Thread: Hi team I am a complete noob, but eager to learn

Hi team,

I am pretty new to shooting and hunting. Got a Howa mini .223 to start with and I would like to get into target shooting until I am good enough for hunting.
Managed to get to the range once to zero in the scope and now I am locked away in Havelock north for now.

So if you have any recommendations for posts, blogs, websites and books to read, please post it here.

I woul like to get a better understanding of ballistics and then practice a lot.

Cheers,
Paul

Welcome Paul

Welcome, try looking up old threads on here for pointers

Greetings

don't let the lockdown get to you!

Welcome to the madhouse

Hey Mimms,
Yeah, that was the plan, but failed to buy a 22lr before the lockdown. Otherwise I could practice and shoot some rabbits at 50-80m

Originally Posted by Paic

Hi team,

I am pretty new to shooting and hunting. Got a Howa mini .223 to start with and I would like to get into target shooting until I am good enough for hunting.
Managed to get to the range once to zero in the scope and now I am locked away in Havelock north for now.

So if you have any recommendations for posts, blogs, websites and books to read, please post it here.

I woul like to get a better understanding of ballistics and then practice a lot.

Cheers,
Paul

Hi paul, welcome.

One thing you could do if you've saved the 223 cases from your zeroing trip, is use them to dry fire your rifle (best not to dry fire if you haven't got anything in the chamber, it's hard on the firing pin).

Put an empty case in your howa, and practice sighting and squeezing the trigger. It'll help you learning the breaking weight .(that means the point at which it releases the internals to fire the rifle.)

Gday mate
That’s good advice Max

Welcome along fella

Welcome Paul. Like everyone said, practice makes perfect.

Start of by determining what combination/bullet your particular rifle likes.

Buy a bunch and spend some time on the range to determine your rifles dope out to say 500 or 600m. Make notes and keep for future reference.

Spend time shooting the rifle at different ranges to confirm your dope.

Register for some compititions and do not expect to win right of the bat - enjoy the compititions and make sure you learn. Look at what the more succesfull guys do and copy them.

Shoot as often as you can.

Originally Posted by Max Headroom

Hi paul, welcome.

One thing you could do if you've saved the 223 cases from your zeroing trip, is use them to dry fire your rifle (best not to dry fire if you haven't got anything in the chamber, it's hard on the firing pin).

Put an empty case in your howa, and practice sighting and squeezing the trigger. It'll help you learning the breaking weight .(that means the point at which it releases the internals to fire the rifle.)

That's a great Idea. I'll practice that.
Thanks!

Greetings Paul aka Piac,
Welcome to the big wide wonderful world of rifles, hunting, target shooting and hopefully hand loading. If you have a .223 (good choice) and interested in target shooting (excellent) you will soon start up hand loading. If reading hunting stories gets old you may wish to look at the step by step guide on hand loading on the RCBS site. This gives you the basics but don't let the amount of kit they show scare you off. I see you are local. There are plenty of old Fudds, including this one that would be happy to give you some one to one instruction once the current panic clears.
Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by Paic

That's a great Idea. I'll practice that.
Thanks!

Welcome. After a while you'll see that the primers have been bashed pretty heavily from the pin hitting them (after about 5x each i guess) then it's time to stop.

I have found that it helps sometimes to close my eyes as I squeeze the trigger, and just focus on what I'm feeling and let my brain map the feel of it coming up to the break.

Originally Posted by Klhari

Welcome Paul. Like everyone said, practice makes perfect.

Start of by determining what combination/bullet your particular rifle likes.

Buy a bunch and spend some time on the range to determine your rifles dope out to say 500 or 600m. Make notes and keep for future reference.

Spend time shooting the rifle at different ranges to confirm your dope.

Register for some compititions and do not expect to win right of the bat - enjoy the compititions and make sure you learn. Look at what the more succesfull guys do and copy them.

Shoot as often as you can.

Sounds like a plan. I definitely have to try out a lot of different ammo and of course range time.

Haven't thought about competitions, but that will be a good goal.

Thanks mate!