Welcome to Smallbore Rifle Silhouette by Jerry Webster

The Practicing

In the beginning it is most important to practice getting more stable on your hold. Most people have not been trained on holding a rifle to a specific point. Once you have established your posture and hold on the rifle you need to practice your hold.

IN THE BEGINNING just try to find a place where you can stand with your (just gotta say it) EMPTY rifle and focus on anything that is slightly smaller than your ability to hold steady. If you can't find anything, make something like a circle cut out of masking tape you can stick onto something. I put stuff on the block wall in my back yard which I can see through my arcadia door so I can stand inside. There is a little distortion, but enough clear spots to practice. If you have a solid tile or wood floor it is better. A good size object to start with would be something similar to the full width of the Pig target. Measure how far it is in feet to what you can focus on and multiply that by .02 and that would be the size in inches for that distance. If the distance from where you stand to where you can hang a target measures 45 feet, then 45 x .02 = 0.9 inches is the target size. Trying the trigger is not important in the beginning, but occasionally pull on the spring of the trigger to simulate firing when you are centered (not dry firing). The biggest problem in the early stages is being able to hold steadily on target. You want to spend a few minutes at a time in practice and then rest. It is not good to continually hold the rifle until you are fatigued. You can do long sessions of practice, but rest between periods of holding the rifle.

Do not expect to be able to hold a solid resting point on a target for 30 seconds. That is not going to happen. What you will find as you get better at holding are short periods where you are hovering on a perfect shot. The training and experience at the range will help you decide when it is the best opportunity to fire. Even with experience it can be difficult to be correct at that moment of decision. At every match there is always one moment that passes where I am asking myself, "Why didn't you fire?" and there are others where it looked good at the time but in between the brain and the finger there was slight movement and the bullet goes off the edge of the target.

AS YOU GET BETTER, make a smaller target using .16 times the distance in feet (similar to the perspective of the chickens) or use the scaled PDF above to create actual shapes of the animals. If you have made scaled targets, practice more on the Chickens and the Rams. Add more pulls on the trigger spring to simulate firing the rifle. You should be able to pull the trigger and not interfere with your hold. This is additional training that can show poor trigger finger movement. If the rifle is moving off of the target because you pulled against the trigger spring, you are not doing it properly. If you are getting more confident on your ability to hold, spend some time at the range shooting at paper targets, too. Time at the range shooting on paper can show how well you are doing on your trigger pull while firing. If you are on target when you activate the trigger and you did not flinch and miss the target by inches, there is something wrong with your trigger finger.


The above link to a PDF file is designed to help you get targets to a specific scale to practice. I have some cut from a white paint bucket lid glued to the block fence in my back yard. They are scaled to the perspective at 100 feet.	The link above is to a PDF file with actual scale targets. If printed at 100% scale they will all be actual size. As a check there are tick marks on the right side which should be exactly an inch apart and six inches from first to last.	The link above is to a PDF file with 4 pages. Each one has a pair of actual sized targets which can be printed and set up at the range for practice. When I use these I shoot a 40 shot practice match shooting 5 shots at each animal.

WHEN YOU ARE GETTING BETTER at holding on the Chicken sized targets you should make a complete set of scaled targets for your home practice range to practice your hold. Practice mostly on the Turkeys but still practice your hold and trigger pull on the other animals. Even though it is important to be able to try and improve your ability to hold on the Turkey sized targets, you still shoot at the other targets in a match. It is important to be able to get the sight picture in the mind on the optimum firing point for each animal. They are all shaped differently, so the best firing position is viewed differently.