Precision Rifle Practice Habits

[1168]

For the PRS and tactical precision rifle guys (and similar disciplines), I’ve got a vague and open question:

Other than launching live rounds, what are you doing for practice/training routinely?

[One More Time]

Dot torture target for rifle.

Ten 1" circles.
Take a shot, get up move around then mount up and take the next shot.

[markm]

Nothing anymore. I used to dry fire a little, but we shoot so much, I don't want to deal with it during the week.

[MegademiC]

For the PRS and tactical precision rifle guys (and similar disciplines), I’ve got a vague and open question:

Other than launching live rounds, what are you doing for practice/training routinely?

I havent officially competed yet, but carrying over from my uspsa experience, i dryfire getting into/out of positions, and building stable positions. As a current outsider, that looks to be where people win/lose... other than missing.

[Pappabear]

I dry fire for 15 minutes before a pistol match, but have not competed with a rifle. And that is mostly working on draw and grip. Tagging for interest.

PB

[yoni]

I will point out the practice of my former Spetsnaz sniper that worked for me.

Didn't matter what we did that day, as long as the day was shorted than 12 hours, he would dry fire each night before the vodka came out for at least 5 minutes. We could have been on the range all day, didn't matter.

When you emigrate to Israel and you have limited space to bring stuff and you bring your sniper log book with you, that is hard core.

He is the only guy that could out shoot me 90% of the time, the other 10% was when he couldn't get enough to drink the night before.

[crosseyedshooter]

I'm not a PRS competitor and would only qualify as a hobbyist, but positional shooting/dryfire practice would be my bet. The part of long-range shooting that's most challenging for me is getting into a solid position with natural point-of-aim and good breathing within a limited amount of time. For me, it's get into position, look down scope, lose the target, adjust position, look down scope, find the target, close eyes, open eyes, look down scope, adjust bag(s), look down scope, close eyes, open eyes, look down scope, check breathing, etc. I've seen pros able to get into a position and have their natural point-of-aim on target ready to take the shot without any adjustments and that's just amazing to me.

I usually don't have trouble dialing or using my reticle, and I can imagine that could change under pressure, but it's not something I go out of my way to practice.

[TheTick]

When I was still doing that stuff, we spent a lot of time on practicing to build urban hides and how best to use vehicles as FFPs.

[BrigandTwoFour]

I don't practice as much as I should, but when I've got something specific coming up then I'll work it more.

There is obviously your standard dry fire routine to practice sight picture, trigger control, and cycling. The thing that actually deserves more attention is getting good at quickly building a shooting position. Sure, there are a few stages here and there where you start out in the prone with a bipod deployed, but most stages involve having to run up to an obstacle and figure out how to shoot off of it from an awkward position.

The thing I like to do is set up a short ladder in the garage then stand about 5 feet behind it. On "beep," I run up to the ladder and throw my bag down on the lowest rung, shoot, then keep repeating it on each rung of the ladder going up. Then go back down from the opposite shoulder. I also practice quite a bit from the standing/offhand position, since any skill built there easily translates down to any of the supported positions.

There was one stage I did in a rimfire match that started off with 5 targets at 50 yards, and you had to hit each one from the standing position before you could go to the next part of the stage. I drilled all 5 (though still botched the second half of the stage), while half of the squad burned all of their time just trying to hit those five targets.

Photos to illustrate the ladder drill:

[BrigandTwoFour]

Dupe.