Please e-mail address changes, unsubscribe requests, or submissions to me. In this issue: Re: Machine rests Re: Machine rests Re: Machine rests Re: Machine rests Re: USWIRO Book Re: USWIRO Book "Smoking" 2002 Re: Effects of caffeine on vision? Re: Another training question Re: Standard 2013 or metal stock (2313)? Re: Results of canting experiment / Effects of caffeine on vision? Using Anschutz field target gun for 10m ******************************************************************** As I shoot more rimfire benchrest than position, I have seem many different rest systems used. If you look at my web page ( www.feist.com/~benchrest/Rimfire_notes.html ) you will see a picture at item #26 of Dick's Uni-Rest. It is as good as they come for $750-850. There are several other makers at about the same price. The gun rides on delron balls to give the same smooth recoil each and every shot. Also a Hart front rest with Ron Hoehne top and a Richie rear rest will do about the same for about $400. I disagree that recoil is nessasary. But I will admit most fell it is nessasary. I use a rig that if the Richie rear rest were substituted would cost around $300. You can see a picture of it at www.feist.com/~benchrest//MyShootingStuff.html . As you will see my gun sits on a layer of silly putty. Silly putty is not truely a fixed rest as it is elastic and there is some slight rearward movement. But the gun will not slide on it. The gun shown here will consistantly shoot 5 shot groups at 50 yards under .2 inch shooting Lapua Midas L. So the rest does work. I have found my position gun shoots well through the entire winter gallery season (50 ft) without cleaning. But at 50 yards it does take cleaning for each match to be most effective. However it takes 15 rounds to settle down after cleaning. On Dicks rest, there is a plate attached to the bottom of the stock. The plate rides on two delron balls. You would need the plate as the bottom of your stock is not flat like a benchrest stock. On each side of the stock there is a delron ball. One is spring loaded to keep the stock against the other. In the back the rear rides in a V block made of delron. On this rest, after firing, the rifle is pushed forward and will be exactly on target. Dick has worked very hard to make sure this rest has no play. Where are you located? I maybe able to give you a nearby location where you could see rest like this in use. In fact, benchrest shooters would be happy to let you try it. On my rest, slight adjustments are required after each shot. Using iron sights would be a problem on all but the one piece rest. I do not have the problem as I shoot by NRA rules where scopes and iron sights are both used. But in ISU it would be a pain to mount a scope just for testing. I use a plate on my position gun while testing. I attach it with the part of my forehand stop that goes in the rail. Then I just put a nut on the other end instead of the sling swivel. The big objection to the one piece rest is its cost for your very limited use. But most rimfire benchrest shooters are the freindliest of the shooter communities. Someone might be willing to work with you and lend you theirs. Let me know where you are and I'll may know someone to put you in touch with. It is a good cause afterall. Another problem I have related to your comment on cleaning. Most of my practice is dry firing. Outdoors my BSA Maritini starts to suffer accuracy loss after 200 rounds or so. When I do practice live fire, I clean the gun when finished and then fire 15 rounds through it to be ready for the next match or practice. I cannot afford as you can imagine to shoot 15 warmup shots in prone. But I have been unable to detect any accuracy problems at 50 feet so I don't clean it. Then I don't shoot but 2 or 3 rounds to warmup the barrel. It has been my opinion that great accuracy is not needed at 50 feet. A gun that shoots .6 inch groups at fifty yards will shoot X's at 50 feet. Just my opinion. Rich ******************************************************************** Michael- Ken Johnson at the AMU at Benning has rests made in Russia which are designed to do just what you are attempting to do. I understand they are relatively inexpensive and probably far less costly than trying to make one yourself. Bill Kelley Rifle Coach US Naval Academy ******************************************************************** Hi Michael, I am very interested in a machine rest also. I would appreciate all info available as you recieve it. I have heard that the folks at USAShooting have a nice one in Colorado Springs. Tim Conrad might be a contact there. I'll try to contact him and will forward all info to you. I would like to see names included with each statement/reply. I sometimes feel like I am at an AA meeting. I would like to "get to know" some of these folks names so if I meet them at a shoot somewhere I have an idea who I am talking with. Thanks for the great job on the letter. Ralph Goodwin [Editor - If people include a sig of some king, I throw that in. If they don't, they remain anonymous because I don't want to waste my time cutting and pasting more than I already do. Maybe more will include their name since you requested it. I chatted with both Tim and Dan. You can see Dan's comment's below. Tim felt the rest was pretty finicky on some rifles (eg, they grouped worse in the rest for some reason.)] ******************************************************************** I would find a way to mount a magnifying scope on the rifle and use conventional rifle sandbags to hold it steady. They make clamp-on-the-barrel mounts for air pistols, you could use that on an air rifle if you use a pistol scope because the scope is too far from your eye for a normal riflescope. Something similar should be possible with any rifle. As long as you can see better and hold steadier than with normal peep sights in prone position, this should be adequate for testing the rifle accuracy. Use of soft sandbags in approximately the same position as the shooter's normal hand grip, will ensure similar rifle motion as it is fired. Do not use hard rests because the vibration bangs against the rest and throws off the accuracy. - Benjamin ******************************************************************** Michael, The rest was built by Neal Johnson. It's a bit pricey - probably about $1300 - but it works well and is adaptable to many different rifles. I also have a very simple rest made in Russia that would be easy to construct. Ken Johnson has one (purchsed for about $140) and Vince Pestilli made a modified replica. Both have said it works quite well. I'll try to explain the Russian rest. Essentially, two cylindrical pieces slide into the rail of the rifle. The rifle is then placed onto the rest (which is mounted to a table) with the cylindrical pieces resting on two small V-blocks. The V-blocks actually have two small brass pins in them which is the actual, minimized bearing surface between the V-blocks and the cylindrical pieces. So, the rifle is not clamped to the rest and can freely slide backwards. There are two other pins (one on the back cylindrical piece and one on the rest) that allow the rifle to be indexed back to its initial position after each shot. Basically, after each shot you push the rifle forward and tilt it to the right to get it back to its intitial position. I hope that makes sense. You have to see it to appreciate the simple elegance. (An interesting side note - this rest was initially designed to test air rifles by flipping the rifle upside down and placing the barrel directly onto the V-blocks. The designer found that people didn't like shooting their rifle upside down so he added the rail mounted cylindrical pieces.) Dan Durben ******************************************************************** Just thought I would let people know that I have the Dialogues I book and it is pretty good. I might be induced to order the II volume, just for my every growing library. Don Williams, Oregon ****************************************************************** > US Women's Intl Rifle Organization > PO Box 865 > Mesa AZ 85201 I believe this address is being used by Marie Alkire for the purposes of USWIRO and the publication of this book. Marie was the organiser of the programme which lead to the publication "Schiessportschule Dialogues I". She is known to me through assistance generously given to my wife Debbie several years ago in connection with the development of coaching for the Irish shooting team, and we have remained friends with the Alkires since. I would have no hesitation in sending payment in advance to her. Does this make me a veteran?? Sandy Wilson. ****************************************************************** Dear Michael: I have an Anschutz 2002 Super Air single stroke pneumatic and after about 1 year or so of light/moderate shooting, I have now noticed after every shot there is a small puff of "smoke" from the barrel. I now shoot in a well lit room into a dark background so it is noticeable. It is possible this has always been the case and I have simply not noticed this before shooting in this environment. Is this normal? Is it a cleaning issue? I have not cleaned my rifle very often as I understood extensive cleaning is not necessary for the limited/moterate shooting I do and such cleaning may do more harm than good. Everything appears to still be fine, seals, etc and accuracy is still exceptional. Any help/comments would be appreciated. Thank you, JSHMSmith@aol.com [Editor - I think it is normal as I have seen many World Cup competitors have similar effects as well as my own. My guess is that it is either water vapor or lead dust. I was told by Neal Johnson that you can shoot the 2002 without having a pellet in (eg, dryfiring) OK, but you should shoot a couple through afterwards to clear out condensation in the barrel. I'm not sure why you wouldn't get condensation with a pellet. It's the same compressed air and the air passes through the barrel after the pellet does. You think you'd have a major rusting problem if that was the case so I don't know.] ****************************************************************** When I am not shooting, I work in a drug testing laboratory and so I have a little information on this aspect of caffeine use. The Int'l Olympic Committee considers a urinary caffeine concentration of greater than 12 micrograms per milliliter to be evidence of caffeine (stimulant) abuse. To put that in perspective, a cup of coffee (7 oz.) may contain 80-180 milligrams (that's *milli-* not *micro-* grams, the difference is 1000x); 12 oz of Jolt cola contains about 100 mg; other caffeinated soft drinks contain about 50 mg. An oral dose of 120 mg of caffeine will produce an average peak *blood plasma* (note: not urine) concentration of 3 micrograms/mL after one hour, declining after that. A larger single dose of 500 mg of caffeine has been reported to cause a plasma concentration of 14 micrograms/mL after 1/2 hour, declining to 8 micrograms/mL after three hours. Caffeine is extensively metabolized, so most of the caffeine does not appear in the urine as unchanged drug. I could not find any information to indicate that the kidney secretes (that is, concentrates) caffeine in the urine, so it seems that the casual user of caffeine is not in any danger of failing an IOC drug test. (However, why take the chance? Drink water to celebrate your gold medal until after the test!) Anyone who wants to pursue this topic might want to check out the International Journal of Sports Medicine; "Caffeine: Use and Abuse in Sports"; Delbeke and Debackere (authors); Vol 5; pp179 -182; 1984. ****************************************************************** << How do train in the few days just before a tournament?? This assumes that you have a good training plan in place and have been following it for some time before the competition. >> My personal opinion is that the best training just prior to a match is mental training. Heavy range time just prior to a match is not going to change much and may actually be detrimental. One should spend more time on visualization and positive affirmation and a little less time on actually shooting. (This is not much different from the way a lot of other sports approach this issue.) Somewhere around 80% of performance is mental and being mentally prepared on the day of the competition is what one should strive for. Best regards, Phillip Williams ****************************************************************** Mike this is the reports from two shooting Athletes on the metal stocks now found on the precision rifles. UIT List Shooting Athlete #1 With regard to the aluminum stocks, I would like to tell you about a Walther that one of the guys on our team bought. It would be prohibitively expensive to machine an aluminum stock, of course, so it appears that Walther manufactures it using a sintered-powder casting method. Perhaps this is very strong when done correctly, but we've seen an example when it wasn't. The guy was shooting prone when his handstop suddenly snapped off the rifle (in practice, thank God, not a match). The molded channel had coughed out two big chunks of sintered (or extremely coarse-grained cast) aluminum. The rifle was less than a year old and the dealer cheerfully replaced the stock, but I think it would be better if this piece were machined rather than cast. Shooting Athlete #2 Received a message from Chet Skinner that you are about to buy the new Anschutz small bore rifle with aluminum stock. I bought a rifle like this in May, so I thought I could fill in with my experiences so far. As you know, the rear end of the rifle stock is much smaller than is the case with the wooden stocks. This is a significant advantage for me in the standing position. With my previous rifle, a Walther free-rifle, the mass of the rear stock made it impossible for me to fit the rifle to my body when the upper body was set up correctly. This caused an excessive twist in my lower back and a rifle cant. These two factors ruined my position, as it was impossible to relax with the rifle in position. With the new metal stock, I am able to fit the rifle to the optimal position, as the rear part of the stock does not interfere with my chest. The "tiny" rear part of the stock might cause some problems in the standing position, at least it did for me: The center of mass (balance point)is moved relatively far towards the rifle barrel. One of my mates has the Anschutz wooden stock with the same type of action/barrel as I have. The weight distribution of his rifle is quite different, and I would say better, from mine. If you use the original fore stock raiser this problem is reinforced, as the fore end raiser is fairly heavy. This might not become a problem for you, as the total length of the butt plate, the point of contact with the fore stock and so on of course also will have influence on this issue. I have tried to solve my problem by modifying the fore end raiser, altering the total length of the stock and have also attached a small piece of lead to the butt plate. You have probably also noted that the fore stock is lower than for the wooden stock; one almost places the left hand onto the barrel itself. I believe this is an advantage in prone and kneeling, as the contact with the rifle and feel for the position seems to improve. The pistol grip can also be moved back and forth, as well as sideways. I like this. In prone it helped me to remove the last (hopefully !!??) tensions in the right shoulder area. Regarding precision: I have only test fired the rifle in a bench rest once so far. I had approximately ten batches/lots, and with one exception all of them were good enough to group within 14-15 millimeters, including the cheapest types. I believe this indicates that the precision of the weapon is good. Eley Tenex performed the best (12mm). Harald Stenvaag, who sold me the rifle, said that the test target that followed the rifle from the Anschutz factory was the best he had ever seen (a circle with diameter 9-10 millimeters). According to him, Anschutz had been firing Federal High Speed during the test. I have read on the UIT mailing list that some shooters have experienced problems with the zero point of impact being altered vertically due to temperature changes. Myself I have not experienced any significant trend of this. But actually I have not been firing enough with the rifle to neither reject nor confirm such a hypothesis. The instruction manual says the screws that tighten the action/barrel to the rifle stock should be tightened 6 Newtonmeters, which is slightly tighter than the wooden stock. I received the rifle just after I got a hold on Chet's book (May 99). I fired it for the first time visiting Chet in Wilmington in May. This season has been dedicated to research and testing, as I needed to get familiar with both the new rifle and the Mental Shooting Technique. Thus, some confession has been present at times. I have not fired a competition since July, as there has been a competition break in Norway. My results this season have been varying. But during the last practice sessions in August (I have had a break from shooting since early August), I felt that I was beginning to get a certain feel for the procedure. I am still trying to understand Chet's mental way of doing things. I am not aware of your knowledge in this context, but you probably know that the learning process requires a lot of reading, thinking and e-mailing with Chet! I hope that my understanding of the mental shooting technique is good enough to produce the results I am hoping for the forthcoming season. Hope this information will be of value to you. If I haven't made myself clear enough on any of the points, I will be happy to try again. Will also any future experience with the rifle if it is desirable. Best regards and good shooting. Chet Skinner, Coach cskinner@dol.net http://www.geocities.com/colosseum/dome/4512/index.html ****************************************************************** Cant > ...Still nice that someone bothered to prove it by actual test. > [Sandy Wilson] ... if you still think height of line of > sight makes a difference explain to me how you think the same > bullet is going to hit in two different places. Indeed, a very elegant way of showing the irrelevance of sight line height. So, why bother testing it, if it is that obvious? Simply because some people are easier to convince by a real-world test than by a theory on paper. Caffeine So, what does caffeine do to you? It was mentioned that it is bad for your pulse. Furthermore, I found some information showing that caffeine: - is bad for hand steadyness (at least, for the "young caffeine-naive women" who participated in this study). Presumably that would be bad for shooting. - heightens allertness and attenuates vigilance decrements, which might help shooting performance - decreases reaction times, which might help shooting performance - does not affect visual search processes, so that one is neutral. (for those of you who are interested in literature references, just send me an e-mail). Still, the ultimate question is: what does caffeine do to shooting performance. And what does NOT drinking coffee do to your shooting performance when you normally take a few double espresso's each day? Has that ever been properly investigated and reported? Not that I know of... And then there is the doping issue. The Olympic Movement Anti- Doping Code 1999 says: I . PROHIBITED CLASSES OF SUBSTANCES A. STIMULANTS Prohibited Substances in class (A) include the following examples: ... caffeine, ... For caffeine the definition of a positive is a concentration in urine greater than 12 micrograms per millilitre. Can anyone tell me how much coffee one can drink before reaching that limit? Jeroen Hogema (air rifle, The Netherlands) jhogema@worldonline.nl [Editor - see the post above for some nice details.] ****************************************************************** I notice that Anschutz is also making HP Field target rifle that looks just like their 10m 2002 CA target rifle. I know Anschutz makes quality stuff, so the accuracy should be pretty good from that rifle, too. Since those rifles push the pellet out of barrel in much less time (something like faster bullet in the smallbore), the influence from the movement after pulling the trigger is also theoretically smaller. Is it legal to use such rifle in compition? Thanks again Michael! [Editor - there is a reason the match air rifles shoot at 525-575 fps. That is where they are most accurate. I imagine it would be legal if it met all the dimensions, etc. They don't regulate how fast the pellet can go.] ****************************************************************** End of UIT Mailing List #2 Michael Ray - Systems Engineer Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. Rifle Coach UIT Shooting Page - http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1190/index.htm