Thread: Hunting rifle

It's a great feeling having some money to spend on your ideal rifle, but your first rifle won't be your ideal rifle for long. Put as much time as you can into learning how to shoot, maybe pick up a shooting instructor or tag along with more experienced guys. You are going to have bad habits, they just happen when learning.

You aren't going to learn everything all at once, and you can't force experience or time, so take a step back and make a plan with realistic goals. Learn safe handling by yourself and around others, repetition is key, you need to train your muscles to form the muscle memory you will rely on when it matters.

Videos and forums are great, but they can't help with the feeling of recoil, the effect your environment has on your shooting, the breathing requirments, the trigger pull and so on....

Join a club, do range days and have a think about what you want out out of your shooting. If it's hunting, the shot is the last piece of the puzzle, you need all the other pieces in place and they are many.

It may be an option to go to a store and feel out what they have on the shelf, ask questions and take notes. Maybe buy a cheapo .308 and cheapo ammo and start putting holes on paper at realistic distances and take it for a few good long walks, where it's legal obviously.

It's a sport measured in years, not weeks or months and as nice as it is to have instant gratification, that feeling will disappear in a heartbeat if you drop your 6k rifle down a slip or if you take shots at an animal only to have it live out its last hours or days badly injured hiding under some bush...

You can't force things to happen, they will happen naturally as you progress, it really is a boots on the ground scenario. If you rush it you will make mistakes and always remember to never point your rifle at anything you aren't ready to kill.

Sorry for the essay, but if you rush it and things aren't happening as fast as you want them to happen you might end it packing it in out of frustration, and we need more responsible shooters on our side. The shooting community always want to learn, teach, grow and have a good story to tell.

Be safe, think slowly and let it happen naturally.

Cheers.