On scoping again

Well, I thought I had understood it - I hadn't. Today I think I finally got a clue. My score improving by 30 points would seem to be an indicator.

Here is what I learned:

Find the spot in the distance from the scope where you have a clear picture. No back rim of haze around the image, plain clear image. This is more straightforward than one thinks. Where I fell down is that I did not realize that if one goes too far forward things will start to haze up again. I used to keep a bit of a haze around the image because I thought that allowed me to keep things centred. Well, it didn't. keep a clear image in the scope. If it is too dull, go back, if it has rims, go forward.

I should now be able to, with a bit more practice, reliably shoot and 8 or higher. at 50m that is a 1" circle, good enough for shooting bunnies as I am told. Also I am a bit shocked. German hunters claim that 'a beermat with 3 shots at 100m' is good enough. I'd prefer the 1€ coin, thanks a lot. After all we want to reliably kill.

And so it begins ...

A few months ago I decided that I wanted to be able to shoot my own meat and take up what was a rather early interest in hunting. I read a lot about this while I was still going to school, but never got around to doing it. I took one look at the hunters in my hometown and ran for dear life.

Now that I am married and feel like I can start on my dreams I have decided to revisit the issue. A few friends were interested when I posted on LJ about this and we went to the Courtlough shooting grounds and killed a few clays. I rather disliked the place, there was too much money expected and people weren't very friendly.

So I did a bit more research and found Hilltop Quad and Shooting Club in Co.Wicklow. Sadly a bit of a drive but much nicer people and loaner guns available for members. Last time I was there and shot the guy dealing with me was a metalhead. Fun guy. he claimed that I did well and I think I did when paper punching. That was the first part, shooting a bench rest rifle over 50m. 10 practice rounds and 25 'competition' at 25 small targets on a big sheet. The targets only had the 5 inner rings, so 6 was the lowest score. I scored 210 out of 250 possible and found that plenty of times I shot a 6 or 7 when I was of the firm opinion that I had the scope right in the center.

We then went and shot clays. On the way there I told him that I wasn't there so much for the craic, but in order to actually learn how to shoot. So he taught me a little bit of style and I began to see the importance of a good cheek weld. It is like the anchor in archery. When we went back to the shop we talked guns a bit and I picked up a CZ in .22 and for the first time in my life I had the iron sights in perfect alignment just from bringing the gun to my cheek! Now that I know what went wrong with the paper targets I actually can imagine shooting a 'possible' in that  discipline because I know I suffered from freefloating cheek there. This is rather a cool feeling :)