Training - Prone - DRC - 16th August 2010

I'm still tweaking, very subtly, the new rifle setup, and keeping primarily focused on prone for the time being, with the other positions as supplementary. The results from the session were that I lengthened the butt somewhat, providing very solid pressure in the shoulder, which requires me to open the shoulder deliberately, insert the butt of the rifle and close it up again. The other beneficial side effects are that the handstop does not bite into my hand so much, and my trigger hand is extended straight and solid from elbow to grip. It feels excellent, allows my head to sit comfortably and naturally, applying plenty of pressure, and the improved feeling between elbow and hand allows a firm grip, which enables good, solid shots to be released in good time. Recoil is small and while not yet perfectly consistent, is improving dramatically.

I shot a practice match, resulting in 574, with two of the cards being fairly disappointing, the first and third, a 190 and a 189, and the middle card a 195. I'd like to keep my 50m cards above 193 as a minimum, and am typically able to with the new rifle, so it's just a case of spending more time in position and getting plenty of shots down. The wind was a bit tricky during the match. I had one flag set up fairly close in, but couldn't set one up further down, and this was telling, as there were some uncalled nines where you'd expect to find them from wind errors. My own typical errors were vertical, usually from holding on target too long or visual defects. I'd taken a smack to the head that day, which may account for vision issues. I was testing some RWS R50 I'd bought as well, and while I'm not a hundred per cent convinced of its usefulness, it seems fine for now. I'll test it some more tomorrow and thursday, with thursday being indoors. Hopefully it will be good as I may use it for the weekend aggregate matches.

I'd like to shoot 580+ in the full 50m match and 388+ in the forty-shot one on sunday. I know it's achievable, but I'm still very much getting back into shooting after the break, so hopefully my stamina and muscle memory won't hold me back. I'm going to try shoot fast and take a two-minute break in position every ten shots to rest my support hand to prevent fatigue as much as possible. I'd expect that over the next month or so, I'll happily get up into the 580s for 50m prone, and hopefully by the end of the year be averaging in the high 580s. Just a case of building on stamina and spending time in position now. I'll post again before the weekend after I've done some more training and after it with match results and observations.