TargetTalk

Eric
Some questions that I would appreciate the benefit of your experience on. My wife and I are both in our 60's and returnees to shooting as a retirement pastime, after a twenty year break. We are both concentrating on English match (60 shots prone at 50 mts), my wife is ex GB squad and is working quite hard at it and getting into the 590's and averaging 587, I'm 5 or 6 points behind her.
We both come from an era when aiming off was a sin, but are aware that a few top shots do it, and I'm sure I've heard you mention that you do it.
We both shot practice yesterday in an absolute gale, a real hum dinger!Wind flags being blown over, branches comming down, it was crazy but great practice. It was also gusting, fading, and gusting again very fast.

Sight changing was not practical as it was fast, and would have meant fairly big changes, so for the first time ever I shaded, not knowing by how much to do it, but as missing the wind was an 8 and it was only a practice shoot it was worth a try.
The first surprise was that it worked, and that very subtle aim offs moved potential 8's into the ten.

The first question:-
Can you quantify how much you shade to move 8 to 10? I realise its dificult but are we talking, subtle, very subtle, barely visible, etc.

Second question:-
When do you do it? Is there a specific condition, such as gusting, fishtailing, etc when you will do it other than waiting?

We think it could be a usefull tool and are certainly going to practice it, preferably on a flat day to see once zeroed if we can then shoot tight groups left and right in the nine and eight, we both use 3.7 foresights.
Are there any tips you can give us on shading?
Best regards
Robin and Pam

Robin,

Welcome to the dark side...

I shade all the time, but probably only regularly shade up to a 9.5 value or so, unless it is an emergency (final, running out of time, etc.). Usually my shades are fine-tuning. If my last shot was a little on one side or the wind is picking up slightly. To me a 9.5 shade looks huge. I've shaded shots in 8 conditions before, but to me it looks almost like I'm pointing in the white. I honestly think I can see the difference between a 10.6 and a 10.9 when I shade, and that is barely perceptible.

Generally I don't like waiting on conditions. They have to be pretty bad for me to wait more than a minute for a shot. Conditions like at the Belgrade WC in 2010 or Changwon WC 2011 were very tricky. On both of them I used a combination of waiting and shading. The wind was switchy and gusty. I made bold corrections on the sights between a left and a right wind condition and fine tuned with shading from those big corrections. For example, at Belgrade I went 12 clicks on my Anschutz 7020 rear sight (fine clicks) between the left and right condition and shaded from there. Generally if the wind changes are less than a couple of clicks, I will shade a whole match without adjusting the sights.

One of the best ways to train for shading is to use an electronic trainer. You can see exactly where you are holding without the group size of the gun coming into play.

Good luck!
Eric U

Thanks Eric
I hadn't thought of using the Scatt, thats a good idea, we will practice it.

That's really interesting, you use it almost the opposite to what I would have expected as a fine tune rather than a big change, not sure I have the nerve to do fine changes on it!

Thanks for the answer,
Robin and Pam

Hi Robin,
in the past Eric has stated that he uses a very small foresight (4.0 on a long tube). The size of the foresight can be a big factor and SCATT training with the size you use is definitely the way to go.

Ken.

One of my coaches, David Kimes, trained his shading ability. He would get to the range early in the morning for training and look at the wind. If it was dead or very little he would train shading. He would think to himself "I want this shot to be a 10.6 at 10 oclock" or "I am going to shoot a 5 shot group at 10.2 at 4". It worked very well for him.

Personally I shade more than I click. If the wind is really gusty and switchy I will wait until a condition that I know that I can shoot a 10 at a level of shading that I am comfortable with. If I notice that the wind has picked up slowly I will shade until I feel like it wont drop back down then I will take 2-3 clicks (7020) and shoot center.
But that's just me.
Matt

A few notes on equipment setup here. It was just sort of slipped in by KennyB that barrel length and bloop tube length will have an effect on what size front aperture looks the best.

Back in days of old, before bloop tubes were invented it was pretty easy to trade notes on front aperture size, now that is not enough, you also need to know how long a bloop tube and where on the tube the front sight is located. Just a word of caution on comparing aperture sizes.

To train for shading you have to have settled on aperture size. The other fly in the ointment is lighting conditions: The same aperture will appear smaller in poor light and larger in good light. Not that this cannot be dealt with, it just adds another level of excitement.

Cheers,
'Dude

Further to Kenny and Dude,

This muddies the water, but I believe Eric's barrels are slightly shorter at about 23in, so his set up equates to an Anschutz xx13 with an 8in tube. 4.0 would be far to small for me (I use a 4.8 with just a 6in tube), but Eric's medal haul shows it agrees with him.

Michelle Smith, the current British champion, used a 1907 + 12in tube with a 4.2 aperture until the last year.

To me shading is all about training for it and knowing where to point under which circumstances. As Eric says electronic trainers are a great tool but also get out there on windy days and develop a routine. Learn what wind gusts you're confortable with and what you'll wait to change. Some folks will shoot through the winds whilst others prefer to pick specific conditions. But it's all about training for it so you know what to do under any circumstances.

Rob.