Thread: A bitter lesson on technique!

I've been playing with a Ruger American in 6mm CM. These days I don't take too much notice of anything less than a 10 shot group. The rifle was showing potential but I was getting some vertical in the groups with the odd vertical flier sitting well off an otherwise not bad group.

We had some other guys at the range testing stuff, including a pretty new shooter. I was muttering darkly about my latest group and this Newby rocks up and says "did you realize you were tilting your rest" and proceeded to demonstrate what he'd seen me doing. I got behind the rifle and promptly did the same thing again.

Basically I was loading the front rest by shouldering the rifles front sling swivel against the pad of the rest - what a silly mistake . . . And this rifles fore-end just won't slide on the front pad even when the sling stud isn't interfering. Man I was pleased to have been called out on such a rookie mistake. I replaced the front rest for a bipod with an immediate improvement in results.

On the contrary, this is a good lesson - someone helped, you didn't miss an animal on the hill and you only wasted a little ammo time and ego before sussing out how to fix it

I'd be happy to have the issue solved if it was me

Good when it's a simple fix. The number of times I have seen people shooting off a rest, take two or three shots normally then the next with the barrel on the rest and not the foreend... Simple things but out of sight out of mind until someone points it out!

Sounds like a free lesson to me

Something I've found really useful from shooting a bow is videoing yourself taking a few shots, it really helps identify/ correct things you don't necessarily notice/ feel yourself doing from muscle memory

In my experience I usually get vertical stringing if my hold is too loose. If I'm pulling in too tightly it strings laterally. If you get the tight clover then you're doing it right. I do use a bipod but tbh I get better results off a bit heavy front bag full of kitty litter.

Had a guy tell me almost the exact same thing at a range so I just bought a much better bag