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In this issue:
Mental shooting summarized
Re: Reduced air rifle targets
Re: Reduced air rifle targets
Re: spanish training sites
Re: A Heretic (re)cants
Pistol postal matches
I apologize for the long delay in getting this issue out. The events of 9/11 made this seem rather insignificant. What a sad way to start the List's 6th year. Regardless, my wife and I will be traveling to Germany the 5th through 14th so the next issue won't come out until the 21st probably.
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I don't care one way or another about the difference between "subconscious"
vs "Non Dominant Mental Entity". I in my entirety am a complete entity, and
I plan to be the Dominant Entity in the shooting match! Anything that is of
practical assistance in achieving this is welcome.
In this respect I will summarize my own limited understanding of Coach
Chet's practical advice on the mental shooting process in a few sentences...
1. Study physical positioning techniques and use the correct physical
shooting methods. For rifle shooting, that means everything must be balanced
on bone and sling so that nearly zero muscular effort is needed. For pistol
shooting the arm must be held by the shoulder muscle and the gun must be
held in the shooting grip (and my own comment is that "natural point of aim"
will be at the shooter's foot!), but the same principles still apply with
appropriate modification.
2. The rifle should not be canted, so that (among other reasons) recoil will
be straight up. Instead of canting to achieve proper fit to the shooter's
eye, the stock should be adjusted to achieve the same fit without cant.
3. The shooter must spend time doing mental practice. That is, mentally
review (without rifle or any other equipment) the entire shooting process,
especially including the appearance of the bulls eye perfectly centered in
the front sight as the trigger is pulled. This trains the mind (NDME) in
proper procedures and to recognize when the shot has been properly set up.
4. Correct timing (as practiced above) will be only 1/2 to 2 seconds from
correct position and the decision to shoot, until the gun is fired; else
start over. This is (among other reasons) because the physical eye burns out
when staring at an image, so you cannot clearly see the same frozen image
for longer than a short time.
5. When shooting, get into the correct position including natural point of
aim and so on, then relax and let the trained NDME fire that "Perfect Bulls
Eye". The conscious mind should have very little to do once the decision has
been made to move into shooting position. The properly trained NDME will run
its practiced routine and automatically make whatever slight adjustments are
necessary and fire the gun when everything is perfect, far better than any
conscious effort could.
- Benjamin McLeod
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Tom
6yd air rifle was popular in Great Britain in times past, though with the
rise in legislation over the past few years, this particular discipline has
fallen away somewhat as it was popular in rural bars. However, I am aware
that it continues in small pockets and the NSRA in GB continue to stock
targets . Their website includes an online catalogue (note they also have
10m proportional to 50m if anyone is interested) and I am sure they will
supply overseas enquiries.
www.nsra.co.uk
Regards
Peter
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I realize this is probably not the best way to respond to Tom, but this
is my best at the moment. Subject is about shooting air rifle at 25
feet. The National Target Company, Rockville, Md has
Training/Qualification light paper 25 foot targets w/1 bull or 5/bull
.Same price @ 2.70/100 plus shipping.
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A good spanish site with some training information about pistol &
rifle is:
www.galeon.com/ctoa
or
www.tiro-olimpico.com
if you want some in portuguese:
www.ctdcarreco.web.pt
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>Chet wrote: Under cant conditions the recoil is variable because of
the variable butt hook or plate positioning upon the shoulder at each
shot caused during recoil. Because of this variable positioning of
recoil impact on the shoulder is never the same and therefore the point
of impact is never the same at each shot fired.
I don't agree with the above. The butt does not slide around on the shoulder
during recoil, or if it does, it is far too loose. In any event, the
shooter will reposition the buttplate if required, after each shot as
part of the reloading/settling in procedure.
So why does anybody cant the rifle? Simply look at the geometry of the
rifle and the shooter's face and you can see why. There is an invisible
line through the centre of the foresight and the rearsight. The centre
of the eye is placed on a continuation of this line just behind the
rearsight. Below the sightline is the cheekpiece. And below the
shooter's eye, is a cheekbone and a little lower, directly beneath, the
jawbone. Between the jawbone and the cheekbone is a mass of soft tissue
(the cheek). Now, the shooter's cheek and jaw both want to occupy the
same space as the cheekpiece of the rifle. So something has to be
shifted. Manufacturers try to accommodate the shooter's face by
providing a moveable cheekpiece. But usually this cannot be adjusted
enough. So the shooter can either squash the face firmly against the
cheekpiece (resulting in lateral pressure and resultant variable
recoil) or move the cheekpiece away by rotating the rifle about the
sightline as a pivot (canting).
That achieves the following: the right eye now aligns naturally with
the sights. The right hand falls naturally on the pistol grip so the
wrist is straightened which reduces the curling of the trigger finger
caused by having the right hand bent back, and allowing better
trigger control. There is minimal side pressure on the shooter's face so
ensuring little lateral force on the cheekpiece and allowing a near
vertical recoil. Also there is minimal pushing up of the cheek which can
distort the vision as the lower lid is pushed up on to the eye.
The resultant setup is akin to the laterally displaced sights which
were built onto the Bren semi-automatic rifle of World War Two and the
Schultz and Larsen target rifle which I believe was still being
manufactured in the 1960s.
A canted rifle has the sights offset. Fine, but for adjustments either
learn to live with it or buy the new rotatable versions (at a cost!).
The butt plate can still be set up properly to engage the right
shoulder in the optimal position and the recoil is just as close to
vertical as if the rifle were held upright. By the way, I have
questioned many international shooters, some of whom have won world
championships, and more than half have said that their recoil was not
vertical but directed up to one o'clock. I have always assumed that
this is because the left fore-arm partly governs the direction of the
recoil and it points up to the one o'clock sector. These shooters, by
the way, all thought that consistent recoil mattered much more than
vertical recoil per se.
Finally, the fore-end rail can be moved to the left if required to
compensate for having lots of cant. That would then leave the barrel
directly over the left hand again if it were shifted enough, say 5mm
at the max.
So, those of you who would like to cant your rifles go for it and
forget the guilt trip. Your position is theoretically at least as good
as that of the vertically held rifle and probably a lot more
comfortable for you.
Tom Mulvey
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Hey Michael,
Are there any Air Pistol/Standard Pistol postal matches in the US that follow the UIT regulations? I am interested in participating.
Thanks.
Samir
[Editor - see the Matches page on my site. I know Don Williams still runs his postals. He'll be out of the country 10/5-14]
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End of UIT Mailing List #1
Michael Ray - DBA & Systems Engineer
Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. Rifle Coach
UIT Shooting Page - http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1190/index.htm
