10m air rifle training notes

First, the Board of Directors approved the dedicated use of the indoor 50 foot range for air rifle Tuesday nights.  This may not make the powder burners happy.  Hopefully we can all survive.  We will have a 10m air rifle club match every Tuesday night at 6 pm.  I would love to see some other folks join in so we can have some shoulder to shoulder friendly competition.  I believe there are two of us.  We have room for 6 more shooters!

Second, training session learnings.  More specically, three observations:

1. For the first time I shot at a blank target to "soak up" what my body was doing when I executed the shot and the impact on follow through.  I have read about this drill but never actually tried it.  I am sure there are many reasons to do this drill but here is what I learned.  I sometimes just barely grip the gun with my trigger (right) hand.  Almost akin to benchrest shooters who just touch the trigger.  I felt like I was having less "input" into the rifle when my trigger finger moved.  The negative is I have a weaker hold on the gun as a whole.  I then tried a full grip, light but full.  Based on my "blank target" it seemed to me the follow through and execution was much more stable with a full grip than a non grip.  This seems to be the result of "pulling the gun down" into my body vs. just having it balanced between shouder and forearm.
2. I also focused on complete body and head position with eyes closed.  Only after I find that comfy stable settled in position do I open my eyes.  (just like the book tells you to in order to fing NPA).  If I am off the target, I use the varioius techniques to adjust my POA by moving my entire body, not moving the gun with muscles.  This effort, although time consuming, really seems to settle things down and I have had some very long looks at a perfect sight picture (3.6 mm discussed later) and I could then work on a solid release.  9s and 10s when I did this right.  Something to remember. For more in depth reading about the benefit of NPA and follow through go HERE.
3. My front insert may be too small.  After shooting at a blank target, I began to create my own small "black hole" which I could see and aim for.  To my eye, the pellets were going in right on top of each other without much effort.  I mused that they were all 8s or better.  I then put up a target and promptly shot a 6.  My assesment, I try to hard for the perfect sight picture with my 3.6mm apperature and that contributes to "snatching" at the trigger when a rare "perfect" look presents itself.

These three observations are in order of confidence.  Meaning, I truly believe in #1 and found I was able to repeat the result from the different approach to the target.  The last observation I have less confidence in my evaluation of what I saw during the practice session.

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