TargetTalk

What errors do you see in my position and what can I do to change that to the better?

It looks like my back is like a banana but I think that's the jacket sliding up on the right side when I pull up the right leg.

One thing that I feel is that my head tilts back which makes my glas holder beeing a little high and my NPA to get a little high. Don't know what the cause is but maybe I can get an idea.

My jacket doesn't fit that good but it's a regular size and that itself isn't the biggest problem for me not hitting the ten ring.

Hmm. How long have you been shooting and what's your average?

Jason

I've been shooting smallbore for a little more than two years and my average in competition is 580.

The best I've done in training indoors is 589 and I'm often over 580 when shooting indoors.

If you remove your right hand, are you still pointing at the target bull? If not , you may want to try to get your left arm a little more under the rifle.

Johann,

is there anything in particular about your position that you are not satisfied with, or want to improve?

Yes, your back is curved. However it looks as if your shoulders are square to your spine. Often the right shoulder gets pushed back because the butt is too long, or the handstop is too far forward. But your shoulders look level; I think if you move your hips and legs further left your back would be completely straight. If you starighten you back without adjusting the butt or handstop your shoulders will no longer be level.

Your position is quite low (so do I); it looks legal, but not by much. Over a long match it's not unknown for the position to become a little lower as your muscles and tendosn relax. For you, you may become too low. Is your left elbow fully forward? You look to be quite slim, so you may naturally tend to a low position.

Tim

My Opinion,

Left arm should be moved toward centerline of barrel. It appears your sling not only prevents the natural downward motion of your gun but lateral movements too. This can cause a very tense sling transmitting your pulse to the gun. Make sure your right hand is not supporting the gun in anyway.

Bend your right leg to rotate your torso so you can breathe and be not so flat. Doing this will also position your shooting eye more above the centerline of the rifle. It will also allow you to "relax" during long prone matches. You can see how Martynov can relax between shots in the video below.

I recommend you watch the ISSF Youtube Videos associated to Prone Match Finals...you can learn a lot by watching the masters.

The following should help (sorry for the painful advertising).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl3q3ZYW ... age#t=298s

In addition, your head is so upright, it looks painful. Increase the LOP of your gun and move your sight back. Personally, those ultra high sight blocks are really not needed; removal would reduce that upright head too.

Yes I'm pointing at the target bull if I remove my right hand.

This is one thing I don't like:
I feel that my head tilts back which makes my glas holder beeing a little high and my NPA to get a little high. Don't know what the cause is but maybe I can get an idea.

This doesn't happen all the time, when my position works best this doesn't happen.

Yes the position is low but I've tried higher positions and my hold gets really bad and I get tensions in my back. I absord the recoil very good in my position. I'm very slim.

I've watched every final that exists on the internet and the one thing that I see is that everyone uses different positions.

My neck isn't painful and it's a good thing to look with the eye straight from the eye socket. I have a long distance from cheek to shoulder so it's easier to bend the neck when it's long. I'm not sure of lenghtening my LOP gives me any good, in that way I must lie more angled.

The sight raiser blocks gets me a better head position if I tilt my head forward and look with my eye more upwards my eyebrow easily gets in the way.

Just my oppinion:
1 Turn your upper body a bit more from the target, or shift your hips further to the left, in the same angle as your left leg. Then leg-upper body will lie in a straight line and the banana will be gone.
2 You keep the rifle upright and cant your head. Keep your head level (ears at the same height) and cant the rifle to your head.
3 You are slim so you don't have to pull your right knee up as far as you do. If you pull knee up to far, the right hip rises, tension is build in hips and back, and your Centerpoint of Gravity will shift to your left side and you will roll over and NPA will slowly shift to the left.
4 your right shoulder looks higher than the left shoulder (due to pulling up your right knee to far). put your right elbow out just a little further (in combination with right knee not so far up) and shoulders will be level and cpg will stay in the middle of your body instead on the left.
5 If the left part of the shooting jacket is slowly pulling/shifting up over the left shoulder, try buttoning the jacket 1 button offset (the second buttonhole from the top on the top button etc.). This will reduce tension in the shoulder area, armpits en sleeves. In normal standing position this looks odd, and you will receive many strange comments, but for many shooters this works very well (depanding on body shape and size).

Albert T (The Netherlands)

Thanks Albert for a very good answer with information on what to change and what the effect will be. Easier to understand this way.

I have a little tendency for the NPA to shift left so I will certainly test having the knee a little lower and changing the centerpoint of gravity to the right a little.

Nice tip on the shooting jacket I will try this because my jacket is a little loose in the shoulders so it easily slides up over the left shoulder.

Some manufacturers like Kurt Thune and others put extra buttonholes between top and second buttonhole for this purpose. It also works for kneeling position in some cases.

Albert T (The Netherlands)

The jacket looks a little loose but that could just be a consequence of looking at a picture. I'd also suggest your hips and shoulders could be squarer Or rather more parallel with each other- but I've seen a lot worse. The head looks slightly upright but again nothing too drastic (IMHO). Most things though are impossible to see and examine without looking at you physically shooting.

Rob.

One conclusion I can draw from this is that my position doesn't seem to look totally wrong. I will keep on working with the tips that I got and continue the journey to become good at shooting.

I envy people who can bend their necks that far back :)

As my contribution to this discussion, let me ask you this: How's your buttplate contact? Specifically:

- Is the pressure coming from the front, rather than from the top or the bottom?
- Do you feel more contact from the top wing than from the bottom wing?
- When you twist your grip along the barrel axis, does the rifle rotate easily, or do you feel resistance?

Ideally, you want your buttplate to make even contact with your shoulder from top to bottom. The pressure should mainly come from the front. The rifle should resist torquing. This gives good recoil characteristics and minimizes uncalled shots.

Achieving this is surprisingly difficult. I've gotten much better lately with my gun but it's still not perfect.

Do you feel comfortable with your front wrist? In the first picture your wrist seems to be twisted side ways due to the Rifle not being more over the Elbow. It may be the angle of the photo but I would expect the wrist to be straighter so as to put less pressure on the joint.

Sorry I have a "thing" about the support arm.

I have mostly pressure from the front and the pressure from top and bottom wing is equal and a bit less than the middle of the buttplate. The pressure is rather firm and the rifle doesn't twist on the jacket but the jacket is a little loose in the shoulder so the jacket twists.

My wrist isn't that uncomfortable but I sure feel where the sling is after a 60 shot match. Can you specify more what you mean with the wrist being twisted. The hand in relation to wrist is straight, with that I mean that the top of my hand extends straight from the top of my lower arm.

I've done some modifications to my position and wants some help with my thoughts.

I've lowered the sling a little on my left arm and I put my left elbow a little further out from my body. This change is because my handstop is lower than my sling on the left arm and I believe that this is creating excessive pressure on my wrist because the sling must first go down from the arm and then around the wrist and then up to the handstop. This also gives me more angle on the forearm and therefore gets me further from the 30 degree limit. Now my upper arm have less an angle than the forearm which I believe is more correct?

The other thing I realised is that my head wants to go to my right side (on the picture seen from front it's to the left). Now when I have more angle on the forearm my barrel points higher and if I then bring in my right arm this counters and makes my barrel point to the middle of the target. This should shift my weight of the body to my left and make my head point more in that direction.

Any comment about my changes/thoughts?

I've tested my new ideas and I can't have my right elbow further in. Everything gets inconsistent, tensions in the shoulder etc. Putting it out more to the side and a little forward feels much better. The downside is that my right wrist isn't straight when I do this.

Putting my sling a little lower on my left upper arm and having less angle on my upper arm in relation to my forearm feels good. It seems to reduce pressure on the left wrist where the sling passes.