Bench Resting the Rifle for Accuracy Evaluations

The last article for the Goosepit went into some basics on hunting bullet selection and I included a short step by step guide which one can use to select a commercial hunting bullet for a specific hunt.   My conclusions were that a hunter or target shooter will take several types of bullets and loads to the range for his own evaluation and from this evaluation he will make some decisions concerning which one he chooses for the purpose required.   For most shooters, the range session means he wants to see how accurate his loads are given his equipment.   If a shooter soaks down news paper or brings ballistic gelatin and probably a chronograph of some sort, he can get a pretty good look at all aspects of ballistics from internal through terminal over the short range he will be using.   This article is intended for those who do not want to mess with a chronograph and who trust what ever bullets they have to perform terminally to the degree the shooter requires so there is no need for soaked newspaper or gelatin. 

REVIEW 

Before continuing on, I suggest that you review my previous three articles for the Goosepit.  My first article defined shooting as aligning the sights with the eye, pointing the aligned system where the shooter wants it pointed to the degree of perfection he wants, then moving his trigger finger without causing a misalignment between the sights and his eye.  My second article gave some clear instructions on inspecting the rifle to ensure it is mechanically ready for a shooting session and my third article concerned selecting the bullets and loads that you will now be testing.  I reiterate these because you don’t want to toss ‘dollar a shot’ bullets down range to no success because some part of your rifle was loose or because you did not have a clear means to troubleshoot your performance.  This is an issue of economics and efficiency so you can be certain that if a load fails to live up to your expectations, at least it was not because of you.

 Don’t Forget Nothing

 I include this because most guys who work with their rifle just prior to hunting season are not used to planning a shooting session so they forget things.  Normally they remember their rifle and ammunition but then it is a ‘crap shoot’.  My way of remembering what is needed for a range session is to visualize every aspect of the session then check to make sure I have that piece of gear.  A few basics to jog your memory are: 

  1. Rifle / Optic / Sling

  2. Ammunition

  3. Ear plugs and ear muffs

  4. Shooting glasses

  5. Sand Bags

  6. Tripod or support for the forend

  7. Targets

  8. Pasties

  9. Ruler

  10. Staple Gun

  11. Tools which fit the rifle / optics (allen wrenches most of the time)

  12. Cleaning Gear with Carb Cleaner and cleaning rods

  13. Notebook to record group sizes

Establishing a Bench Position: Probably the most stable position is off a bench rest of some sort.  Some ranges only allow one to fire off of a bench so I imagine that most of us use a bench particularly to evaluate loads as the bench is supporting the rifle and not you so movement is minimized.  All I am giving here is a demand that you must make on the equipment you have for the same equipment to conform to your requirements in terms of position and not the other way around.  You make your gear work for you, something that few shooters ever do.  Here are some tips concerning benching your rifle.

1.  You should fit on the bench comfortably so that you don’t have to strain anything.  I know this sounds weird but most shooting facilities have one size fits all benches or even worse.  If the stool you are to sit on is not high enough -- put something on it so when you are seated you can get behind the rifle and that you are high enough so that the rifle fits you with your eye high enough for the optic. 

2.  Place your bench rest where you want it and put your sand bag on top of it.  Sand bags are very easily made from Shotgun Lead Shot bags whose size seems perfect for these periodic shooting sessions.  Depress the sand bag so that your forend fits into it.

3.  Put a skinny sand bag under the toe of the stock. 

4.  Sit down and adjust your set up until the rifle / rest / sand bags are such that the sights are aligned with your eye while you are in a position that is most stable and comfortable for you.  You must make the tools you are using conform to you and not the other way around.  Most tripods adjust up and down and you can always use more or less sand bags.  I normally get a 90 percent from my set up and then pinch the rear sand bag with my non-firing hand to elevate or depress the barrel of the rifle for the other 10 percent of perfection needed.

5.  Dry fire a number of times in your position and see how much dry firing moves your barrel left or right of your target.  Adjust the tripod or the rear sand bag to bring the barrel closer to a position that by dry firing the rifle will stay in place.

Targets:  I am not real hung up on targets as targets only give feedback to you as to how well you pointed your rifle when you pulled the trigger.  The feedback is in terms of the holes made in a piece of paper.  Therefore you can imagine that I use what for me is correct in terms of target sizes and colors.  As we are doing some scientific analysis of accuracy while shooting our ammunition I want a target that eliminates as much human error of perception as possible.  Therefore I want a very black circle on a very light color background.  Not white as it reflects too much but light in color as most store bought bullseye targets are.  Furthermore, the black must not be so large as I lose the center nor too small that my cross hairs cover up too much of it.  With optically sighted rifles, I use a 25 yard Standard American Pistol Target at 100 and 200 yards and a 50 yard Standard American Pistol Target at 300 yards.   If I use iron sights I will use a 50 yard pistol target at 100 yards.

Ready to Shoot:  You have gone through some planning already in terms of ammunition types and have spent some time on your rifle to ensure it is mechanically sound.  It has taken you about fifteen minutes to set up the bench and put in your targets so now as you shoot you will be asking yourself a couple of questions.  First -- how good is good, and second how to compare loads for accuracy potential.  But that is for the next article.   In the mean time, drag out your rifle with some of that ten year old ammo and do some serious work with them on a range.

Gene Econ