beginner advice, shooting coats and offhand advice

[jcerne]

Hi All,

I just got a FWB 300S and have started to work on my 10m shooting. I think there's lots of room for improvement, especially for offhand, so I'm excited about seeing how much better I can get. I'm hoping to eventually compete at the club-level in 10m air rifle, 3P air and smallbore rifle (with my Kimber 82G), and CMP high power rifle (with my converted 6.5mm Swedish Mauser).

One of the first things I probably should get is a shooting coat. I found three reasonable looking coats, but they all look the same to me. Could you please give me some recommendations on the following three coats?

Champion's Choice Men's ISSF Shooting Coat Part # CC80130
http://www.champchoice.com/store/Main.a ... em=CC80130

Champion's Choice Men's ISSF Shooting Coat Part # CC30332
http://www.champchoice.com/store/Main.a ... em=CC30332

ANSCHUTZ CANVAS/LEATHER SHOOTING COAT
http://www.creedmoorsports.com/product/ ... G-COAT/370

Does one look better than the others? Are these ok or should I be looking at other coats? Does it look like the Creedmoor is using top grip rubber? My chest circumference is 39" (I'm 6 feet tall and 175 lbs), so should I go for the size 38 or 40?

I'm still struggling with a stable offhand hold. My offhand position is fairly comfortable, not straining any muscles, and I feel like I could hold the position fairly long without too much trouble, but the bull is bouncing all over inside (and often outside) my 4.1mm front aperture. Most of the motion is side-to-side. I'm having a hard time finding a natural point of aim. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but gentle breathing doesn't seem to make things much worse (that's how much movement there already is!). I chose a bigger front aperture as was recommended in an excellent article in USA Shooting News from Jan 2011, maybe I should go even bigger until my hold settles down? I can keep all the shots in the black but it's hard to get a consistent grouping.

I've been reading everything I can find, including Parish's Successful Rifle Shooting book, but would appreciate any advice that you may have. Hopefully, a shooting coat will help; it should at least be better than the cotton shirts that I've been wearing! I guess I also need to put lots of pellets downrange and am trying to practice 10m offhand every day, but am concerned that I might be learning bad habits that could slow down my progress.

Thanks for going through this long post and helping me out!

Best wishes,
John

PS If there's anyone in the Western New York region who could recommend a club where I could get help from more experienced target shooters, please let me know. Buffalo Ten-X (http://www.tenxshootingclub.com) looks promising.

[redschietti]

I think the two CC are the same except color. Call and ask. Im not sure if the anshutz one is worth $9 more or not. I think any of them will be enough to get a shooter into the 580s. In the past i have asked them to ship two sizes with agreement they would take one back. Get the one yhat fits best in the shoulders. Just my opinions. Standing? Hips, shoulders and gun parallel. Move feet and toes. Head up and eyes horizontal. It takes time to develope a ten ring hold.

[Pat McCoy]

The jacket will help, but is really just an aid allowing you to learn bad habits.

Train without it until you develop a better hold. do that by dry holding on a blank wall or blank target (backside) while relaxing and seeing how little movement the front sight has. Get that in your mind before going to the target with an aiming bull. When going to the target with bull do the same relaxing and let the gun point where it wants to without regard for the aiming bull, hopefully getting the same small amount of movement. To finally get on the bull, keep your upper body just as it is, and adjust your foot position (wide stance takes you higher, narrower stance is lower, back foot to the right and sight goes left for R handed shooter, and rear foot left takes sight right). all this done while in the "natural respiratory pause".

Now the hard part, shift mental focus (get a picture in your head) to what you want to happen (either "erfect sight picture, or pellet going thru the ten dot), and let the gun go off.

There is research showing a larger aperture helps in offhand because the aiming bull is more easily kept in the center. I've gone to a 7mm (but have bad eyes and need more light). Some juniors are having good luck with 6mm.

[patriot]

With the larger aperture, I'm looking for one sight picture rather than trying to judge the white on all four sides of the bull.

Mark

[jcerne]

Thanks for all the helpful and thoughtful advice!