Rifle Drills
BY Herschel Smith
5 years ago
I guess we all learned to shoot watching old movies because most folks emulate the actors and bring the rifle down off the shoulder, especially to run a bolt or lever. This practice wastes time and encourages failing to follow through, that is, re-acquiring the sight or the reticle after the shot. We should run the gun from the shoulder and be ready for the next shot as needed, and this takes a bit of practice. You can drill this by doing dry practice then setting up a target at 25 yards and firing a string of 3 to 5 shots, standing, working the gun from the shoulder.
I’m not certain what he’s saying here. If he’s saying that you must shoot a bolt action rifle differently than an AR, I agree.
If he’s saying that the “plate-forward aggressive” stance for an AR must be corrected, I disagree. I think his explanation could have used some work. And I didn’t learn to square up against a target with an AR from watching movies.
On November 25, 2019 at 5:57 am, MN Steel said:
It’s not the stance he’s talking about, it’s about the difference of running the bolt in the shoulder pocket versus dropping the rifle down before running the bolt.
In other words, if you’re not making that ’03A3 sound like an M1, you’re doing it wrong.
On November 25, 2019 at 8:14 am, Herschel Smith said:
Ah. Okay. I would have said it differently, but whatever. I would have said something like “Keep the rifle on the shoulder to cycle the bolt in order to have success in rapid re-acquisition of sight picture.”
On November 26, 2019 at 2:10 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
Learning to run a bolt-action without breaking the cheek-weld or sight-picture is an advanced skill. One often tied up with such things as learning to sling up properly, and learning to get a slung rifle shouldered and ready to fire as promptly as possible. In case that charging rhino or lion is intent upon harming/eating you.
It bears repeating that many of today’s bolt guns don’t come with iron sights – which is a failing if traditional iron-sight mastery is desired. Many bolt-gunners put too-much glass atop their rifles – opting for too much magnification and too little field of view. Many seasoned big-game hunters say that no more than 4-6x power optics are needed on most hunts. Perhaps counter-intuitively, the less magnification needed, the better. This makes sense. The higher the magnification and lesser the field of view, the greater the tremble and movement apparent in the scope.
Running a semi-auto or SLR is a different ballgame in some respects, but the fundamentals still apply.
On November 26, 2019 at 10:16 pm, MN Steel said:
I learned as a kid how to run a bolt, quickly and accurately, with an old Remmy Scoremaster, usually with a 1 1/2″ pipe as a target.
Load a mag, start at 25 yards, and see how quickly you can put all seven on-steel, backing up when you have a couple without misses.
Scales up easily, and you can impress the neighbors when they ask why you’re only firing 5-round clips out of your Garand and you show them the A3 or whatever. Military bolts are designed to not be babied.