PRS QUICKNESS AND ELIMINATING WOBBLE
By les voth
It has occurred to me after four two day National Qualifier PRS matches this year that there is a real reason why I’m slow, besides age. I haven’t been trying to be quicker!
After this last match, last weekend, as my analytical self was reviewing my poky performance, an awareness has come to me that I’ve not felt any kind of urgency when the RO beeps the beeper. I’ve been so used to acquiescing to the pain, and the memory of it, that my performance has become robotic - and not fast robot.
Because of that I purposefully decided that on most 10 shot stages six well aimed/executed shots were enough. Becoming satisfied with that, there was no push beyond it even when there was time to continue.
It’s time to test a theory:
At most two day matches there are two minutes to perform at the highest level you can summon/generate. It’s time to practice pushing beyond what has become my normal slow pace. Time to feel the need for speed!
On Ken Wheeler’s July 7th Precision Rifle Series Podcast, Justin Watts talked about some tactics/strategy for better shooting. One of the things he mentioned was how you should put your rifle on a prop, hold it with your hand on top of the scope - preferably on a diving board - and use that hand to direct the rifle.
Then you can sneak up on the scope before loading your shoulder into the stock, and don’t do more than touch the stock with your body/shoulder, not upsetting your sight picture with it.
(That’s the gist of it, not his words exactly, but the essence.)
I had been loading my body into the stock - hard - on a barricade. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not. Last weekend I took off the Gray Ops bag stop that conveniently did not allow me to overshoot the balance point of the rifle. Because of the length of the barrel - 30" - and how heavy it is - 1.25" straight - the balance point of the rifle was a ways ahead of the magazine well, so the bag stop helped index the rifle quicker.
BUT, the bag stop encouraged me to load into the rifle with a lot of force and I wanted to try Justin’s way of eliminating wobble - Get your body off the gun! - during this match.
Thanks, Justin, it worked! While I was no faster, and had to be pretty careful in placing the gun on the bag, the reticle was the calmest it has ever been at any distance.
There will be a time, I think, when I replace the bag stop, because it helps index the bag quicker, but I have to get used to not loading into the rifle and using it as a crutch, first.
Les’ons Learned & To Be Practiced:
Develop a sense of urgency. Stop loading my body into the rifle.
Old Dogs & New Tricks
