Basic Marksmanship part 2

TexGrebnerOutdoors — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:44:15 -0700

Building a good solid shooting platform is very important in the standing position.
Feet shoulder length Apart, keep your elbows on your ribs and twist your torso to adjust your natural point of aim. acquire your Sight Picture with correct point of aim, by using natural point of aim you can reduce your Ark of movement, you must feel the shot which is very hard to remain stable in the standing position while squeezing Trigger, make sure to Follow through on the shot or the bullet will not go where you want it to.

Basic Marksmanship part 1

TexGrebnerOutdoors — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:41:58 -0700

Marksmanship can be broken down into 3 parts,

Sight Picture,
Ark of movement,
Trigger control,
Follow through.

Sight picture is broken down into sight Alignment which is where the front and rear sight is in relation to each other, and Point of aim which is the sights relationship to the target.

Ark of movement can be reduced by shifting your body into its natural point of aim, the body is mostly fluid and so fluid take the shape of what ever container it is put into, by finding the natural point of aim and changing the container ie the body a more stable position can be achieved hence dampening the ark of movement., however breathing will also make waves in the body that is fluid and so by trying to shoot during the natural pause between breaths, if natural point of aim and natural pause are both used you are at your most stable natural position and ark of movement has been reduced as much as possible.

unless all the previous steps are followed and maintained while squeezing the trigger slowly to the rear until the shot going of is a surprise then the bullet will not go where you want it to. any disruption in the steps makes all the other worthless. It is very hard to control the trigger and not force the shot to go off because you may not always be shooting from the most comfortable position.

Also Follow through! Maintain all steps untill the target is hit, if while pulling the trigger you drop the rifle to see your shot hit the target you will miss every time and this is very hard not to do. You must have confidence that you will hit where you want to hit and ease the weapon down after a shoot after holding a good position.

Choosing a Compond Bow

TexGrebnerOutdoors — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:20:12 -0700

Choosing a Compound Bow
The Decision to buy a bow and get into the spiritual sport of Archery hunting is a milestone in one’s life. However there are many options for buying as many as you can wave a sharp stick at. I personally do not care what bow a person buys because it is theirs and not mine. However the bow is only as good as the archer all things considered. For Instance You can give Uncle Ted a crappy Party Guitar from some college house and he will pick it up and play it like Ted Nugent. Why is that? Because he is damn Good on Guitar but did not get Good letting his guitar collect dust between tours. The same goes with Archery the bow is only as Good as its Archer. So before you get all wrapped up in brand names and fancy crap. A few things that you want to look for, and this is very important for those just starting out in archery as well as bow hunting.
Find out your draw length. The way to do this is in your local pro-shop there should be a bow with an Arrow attached to it that has marking on it or something similar you draw this bow back to your anchor point. What is an anchor Point? The Anchor point is the place that you always bring your shooting hand back to how far you draw the bow back must be the same length every time for consistency of shots. There are many Variables involved in archery even if it is a very Primal and spiritual sport. So by drawing the bow back to an anchor point which I will revisit very soon, but by drawing the bow back to this point someone can mark the arrow and thus your draw length can be determined.
Find your comfortable draw weight. Some people are stronger than others or have more stamina. The key to successful archery is consistency. And if your draw weight is not comfortable then after many repetitions of your draw you will begin to wear down and your accuracy will degrade rapidly. Also in the field you may need to hold your bow at full draw while waiting for that Elephant’s or Rhino’s leg to come forward and give you a clear and ethical shot at his vitals. Or for most of us while Bambi’s dad is watching us from behind a tree while he saw us stand and draw our bow and we need him to step out. If you can’t hold your bow back that long when you do touch your arrow off it may not be a clean killing ethical shot. The way to find your draw weight is a little more difficult. Make sure that whatever bow you plan to buy has a wide enough variation on it as possible draw weights. Also you will need to check your local game laws to ensure that you are within the minimum draw weight of your state. If you are very new begin on the lowest draw weight until you have built the strength to move up. But move as slowly as you need to and make sure that whatever draw weight your bow is set on is comfortable.
These two basic concepts are some of the most important to choosing a compound bow.
Other considerations are the silence of shooting which can be affected by vibrations caused by the great speed at which the bow operates. This can be mitigated with such things as string suppressors and any other think that you can think of to sell to a hunter. Also the smoothness of the draw and the pickup points of the pulleys that operate the bow this is also called its breaking point. Which is characteristic of compound bows that the pulleys at a certain point will provide help in drawing the bow. Some bows have the 80% let off some have a 60% let of and also check your local laws for what let of you can legally have, I have also heard rumors of a bow which has a 99% let off. But having the bow itself help hold its own string back is one of the nice things about modern archery. But if the string does not pull smoothly and the let off point is not solid you may find the bow string wandering forward and hard to hold back. This is loosely referred to as the wall. A solid let off point that keeps the bow string from creeping forward. Also if the bow does not draw smoothly then the bow will not release smoothly.
Finding your anchor point. As referred to before the anchor point is the place that your shooting hand must always be when at full draw to keep every shoot consistent. This takes practice and trial and error. If you shoot with fingers only it will be different than if you shoot with a release. However because the Trigger Release is very popular I believe it is the one that applies most. For Instance my Anchor point is behind my right ear with the knuckle of my trigger finger that is closest to my fist tucked into the hollow behind my ear. You find your anchor point by finding out where you are comfortable drawing your bow back to every time. However it is one of the things that you will not really know in the store you will have to find it out in practice. However having a good idea of where to place your hand while figuring out your draw length is helpful but your set anchor point will only be determined after hours of practice and it will become no longer a realized action to find it when you draw your bow.
Hopefully this can be helpful to those who are very new to the sport of Archery. This is very basic and there will be more advanced Topics in the future.

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Basic Marksmanship part 2

Basic Marksmanship part 1

Choosing a Compond Bow