likeimjohnwayne wrote:bladeracer wrote:Enjoy trying to hit these tiny bastards offhand
Geez, I had no idea just how small they are!
I've gone bald trying to shoot these little pricks even when there's no wind
You need to start by finding the ammo that lets your rifle maintain 1-minute groups at 100m (5rds into 29mm consistently) off a bench, without at least that you'll struggle, in my opinion. The body mass of the ram for example is only two-minutes tall. With a two-minute rifle you'll nail it every time...off the bench. Trying to hold two-minutes offhand at 100m, for five consecutive hits, is very close to impossible
I think everybody agrees that the pig at 60m is the easiest, with the body mass about 95mm by 60mm, or 5.5-minutes wide and 3.5-minutes tall. With a 1-minute rifle you should be able to hit the pig very consistently offhand, with a fair bit of practice.
The turkey is the toughest, first because the body mass is fairly small at 70mm by 50mm or 3MoA by 2.2MoA, but it also sits at an angle, so you need a different hold if the turkey faces left or right. And with the neck and head sticking out one corner of it, it can affect your sight picture, depending on which way it's facing.
I find it much easier shooting the half-scale silhouettes over open sights with the lever-action .22LR than shooting these things with a scoped bolt-action rifle.
I also strongly recommend you do tons of practice on paper cut-outs on MDF back boards, with the silhouettes facing both ways. I like MDF because of the colour blending in with dirt, but if your competition is shot against green grass or something else you might want to use a back board that gives you a similar contrast. Some clubs also shoot orange or yellow targets rather than white.
Practicing on steels you learn very little about where your misses are going and by how much, though you do get the pleasure of seeing the little buggers go down occasionally. On paper you get to see where your "group" is falling, including the misses, so you can better adjust your sights, and sight picture, to put your group over the target. And you'll see how the target facing affects where you are putting your group - it is quite different to shooting at symmetrical circular targets. You can also better see what size groups you are able to maintain at the four distances, and you will see these tighten up significantly as you practice more, which will improve your confidence. I primarily practice this sort of comp just for that reason, to improve my offhand shooting, I have zero interest in competing with others. For months at a time I manage to get out every day, regardless of wind and rain and put at least 100rds onto the silhouettes in a session. I have no idea how many rounds the really good RMS guys burn, but it's pretty easy for me to burn 20,000rds and more every year on practicing these.
To save time when practicing on the fifth-scale steels, I have a full set of twenty fixed to a wooden panel of shelves. I can put 5rds on all of them, walking back to the correct distances, then turn the panel around and shoot them all facing the other way. It saves time not having to keep standing them up. I have photos of this setup but can't find them just now, I'll try to remember to get some photos next time.