Congratulations on your shooting Biggi --Fritz

Biggi ...  Your the Best!  Congratulations
Here is a good read by Harry Pope on offhand shooting:
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Further the old axiom still prevails ... Practice - Practice - Practice!
There is a BPCR competitor named Brian Chilson.  He is a top ranked Silhouette Match shooter.  During the off season he practices, to the tune of over 10,000 rounds of 22's.  For his dedication, Brian has a drawer full of 10 pins for knocking down 10 chickens in a row ... at 200 meters!  Plus multiple regional and national match wins  

ALPHAWOLF45 wrote on Aug 12^th, 2011 at 12:56pm:


Oh! I had to go back and re read your original post. That makes three times I've read it and still didnt understand what you want to know.   

If I dont practice, I wobble all over the place and it's a terrible feeling when trying to do your best in a match.  I never practice for shooting squirrels. I just shoot um.  When I practice a lot, I dont feel any different but my scores are much higher.  Just aiming a rifle on a thumb tack on the wall for fifteen minutes a day can make a big difference in your OH shooting ability.  Your grip, arms and back need to be strong and trained for OH shooting, that takes practice.  For me anyway. Some shooters Like Biggi can go to another country, use someones rifle and shoot good scores.  That ability and the fact that she shoots a LOT of OH matches keeps her in the winners circle. 


                                      Joe. 

Thankyou to those of you who took your time to answer my question....I build guns is my hobby. I am thinking about joining a local gun club in some of their matchs but I dont think I have the capability to maintain good sport attitude if I consistantly come in with last place finish in every event I enter...Be a lot easier on ones own self image to come in with better score. Hence my questions....Now I believe I'll invest in large quantity of .22 cartridges and git to practicing at home......And will build myself a couple shuetzens.. Looks like a bit of fun.

I'll be so immodest to claim to be a very good off hand shooter.  In ten shots at 100 yards i will typically shoot a 215 to 225, occasionally over 230 and on one very rare occasion a 238. I only shoot w/ a scope.

The original question is what do you see.  I let the cross-hairs move about in front of the target and try to keep my eye on the little white dot in the middle.  When I first bring the rifle up, the sights are all over the place but very quickly settle into bouncing around randomly in the 18 ring black and then quickly to a smaller area that depends on how much practice I have had.  Sometimes the 20 ring is the best the pattern will get, but occasionally it gets as good as the 23 ring for me.

If the pattern of movement is off to one side or the other, I set the rifle down, reposition and start over.  If the pattern bounces all around the center but never crosses the middle, I start over.  And if in the very rare occasion the sights sit on the center, I set down the rifle and start over.  Any pattern that does not match what I am accustomed to is cause to set the rifle down.  At least that's what I try to do.

Once position and mechanics are acceptable, the most important thing is concentration.  Concentration can make up for small flaws in position but nothing can make up for an ill-timed moment of lack of concentration.