Training - Prone - DURC - 7th November 2009

Have been experimenting lately with shooting trousers for prone. I've have some good days and some bad days with and without them. Am beginning to conclude that I'm best off with consistency, and for convenience's sake, I'm going to continue without them for the time being, barring further involvement with three positions.

The objective today was a positional rebuild. What I was looking for was
Tightness
More elevation
Less angled from line of fire

Results were that those were achieved. I shortened the buttplate carrier, brought in the handstop slightly. initially, this wasn't quite right, tension was poor, but I pushed the handstop back out slightly and tightened the sling, keeping the carrier short, and it allowed a good, relatively straight on position, with good tension.

A bonus effect was that a good deal of the cant I've been trying to reduce on my setup disappeared. The buttplate carrier is still canted, but the system has been made simpler and this will hopefully transfer to easier control under match conditions, less sensitivity and ultimately, better scores.

Shot some groups with the setup, which were very promising for initial testing. I was also looking for greater comfort in my wrist from the elevated position, and this was definitely a major benefit. I spent forty shots in position between groups and a card, and comfort was massively improved. If I improve my tempo and train for it, a whole match without a break is conceivable now. The card was only a 96, but the tens were dead centre, consistently, and the 9s were just slightly out, due to small variations in vertical cheek pressure. I need to play very delicately with my cheekpiece setting, seems to have changed by a couple of millimetres by raising the position. Might get a training session in later, in which case I'll see how solid I can get it. It's the last thing I need to tighten with the rebuild, and then it'll be a case of learning the subtleties of it and shooting in it a lot.

The new jacket is fully broken in now. As such, the buttons have shifted and are no longer quite perfectly positioned. I'm going to go down to the range tonight and get some help with that. Hopefully will improve things further.