What competitive shooting have you done? There are many of us who were or are very serious competitors. How do the fundamentals of marksmanship and competition techniques enable your shooting of dangerous game rifles? Let’s discuss?
I started shooting at bulls eye targets in 1960 as an officer candidate in the Marine Corps. Later, with friends who had shot on collegiate rifle teams, I started real competition. I never qualified as less than Expert with either rifle or pistol in the Marine Corps and in Okinawa, in 1965, I was in charge of the battlion rifle team in the Far Eastern Division Matches.
I earned my first "leg" on distinguished there, but instead of going back to the states for further competition, we were all shipped to Vietnam, where I carried out my duties as part of the Marine Amphibious Force staff armed with my 1911 Colt automatic and an M1 Thompson submachine gun I acquired through unofficial channels.
When I was released from active duty in 1966, I became a member of the USMCR rifle team and continued with that until I left the reserves in 1971.
As a civilian, I was a member of the Tennessee State High Power Rifle Team which competed at Camp Perry and eventually became the 499th individual to earn the title of Distinguished Rifleman. I did not continue with pistol competition, but never failed to qualify as "Expert" in the Marine Corps.
I also became acquainted with trap and skeet competition in the Marine Corps and was for a while the Officer in Charge of the Camp Courtney skeet range in Okinawa. Later, back in Quantico, I practiced with two members of the US Olympic Team in International Skeet and Trap, and as a civilian competed in International Skeet events, which gave me gun mounting skills which were later valuable in the hunting field.
I also experimented with smallbore shooting, both indoor and outdoor. I obtained the NRA classifacation of "Master" in indoor and outdoor position and outdoor prone.
I continued competetive shooting until a vision problem with my right eye put an end to it. I now hunt with a rifle left handed, which I became adept enough with to the point that virtually every shot I have taken at a deer has been successful. This has been shooting from a blind, where shooting from a rest is possible.
In Africa, I killed every large animal I shot at. The difficulty I had was with the smallest animals, with which I sometimes overestimated the distance and shot over them. I never failed to down a large animal, with one exception: a Beisa oryx, which took a step farward just as I fired, causing me to hit him about a foot to the rear of where I was aiming. This was at a range of roughly 300 yards, and we eventually recovered the animal.
Now, at age 84, I am restricted to hunting from a ground blind and in recent years the opportunities have been scarce, but I have never failed to take advantage of those which did present themselves. I have now killed deer with 34 different rifle calibers and look forward to adding more to the list. The most recent addition to the list was the 7.62X39 cartridge, fired from my Ruger Mini-14. One shot was enough.
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Qualification in the military (Seabees, Army) with rifle, mg, pistol. Scored Marksman and Expert with all. Always competition among the troops and some side pots. Shot 3 gun and sporting clays for several years after that. Taught me breath control, trigger control, estimating range, shot placement as well as speed. Really helps in the field.Expert pistol and rifle for Uncle Sam
Excellence In Competition badge (bronze) for pistol.
Shot a couple of high-power rifle matches and got my marksman rating.
Some IPSC shot with combat rules vs. chasing the brass ring games.
I think that learning the square range fundamentals helped me to understand better how to train for my safari. Totally different standards for "minute of Impala/kudu/oryx, etc.," vs. bullseye shooting on a range.
I am proud that I took each of my trophies with a properly placed kill shot. Twice I a put a follow-up shot down range before the PH expected it. I trained for that prior to going. The understanding of the differences between square range training and application in the field is what drove me to put in the work learning to run the bolt so that I did things properly in RSA.
I was pretty serious in the shotgun games quite a number of years ago, shooting at the AA level in skeet and master class in sporting clays.