Quote:
|
Then master Rick worked his magic and had me shoot prone. Big change. Nothing wrong with the rifle. Nothing wrong with my belly-shooting either, but now I learn that bench without bolting the rifle down require more focus/skill with weighing down the rifle with proper spot weld and pulling that stick in...hard.
|
The equipment you use at the bench is extremely important. How you shoot from the bench is extremely important. Shooting off of hard sand bags without a rear rest with a light rifle is a good way to look foolish. Flimsy stocks with lots of flex will jump around like a jack rabbit with a coyote after it. With proper technique and equipment you should be able to shoot better from a bench than prone with a bipod but it is a skill to be mastered.
The reverse is also true- shooting from a bipod is a skill to be learned and which bipod and what you use to rest the rear is important. One of the great problems in hunting is finding a suitable spot on the ground to shoot from. Here is a picture of my 1000 yard F-class 308 rifle after I have hit an antelope at 638 yards. Because I set the rear bag on top of a brushy spot instead of bare earth the rear of the rifle was not properly supported and the bullet lands 2 MOA different than what I expected. It takes a second shot to finish the animal. Out in the real world as opposed to the range you have to deal with problems and make decisions and your choice of shooting spot is a critical decision.
As TS mentions about snipers, one of my duties/responsibilities as the Recon Sniper platoon leader was to ensure that my sniper teams had locations from which to observe and shoot and from which they could expect to find a person to shoot. This is a lot more complicated than most people realize being as predicting human or prey behavior is difficult.