| 340 Weatherby |  |
| 340 Weatherby | |
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Books:
Weatherby, The Man. The Gun The Legend , By Grits Gresham and Tom Gresham.
SHOOTING TIPS
One of the most common experiences we all can identify with is varying degrees of flinching, particularly when shooting a
magnum rifle. Suggestions that will help overcome this conditioned reflex follow.
1.First, wear adequate clothing, padded shooting jacketlshirt, quilted vest or leather jacket are all good choices (multiple layers
are best).
2.Second is proper position at your shooting bench. Most shooters lean forward at the bench towards the forend sandbag rest.
This is okay if you're shooting a .22 or 30-30 as their recoils are negligible. However, when shooting magnums one should try
to sit at the bench keeping your torso vertical (not leaning forward) with feet spread for comfortable bracing ("V" or "L"
pattern) and bring the forend rest back to midpoint of forend under stock. Practice this "approach to the bench" until it
becomes natural and comfortable.
3.Next, shoulder the empty (unloaded) rifle with forend on rest.and looking through scope, see if rifle height to bench is
comfortable and sight picture to target is right there. If not, adjust either number of sandbags under tip of rifle butt (toe)
closest to bench top. If necessary, place sandbag(s) or jacket under shooting hand's, elbow & forearm; to give you a solid
steady hold.
4.Then place your non-shooting hand and forearm under the shooting hand wrist/forearm area and reach back and behind
shooting arm elbow and upper arm. Holding this interlock position firmly, you're now ready to dry-fire your rifle.
5.Dry-fire your rifle until you can achieve 5 or more consecutive firings, where your scope's crosshairs remain at the
same point of aim after pulling the trigger as they were at before pulling the trigger. (Note any changes in point of
aim, as that's where your bullet would have hit.)
6.You're now ready to "live" fire your rifle with cartridges. (Be sure to follow all safety and range rules.)
7.Stay relaxed while holding rifle firmly to your shoulder keeping a medium firm grip with off-hand behind shooting hand elbow
and upper arm. Now with proper breathing, hold an exhale at halfway and stay focused on the target through your
scope and squeeze the trigger.
8.Staying focused on the target's bullseye through the moment of firing is very important for a couple of reasons. First, your
goal is to hit that aimpoint and only focused concentration will allow you to actually see where and if, the crosshairs are on
the target at the moment the cartridge fires. (With experience you'll be able to call the hit location on the target before you
look at it through the spotting scope.) Secondly, maintaining keen focused attention on keeping the crosshairs dead center as
you squeeze the shot promotes that conscious activity to override any tendency to flinch. In essence, you're performing the
same kind of dominant focus that occurs when you have that buck or bull in your sights and fire. How many of us even
notice recoil then?!!
9.If you do start to develop a flinch while shooting at the bench, then: a) take a break, stretch or have a Coke, b) go back to
dry-firing or c) after a break, dry-fire repeatedly and keep your posture upright (not leaning forward) with maximum focus on
crosshairs being kept "dead-center" on the bullseye and squeeze the trigger.
10.Another trick that may help if you develop a flinch is to step over to the 50 yard range after a break and repeat dry-fire as
described in steps 5 and 9. Next (at 50 yd.) aim at the 12:00 o'clock position on the "X" ring or dot and fire 3 to 5 rounds.
(You'll probably want to take that target home to show your spouse or hunting buddies.) Go back to the 100 yard range and
fire 5 more rounds with total concentration. End your session feeling good you got any flinching under control.
* Be sure to clean your rifle after each set of 5 shots. Use a good copper solvent such as Shooters Choice or Barnes
CR-10 (let soak in bore 10-15 minutes) and cloth patches until clean. Note where first 2 shots hit on target after cleaning
bore. Often these two will print a little different than shots 3 through 5. (Let barrel cool between each shot 3 to 5 minutes.) If
shots 3, 4 & 5 print at a different point on the target, then hunt with rifle cleaned and a couple "fouling" shots fired through it
before going afield.
* Also, try a couple sets of 3 shot rapid firings and note how the shots group and how you do with fast focused aiming
and shooting. Group size typically will open-up somewhat to 1" or more, that's normal!
* If you use a variable scope on your rifle and your sighting in at higher magnification than you'll most likely hunt with, be
sure to fire a few rounds set at hunting magnification. See if there's any change in group location on the target. Take note of
any differences as this could affect results in the field.
Point Blank Range: Let's say you want to know out to what range your bullet will shoot staying within a 6" vertical
spread of high to low trajectory. In this example let's say, you're using a .257 Arnold and a 100 grain bullet at 3,500 ft/sec.
velocity. Using your reloading book, you look up the caliber, bullet wte. and velocity on a chart provided in the back section.
There it states that this combination prints 2.7" high at 100 yards and will be dead center to point of aim at 300 yards. Even
though your bullet starts out approximately 1.5" below your line of site (barrel to scope height) and initially climbs through the
first 100 yards or so, this can be ignored as our objective point of reference is to stay +/- 3" within our "line of sight" out
beyond 100 yards.
Looking across the chart, it also shows that the bullet climbs to 3.4" above the line of sight at 200 yards. Having set an
upper trajectory limit of 3", we need to adjust elevation downward to a maximum of 3". If we divide 3" by 3.4", we get
88.235%. Next we need to multiply the 2.7" at 100 yards by 88.235% to be consistent with elevation adjustment which gives
us 2.38" point of impact at 100 yards.
Now to determine outer range that the rifle will shoot maintaining the 3" maximum drop in elevation below the line of
sight. At 200 yards the bullet will be 3.00" above line of sight and at 400 yards the bullet will drop (-8.5" + 11.765% or 1"
more) -9.5" below line of sight. Therefore, at 325 yards the bullet is 3" below line of sight (3" divided by 9.5" = 31.5%).
Adding this to 293 yards where bullet now crosses line of sight we get 325 yards point blank range.
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