In this issue: Re: Prone help Miami shooting clubs? Re: calling the shot Re: barrel length Re: barrel length Re: Pellet diameters ******************************************************************** Michael, Time for some input. Prone: The comments about tight slings being detrimental I agree with. It seems to me that the tension should be enough such that there is no tendency to hold the rifle up onto the target. The arm should be relaxed relaxed.(yes - 2 relaxes) That is, not loose relaxed. There seems to be a position where the arm is in such a position that is neutral. More - or just as - important is the position of the cheek on the comb and the position of the butt in the shoulder. Smallbore rifles tend to accentuate poor position. That is, an inconsistent position from shot to shot is a sure recipe for wayward scores. I have found that a butt position that is at the outer end of the collar bone and up against, but not on, the round shoulder muscle seems to be where the better results come from. The full width and depth of the butt needs to be in contact with the shoulder. Not the top point or the bottom point. Lift the butt and nuzzle it onto the shoulder. The cheek is tending to push the rifle away from the head and is resting firmly but lightly in the same position each time. A check for correct head position is to take the rear sight off and fire at a target. One should be able to keep the shot within 12 inches of the bull if the head is in the 'right' position. Move the cheek piece around if it is not. This is a very surprising and revealing exercise believe me! I suspect the bruises that Lones Wigger talks about are from 3 x 40 positional 300m shooting. 120 shots of 7.62 would result in a few I would have thought. Rumour has it that Lones was a bit of the dab hand at that discipline!!! Bruises with .22's??? Never suffered from it. Disciplines: The comments of shooters about other disciplines is world wide obviously!!! New Zealand has the same comments emanating from its differing shooters. I have noticed that other multi-discipline sports such as Athletics don't appear to suffer from this. They get in behind ANY athlete and cheer for the lot! What is it about shooting. Is it the Lead in/on the brain?? My advice?? Acceptance of each other and be willing to promote YOUR discipline NOT denigrate someone elses. Regards Ross Mason ********************************************************************* Hi, Michael I just moved from NY to Miami and I haven't been able to locate any shooting club for air rifle. I definitely need some coaching. Is there any list of clubs available? Thanks for your help. Keep up the great work with your UIT mailing list. Oscar Díaz (Odiaz@aol.com) ******************************************************************** Re: Calling the shot >Maybe it is just a matter of definition, but it seems to me that calling the shot >is a constantly developing skill that even the best shooters use. RESPONSE: Correct, the best shooters do use calling the shot and that is why their scores are mediocre. Calling the shot installs a pictorial representation of a bad shot into the non-dominant mental entity and is transmitted to the neurophysical system for external realization. And, a poor or bad shot is what they will receive for their efforts in the physical domain. In the mental domain the athlete would have detected the potential bad shot and will break the circuit and not fire the bad shot. >Not every shot is a 10.9, in fact, some are not even 10s. RESPONSE: Not true as the non-dominant accepts only 10.9 as the goal. Physically this is a true assumption but in the realm of the non-dominant this is not correct. In the physical domain this is a true statement however, in the mental domain this is not true in fact. >When the shot is not perfect, don't all shooters pause to evaluate? RESPONSE: The athlete in the physical domain pauses only to accomplish analysis of shooting position and firing timing sequences. The athlete in the mental domain will not fire as the shooting athlete has determined that the shot would have been bad and would not have continued the firing sequence. The athlete in the mental domain would have avoided the bad shot and loss of score points. >A novice might be most concerned with sight alignment and follow-through. RESPONSE: A novice will be most concerned as the novice has yet to learn just exactly what they are to evaluate during the analysis phase and how to accomplish the firing procedures. Most novices therefore are performing in the physical domain and have yet to learn about the mental domain. >As kinesthetic awareness develops and a shooter perfects his positions, RESPONSE: The kinesthetic responses are transmitted to the non-dominant mental entity and used for the purpose of quality assurance of the shooting activity. This is a mental domain phase to insure that unacceptable variations are detected and will justify the stopping of the firing sequences(breaking the circuit). This is not a physical domain function. >calling the shot might refer to sensing the tension in a muscle group. RESPONSE: Within the mental domain the ongoing analysis of the total physical and psychological systems will contain information pertaining to muscle tensions but only to place them into the required set/fix and relaxed level of operation. In the physical domain this is an act of mediocre procedure that can only destroy the athletes shooting abilities. >At the highest levels it might refer to a completely mental activity. My point is >this: Calling the shot is the ability to predict the point of impact based on the >shooter's awareness/impressions at the time the shot breaks. RESPONSE: The above appears to be true except in the mental domain the athletes detects through the use of kinesthetic responses the point of impact is not the perfect bull's-eye causing the athlete to break the circuit and start again. Why fire a shot that is known to be bad prior to pulling the trigger. Within the physical domain the athlete will fire a bad shot and in the mental domain the athlete will stop the firing sequence before firing the bad shot. That is the difference of physical and mental shooting tchnique. >Reviewing and evaluating this information is essential to mastering precision >shooting. It only becomes a detriment to success if the shooter's >focus remains on "what went wrong" to the exclusion of the necessary >steps required to fire a perfect shot. In my opinion only, of course! RESPONSE: Reviewing and evaluating this information is essential to mastering precision shooting. It only becomes a detriment to success if the shooter's focus in concentration remains on "what went wrong" in the physical domain to the exclusion of the required necessary steps in the mental domain for the accomplishment of the perfect fired one-shot match. This is not in my opinion but proved by years of experience and accomplishment by many levels of competitive shooters around the world. Chet Skinner, Coach Entity Sports International ****************************************************************** >"If cutting a barrel down is so great, wouldn't everybody be doing >that? Stick with a full length barrel." I think many people are satisfied with their barrel and don't want to mess with success. Others may be afraid to screw-up a good barrel. Anschutz did not send the 2013 to market without more than a little research. The first two made actually had 15-inch barrels (yes, they were technically what the BATF would consider class-3 weapons). Norbert (the Anschutz gunsmith) fired a 598 UIT prone course with the first 2013 as soon as he finished assembling it. The 19-inch barrel came later. The success of the 2013 suggests that its 19-inch barrel works just fine. >It doesn't make much sense if the reason for cutting the barrel down is to > get the bullet out faster so it has less chance of barrel movement > affecting the flight of the bullet. > This is true. Some rough math: the bullet moves through the barrel at about 1000 feet per second. The barrel is about 2 feet long, so it takes the bullet about 1/500th of a second to pass through it once it starts moving. Every 6 inches cut off the barrel decreases the bullet's barrel-time by about 1/2000th of a second. Let's assume you're shooting prone. Your pulse beats once every second, and each time it moves the barrel 5 millimeters on a 50 meter target, which means your pulse moves the barrel 5mm/sec. 5mm/sec times 1/2000th of a second equals 0.0025mm less error on the target from having a barrel 6 inches shorter. Now, let's assume you're shooting standing and have a big hold that swings across the target at a rate of 50mm/sec. The shorter barrel will give you 0.025mm less error on the target. Bottom line: even the worst hold will not benefit from a shorter barrel. >Cutting a barrel down for weight and balance or maybe even barrel > harmonics makes more sense. > You bet it does. Try a free rifle with a shortened barrel sometime and see how nice it is to shoot standing. My free rifle is a custom-job with a 20 inch barrel and a very-light 20 inch sight extension tube. The balance is much nicer than the factory-spec Anschutz 1813 I used to shoot. Cutting down a great-shooting Hart barrel took some courage, but the results were worth it. In addition to balancing well, the rifle shoots fantastic groups -- chopping off 6 inches didn't hurt accuracy a bit and may have improved it. Additional note: For shooters considering re-barreling their rifles, try having the existing barrel re-chambered and re-crowned, and have it cut to whatever length (longer than the 16 inches required by law) you'd like to try. Re-chambering and re-crowning are often all that is needed to make a .22 barrel shoot well again, and they're a whole lot cheaper than having a new barrel installed. ****************************************************************** >[Editor - I would say fractions of a second COULD make a big difference at >50M when measuring tenths of a point.] Hmm - how long is the "fractions of a second"? At the end of the barrel, the bullet is traveling somewhat below 1,000 fps - let's assume 700 fps. How much decrease in length? Let's assume 8" (decrease from 22" to 14" - note that in the US this is illegally short without a welded on bloop tube or something like that.) This produces a time difference of slightly less than 1 millisecond (.00095 second.) > ... -- --henry schaffer [Editor - As Henry and the above poster pointed out, I failed to use my engineering background and do the math. The biggest advantage does come from the harmonics and balance as mentioned above. I apologize for my oversight.] ****************************************************************** Hi Michael, In reference to the question about pellet size I have a little info. In Feb at the Rocky Mountain Championships for Smallbore and Air Rifle in Colorado Springs, CO, I learned that not only does pellet size matter, but even different production lots could have different results. At Neal Johnsons I watched as my FWB 600 was put in a rest and 10 shot groups of R10, Final Match and a couple other match quality pellets were shot through it. The result were amazing for an air rifle. Different size pellets,weights, and manufacturer can make very significant differences. With 4.48mm R10 my 10 shot group would fit inside a 1/4" diameter circle. Small enough that all shots could be solid 10s. However, as the pellet size increased up to 4.51mm pellets, the group also increased in size drastically. Groups where 10 shots would barely stay inside of 1/2" were common. This is enough of a dispersions that shots aligned to be 10s, could be wide 9s. In talking to the individuals doing the testing, they have found that every air rifle has a differnt taste and that pellet sizes can and do make a difference. Justin [Editor - exactly what I have seen also. Bob Foth is the one who mentioned the elevation effects. The lots he uses at the OTC (~6500 feet ASL) don't shoot well at all at lower elevations and vice versa. A compressed air gun should alieviate this problem as it is caused by the different air charge from his Walther LGM-2 pneumatic. I noticed my 2002 cocked much easier at the OTC.] ****************************************************************** End of UIT Mailing List #36 Michael Ray - Systems Engineer Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. Rifle Coach UIT Shooting Page - http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1190/index.htm