Shooting Off Hand

[Ontario Hunter]

Wise words sir. I think realistic training involves shooting freehand and with all types of improvised rests, like rocks, trees, backpacks, or whatever.

I have a disorder called essential tremor that causes me to shake. With that, freehand is a struggle for me and requires training on my part.

I have a go pro down the barrel video from my last ele. You guys are going to rib me so hard about the shaking when I get around to posting it. For whatever reason I ended up with no sticks when the time came. I never even thought about it and made it happen because I had trained for that scenario. It was only after that I thought, well some sticks would have been nice.

Essential tremor? I'll have look that one up. Sounds like a disorder for ragtime piano players. Glad you have stuck with it and kept hunting.

 

[zephyr]

Last two Safaris I shot a total of 7 animals 5 were off hand

 

[HankBuck]

A majority of rifles used by North American hunters are no longer well suited to offhand shooting. Stocks are too straight, length of pull too short, balance and handling wrong, scopes oftentimes too big and with too critical eye relief. The USA manufactured hunting rifle market has evolved to provide a majority of hunting rifles that are best suited to prone shooting or shooting off a bench rest and for shooting at long range. Probably because that's how most people shoot when practising at the range.

I try to avoid offhand shooting while hunting, but I practise quite a lot, and my hunting rifles are all designed to be well suited to offhand shooting. Most of my rifles are made in Europe. Manufacturers there seem to understand the design features required for optimum versatile hunting functionality.

I prefer Bavarian style or Monte Carlo stocks, some weight forward balance, a relatively open pistol grip, small, low powered scopes with non-critical eye relief and mounted low, with simple reticles, and an action that is smooth enough to quickly reload without taking the rifle off the shoulder. Quite a rare thing to find and purchase in today's market.

@Longwalker - agree, today most scopes are over powered and have more magnification then needed for Big game under 400 yrds. Jack O’Connor wrote that a “good rifleman” should be able to hit a 9” plate Off Hand at 200 yrds. And also that a 6 Power scope was all that was needed for Big Game. Now, he also considered a 400 yrd shot “max range” for most Hunters (and I do too) But - he hunted during a time when there were NO “range finders” and very few good “variable scopes”. My opinion and preference is for a light weight, low profile scope between 2-7, 3-9, or 3.5-10 power —- these scopes seem to fit all my needs from predators (fox/Coyote) to Big game. For DG a 1 - 5 power or 1.75-6 feels about right. Still, there are some situations where the very heavy, high magnification scopes with adjustable turrets can permit much longer shots to be made with a high percentage of success and 500+yrd shots are now being made. I have No interest in lugging around a “sniper rifle” that weighs 10 lbs., and looks uglier then the fattest girl at the Prom - not even if it can “deliver the goods”. But i have respect for those that have learned how to make a 500+ yrd shot with consistency — I can’t.

 

[Rare Breed]

@Longwalker - agree, today most scopes are over powered and have more magnification then needed for Big game under 400 yrds. Jack O’Connor wrote that a “good rifleman” should be able to hit a 9” plate Off Hand at 200 yrds. And also that a 6 Power scope was all that was needed for Big Game. Now, he also considered a 400 yrd shot “max range” for most Hunters (and I do too) But - he hunted during a time when there were NO “range finders” and very few good “variable scopes”. My opinion and preference is for a light weight, low profile scope between 2-7, 3-9, or 3.5-10 power —- these scopes seem to fit all my needs from predators (fox/Coyote) to Big game. For DG a 1 - 5 power or 1.75-6 feels about right. Still, there are some situations where the very heavy, high magnification scopes with adjustable turrets can permit much longer shots to be made with a high percentage of success and 500+yrd shots are now being made. I have No interest in lugging around a “sniper rifle” that weighs 10 lbs., and looks uglier then the fattest girl at the Prom - not even if it can “deliver the goods”. But i have respect for those that have learned how to make a 500+ yrd shot with consistency — I can’t.

To be clear, no one wants to shoot off hand at their animals at least I surely don’t. I want sticks or a tree for a steady rest. It’s just this safari did not give me that option for two of my DG. I was just glad I had practiced in case it was needed

 

[Green Chile]

I heartily agree with getting off the bench rest position after sighting in. Most of my practice is from sticks and various positions using them. I have also practiced a lot on getting to any kind of shooting support quickly! When we are getting close to shooting in the field, I'm looking for how to get to a rest quickly. The PH will start to turn or the sticks will start coming down and I am RIGHT there. I shot 12 impala for bait on the leopard hunt last Oct and all 12 were from sticks in high grass stalking quickly. Half of those were head shots because that's all I could see and we needed the bait! I could not have done that offhand.

Because I can do it quickly, I've only had one off hand shot in Africa, which was up close on tuskless in a herd of cows. I thought about that and it really is just one shot out of many. Practice the offhand for sure...just practice more from sticks. My .02

 

[Nyati]

I was 58 when I first hunted in Africa, and was very surprised when my PH brought forward a shooting tripod ! I had never used such a thing before.

 

[Puddle]

Regular field practice is handy when choosing to hunt critters packing attitude.

With my last buff he was too close and too interested in me for sticks. It was 3 rounds of A-Frames lickety-split and off-hand in ~7 seconds to resolve the matter.

Watch a secondhand step through 7 seconds; sometimes it can seem to take forever ...