that thingy that can harmonically dampen the (bad) oscillations in the barrel/liner, but I can accept that can work on principal of "front long rod stabilizer" where the weight "out there" will stabilize the sight picture.

 

[thomasair]

In true Benchrest competition ….the holding still variable is completely removed from the equation. Guns are shot off 1 and 2 piece rests that do not move. The purpose of true BR shooting is to contest ultimate accuracy of equipment and the shooters ability to read the wind. It’s not about holding still using muscle and bone. In National 50….you can use whatever kind of rest or attachment you want…so nobody is going to stop you from adding any kind of stabilizer.

In N50 you are attempting to hit a .030” dot 25 times in a row at 50y. Even without wind it’s extremely rare and difficult.

There can be a very big difference in equipment and purpose between Benchrest competition shooting and simply shooting from a bench.

Mike 

 

[bigHUN]

Thanks

 

[rickhem]

I have a Q, may sound stupid in BR airgun Target competition world, ,,, but my background is the archery competition shooting with compound bows and crossbow.

I had stabilizers, many sets of them - for different styles and different disciplines, the common setups are the front and one-or-two side rods = not sure that you know about those things but to translate...if you tune the stabilizer precisely this can keep you circling a dot inside the ring, sometimes circling slower or faster sometimes the pin is doing number 8ths and if zig-zagging that is no bueno. Many people were using single side rods (that is side-torquing in my view) I was using two side rods in V-shape.

Is the stabilizer rod allowed to attach to the airgun? for competition in my interest?

Edit: I see lately somebody started promoting some new "harmonic barrel tuner" (or you can call it whatever)...now, in my mind I don't trust that thingy that can harmonically dampen the (bad) oscillations in the barrel/liner, but I can accept that can work on principal of "front long rod stabilizer" where the weight "out there" will stabilize the sight picture.

A lot of what you mention for "dot inside the ring" is what Bullseye Pistol shooters deal with, and even for shooting the standing stage of a Highpower match. Your description of the "number 8ths" is similar to what David Tubb described a kind of an infinity symbol (horizontal number 8) that most will find their muzzle tracking in standing. Neither of those disciplines allow for the use of stabilizers like archery uses, but the acceptance of your own "wobble zone" and then working on shrinking that down to be as small as possible, is probably directly comparable. Of course the other factors like trigger control weigh in just as much.

As @thomasair stated, that wobble zone is essentially non-existant for benchrest. I'm still getting my head around how much the wind moves my pellets. The slightest breeze moved my .177 pellets all over the target, which is why I got my Aventer in .25, and even that strings horizontally when the breeze picks up. I never really noticed much difference shooting the 200 and 300 yard stages in Highpower due to wind, maybe a click or two at most, but those were fairly sheltered ranges shooting much heavier bullets over three times as fast. But at 600, you'd better be watching wind speed and direction if you want to post a good score on that stage.

 

[AndyH]

Firmer hold seems to work for me. Kept the same technique I use with powder burners for consistency.

 

[eulrichb]

Hi rickhem, I shot for 10 years center fire off the bench. Your heart beat that you are seeing is coming from you sitting on a seat that is connected to your 'bench' If the table is in good shape as far as the wood goes take it apart and build your self a better table more correct for shooting and get a chair,stool or something you might be able to adjust your position to your new bench. I went to the music world and bought a drum throne for mine. If your bags still have the beach sand they came with dump it out and fill the bags with shot. This is going to help with your current setup.

Bill in Oregon

 

[Therealld]

Hi rickhem, I shot for 10 years center fire off the bench. Your heart beat that you are seeing is coming from you sitting on a seat that is connected to your 'bench' If the table is in good shape as far as the wood goes take it apart and build your self a better table more correct for shooting and get a chair,stool or something you might be able to adjust your position to your new bench. I went to the music world and bought a drum throne for mine. If your bags still have the beach sand they came with dump it out and fill the bags with shot. This is going to help with your current setup.

Bill in Oregon

Many airgun shooters use the International Airgun style target and rules, which limit Among other things, the type of bag fill, which is specified as sand. Not limited to beach sand though, so many shooters use heavier sand … I use “reptile sand”, though some more serious users buy an even heavier “chromite” sand, or the heaviest and most expensive “zircon” sand. Pretty much ALL organized benchrest shooting associations specify sand, and disallow lead fill or other heavy metal non-sand fill.

I tried lead shot decades ago … it works, but isnt really better than the sand types I mention when airguns are used rather than centerfire guns.