Whether you are looking to acquire the skills to make well-placed shots on your yearly competition rifle matches where you need to shoot targets from 100 to 1,000 yards, or for enhancing your skills as an army marksman: Here are some practical tips to help you make the shot.
3 Shooting tips for any army marksman
Being a good marksman is not just about being the most skilled. It is also about forming and implementing strategies as well as tools which can dramatically improve your performance. These tips are supposed to help a beginner as well as an experienced marksman.
Invest in and take a good look at your Rifles
Long-range shooting can be addictive and fun. But you need to equip for the challenge involved as well. It goes unsaid that when you are getting serious about or upping your rifle game, the first thing you need to look at is your rifle. Here are a few quick pointers:
- Choose and practice with the guns and rifles that clearly make the cut for army scouts, marksmen, and snipers. Precision rifles have come a long way today and you can find all kinds of rifles out there- Looking for hunting? Find a lightweight rifle that will be comfortable in difficult terrains. Maybe some of the most accurate .223 rifles may do the job. Target shooting games or sniping? You need to look for a heavy bull barrel paired with a lightweight chassis system.
- Check the trigger pull and get comfortable with it. It is more important than you can imagine, in taking accurate shots.
- Breaking in your rifles would be important too. Otherwise, they tend to foul out after a few rounds.
- While we are talking about investing in rifles, it would be a good idea to take a look at your gun-cleaning kits too. Don’t try to cheap that out, as you need to clean the rifles properly to restore their accuracy.
Get a good long-range scope
Next comes the scope. In the case of long-range shooting, working without a good scope is a plain waste of time. Now, when you do get out to find a good long-range scope, there are a few things you need to keep in mind-
An Objective lens: It is going to impact your sight picture. With wider, bigger lenses, you’ll be able to get a much better view of the field even with high magnification.
Magnification: It’s not just the caliber of your bullets and the weapon itself that determines the range of your rifle. Your available magnification settings will have a drastically wide effect on the potential range of your rifle- probably more than you’d give it credit for. You might have to choose your scope according to your gun as well. But some of the best of the long-range scopes come with a top magnification between 20x and 30x.
Adjustments: There are multiple adjustments that scopes allow. As you move up the budget, you will also find variable magnifications.
Durability: Of course, you want a scope that can stand the test of time.
Some other aspects to care would include eye relief, lens coating, weight, and reticle types. Also, replacing your old scopes may not be as expensive as you might expect.
Positioning and personal adjustment
Once you equip yourself with the right rifle, the next thing to take care of is your position and comfort. There is no single universally comfortable position. It varies from person to person and you find your comfort angle and body-position with months (if not years) of practicing. Now, while every shooter may have their signature positions, a basic thing to look for is the balance in your structure that absorbs the recoil.
And then, of course, practice, practice and more practice. Shooting is more or less of an art and a skill that ultimately improves with the trainin. Practice from different positions, in different atmospheres, environmental conditions, and from different distances. You’ll eventually figure out your zones.
This article was written by John Kingston of https://proreviewbuzz.com