Shooting position and technique improvement

[jasmay]

Hi guys,

Just wondering what bipod shooters are doing to improve, solidify and maintain position and technique.

From time to time I wonder if some of the elevation I see is due to my position on the rifle, I'd love to hear what others are doing.

[jasmay]

Hard to believe no one has any comment regarding what is probably one of the most critical components, surely some of you old hands with serious experience can impart some knowledge?

[Barry Davies]

Free Recoil -- no cheek or shoulder contact at all.
Good flat surface like hard compounded rubber around 15mm thick topped by marine carpet beneath the bipod.
Reasonable footprint on the bipod like about 600 mm. Bipod not springy, would rather sacrifice some barrel weight and add it to the bipod. ( rigidity ) Lighter barrels are easier to tune anyhow.
Rear bag packed as tight as is possible ( or allowable ) with the least amount of contact with stock.
Loosely packed sandbag beneath rear rest to take up variations in the mound.
Still jumps all over the place but not for that few ms it takes for the projectile to exit - and that's the only time that matters.

[fapope]

Thanks Barry. Some good points there I will try incorporate. There are a few Bipod shooters in our Club CTV - Adelaide that I am trying to catch up to, with mixed results. One is holding his forend and stays on target after recoil, but this didn't have results for me. They generally seen to position themselves a bit more behind the rifle. To reduce some of the lateral movement on recoil. My hundred yard groups at this early stage seem to favour your techniques but I am using a firm trigger hand grip without any pressure from my thumb with my shoulder just touching the butt. . Recoil pushes me about one target over. Grouping is around the half minute mark which is a bit average a club level now days. Your emphasis on the consistency of the surface the bipod legs are on makes a lot of practical sense to me a is something I will be taking up.

[John23]

I only had a short lived attemp with the fclass bipod before going back to joy stick rest.
Free recoil worked for me and found having the bipods feet on the grass rather than on a mat worked best .
I would see about a target frame height difference after recoil but rarely had any side to side movement .
Load testing off belmonts carpet benches gave me huge jump and and sideways movement although the rifle grouped well I did not enjoy the experience one bit .

As mentioned I soon gave away the bipod and did not gain may shots of experience with it .


I have however had thousands of rounds shot off Harris bipods and see hits and stay on target even with larger cartridges including belted magnums .
I shoot them heavily loaded and with a pretty firm pull back into the palm swell with no thumb involved.

Point being , have you considered adding grip to the bipods feet and load it up and do the opposite to what the trend is?
I am not familiar with the rules on the mat under the bipod ?
If you could have something in the mat to stop the bipod sliding forward to load into and also return to battery I rekon it could offer some good consistency.

I know with fclass bipods including my TSE version they don't have very much flex . Not sure if applying the Harris method would work or the bipod would just want to slide away from you.
Guess it would boil down to how much friction you can achieve between bipods feet and the ground.