Project Appleseed

Preliminary thanks to the awesome people here earlier who offered tips (especially the balance exercises).

So we know the traditional six steps:

• sight alignment
• sight picture
• respiratory pause / exhale
• focus (front sight, etc)
• trigger squeeze
• follow through / shot calling

After a good year grinding my off hand position pretty much exclusively, my off hand is getting pretty decent (4~5MoA 10 shot groups on average).

We're not gonna talk about the part where my rapid fire sitting groups are worse than my off hand groups...

Anyways, for off hand, I've got a giant explosion of steps now, which work for me at least (some of them are wrong I'm sure). A lot of this is covered in appleseed, and a lot of it is really just refinement on some of The Six, but the rest of it might be new to some.  So here's my #25 steps to shooting 4MoA groups off hand:

• FEET.  Perpendicular to firing line, about shoulder-ish width, right foot pointing maybe 30 degrees right
• knees - lock them knees.  Unless this causes your legs to oscillate.  Then don't lock your knees.  I'm a list, not a cop.
• leg muscles - if they're oscillating, stop and stretch out, then go back to step #1
• hips - cant slightly towards the target, but not too much.  Forward leg should be about straight up and down
• support arm elbow - on the hip bone, make sure the spot feels the same (bounce it a bit)
• support forearm - as straight up as your body type and rifle allow (if length of pull is too long, it'll angle towards the target)
• buttstock - into the trigger arm, just to the edge of the shoulder (optional - put paint pen marks on your trigger upper arm if you can, and a witness mark on your stock, line up the same spot every time)
• support hand - personally I ball my fist and put it just forward of the magwell.  There's a lot of good hand positions out there though.
  Also personally - I use my support index finger to feel the same spot on the magwell, and my support thumb to feel the sling (which, FYI, is not used around your arm, because it imparts too much tension and causes extra wobble)
• close bolt after position is up, if there isn't overhead baffling to stop rounds from escaping
• You should be leaning slightly back, so that the rifle+you center of mass goes down through your support arm, hip, and forward leg, straight into the ground.
• support hand at whatever tension gives you personally the cleanest trigger pull.  maybe firm grip.  maybe almost no grip if you're a converted benchrest shooter.  I don't know what your hand is like.
• trigger finger approaching trigger as the rifle is mounted
• cheek in place, but head straight up and down, looking over the scope/sights (not through the scope/sights)
• exhale, check balance.  If wobbly, go back to step #3 and re-evaluate (if it's really bad, unmount the rifle)
• WAIT - wait for balance to return after you moved your head into lateral position
• breathe at least a full breath
• lower head into final position, take up first stage of trigger.  Verify balance was not disturbed by moving head.
• if the sights aren't close to the aiming black, check #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5.  If it's really bad, unmount the rifle and start over.  If it's kinda close, you can make a bouncing adjustment on the elbow position
• verify sight picture is clean in the scope / alignment is good with the irons
• breathe from your diaphragm, take up a bit more trigger pressure as the sights come down
• re-verify sight picture is clean as it comes down to the point of aim
• actively relax your mind and muscles
• wait for steady holds in the wobble, take up almost all of the rest of the trigger
• break the shot when it looks good
• wait seconds after the shot break, call the shot

Obviously this whole spiel only works if you get a whole minute per shot.  At appleseed pace, you can do the first ~14 steps in prep time, backing up a bit to load a mag.  But then you need to burn through the remaining steps much more quickly, because you have only 12 seconds per shot, not 60 seconds.  So no unmounting the rifle, for example.  No doing multiple careful breaths per shot, you don't have the time.
  Your groups will open up from 4 MoA  to 6MoA, or comparatively.
  Just accept a 50% accuracy loss

Also - for appleseed target, using the sling off hand is a godsend if your normal hold is wobbly.  The extra tension from the sling doesn't hurt you more than your own wobble.  I suggest not trying to ditch the sling until if/when your average 10 shot group is well under 10MoA.  Until then, the sling is probably helping you.  Also unless you are a glutton for punishment, there isn't much reason to try to get it any smaller.

Now, I need to go to work on making my sitting rapid fire, 300 yard prone, and 600 yard prone scores catch up with my off hand scores haha :(

Also, you should probably ignore me, and instead watch these two videos from Germany:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLZYKLm27RA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdXsSzRKXXw

And these three from the US:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o28nqSeSfTY

I would advise anyone who wants to improve offhand, especially in high power to watch the referenced videos by Dennis Santiago of Dan Lowe. Your process doesn't need to to be extremely complicated, but it does need to be consistent and to the point. Dan is an excellent coach and his methods can bring great results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o28nqSeSfTY

Dan is excellent highly recommended.

It sounds like a lot of this process is just the Steady Hold Factors combined with the 6 steps. Consciously going through a 25 step process every time you shoot though to me sounds like, "Fussing the Shot 101".

I think you mean feet parallel to the firing line, pointing the same direction as the firing line.  Perpendicular is at a right angle to the firing line.

The process is: position, six steps, NPOA= marksmanship
All the steady hold factors apply before you begin the six steps. 

Quote from: Moy on May 11, 2021, 03:15:02 AM
Preliminary thanks to the awesome people here earlier who offered tips (especially the balance exercises).

So we know the traditional six steps:

• sight alignment
• sight picture
• respiratory pause / exhale
• focus (front sight, etc)
• trigger squeeze
• follow through / shot calling

After a good year grinding my off hand position pretty much exclusively, my off hand is getting pretty decent (4~5MoA 10 shot groups on average).

We're not gonna talk about the part where my rapid fire sitting groups are worse than my off hand groups...

Anyways, for off hand, I've got a giant explosion of steps now, which work for me at least (some of them are wrong I'm sure). A lot of this is covered in appleseed, and a lot of it is really just refinement on some of The Six, but the rest of it might be new to some.  So here's my #25 steps to shooting 4MoA groups off hand:

• FEET.  Perpendicular to firing line, about shoulder-ish width, right foot pointing maybe 30 degrees right
• knees - lock them knees.  Unless this causes your legs to oscillate.  Then don't lock your knees.  I'm a list, not a cop.
• leg muscles - if they're oscillating, stop and stretch out, then go back to step #1
• hips - cant slightly towards the target, but not too much.  Forward leg should be about straight up and down
• support arm elbow - on the hip bone, make sure the spot feels the same (bounce it a bit)
• support forearm - as straight up as your body type and rifle allow (if length of pull is too long, it'll angle towards the target)
• buttstock - into the trigger arm, just to the edge of the shoulder (optional - put paint pen marks on your trigger upper arm if you can, and a witness mark on your stock, line up the same spot every time)
• support hand - personally I ball my fist and put it just forward of the magwell.  There's a lot of good hand positions out there though.
  Also personally - I use my support index finger to feel the same spot on the magwell, and my support thumb to feel the sling (which, FYI, is not used around your arm, because it imparts too much tension and causes extra wobble)
• close bolt after position is up, if there isn't overhead baffling to stop rounds from escaping
• You should be leaning slightly back, so that the rifle+you center of mass goes down through your support arm, hip, and forward leg, straight into the ground.
• support hand at whatever tension gives you personally the cleanest trigger pull.  maybe firm grip.  maybe almost no grip if you're a converted benchrest shooter.  I don't know what your hand is like.
• trigger finger approaching trigger as the rifle is mounted
• cheek in place, but head straight up and down, looking over the scope/sights (not through the scope/sights)
• exhale, check balance.  If wobbly, go back to step #3 and re-evaluate (if it's really bad, unmount the rifle)
• WAIT - wait for balance to return after you moved your head into lateral position
• breathe at least a full breath
• lower head into final position, take up first stage of trigger.  Verify balance was not disturbed by moving head.
• if the sights aren't close to the aiming black, check #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5.  If it's really bad, unmount the rifle and start over.  If it's kinda close, you can make a bouncing adjustment on the elbow position
• verify sight picture is clean in the scope / alignment is good with the irons
• breathe from your diaphragm, take up a bit more trigger pressure as the sights come down
• re-verify sight picture is clean as it comes down to the point of aim
• actively relax your mind and muscles
• wait for steady holds in the wobble, take up almost all of the rest of the trigger
• break the shot when it looks good
• wait seconds after the shot break, call the shot

Obviously this whole spiel only works if you get a whole minute per shot.  At appleseed pace, you can do the first ~14 steps in prep time, backing up a bit to load a mag.  But then you need to burn through the remaining steps much more quickly, because you have only 12 seconds per shot, not 60 seconds.  So no unmounting the rifle, for example.  No doing multiple careful breaths per shot, you don't have the time.
  Your groups will open up from 4 MoA  to 6MoA, or comparatively.
  Just accept a 50% accuracy loss

Also - for appleseed target, using the sling off hand is a godsend if your normal hold is wobbly.  The extra tension from the sling doesn't hurt you more than your own wobble.  I suggest not trying to ditch the sling until if/when your average 10 shot group is well under 10MoA.  Until then, the sling is probably helping you.  Also unless you are a glutton for punishment, there isn't much reason to try to get it any smaller.

You forgot "Don't curl your toes!"    ;D

Quote from: Eagle Keeper on August 09, 2021, 02:28:48 PM
Dan is excellent highly recommended.

Yea Dan is awesome.  Super nice, extremely knowledgeable.

Actually he lives pretty close, I have paid for coaching from him.  This is where some of the mental checklist is coming from.

Quote from: Charles McKinley on August 10, 2021, 12:14:10 AM
I think you mean feet parallel to the firing line, pointing the same direction as the firing line.  Perpendicular is at a right angle to the firing line.

Yea I should have been more precise - I meant arrange my two feet so that the line formed between the feet is perpendicular to the firing line, pretty close to 90 degrees

Feet actually I point them in different directions.  Support side foot is at maybe 5 degrees inside of firing line, trigger side foot is about 30-40 degrees right.  Neither foot is pointing along the firing line.  Neither foot is actually parallel with each other either.  It's more stable, imo.  I've tested it with dozens of groups, on a good day I open up from like 4MoA to 5-6MoA if I keep my feet parallel.

Quote from: EZ3 on August 15, 2021, 08:56:46 PM
You forgot "Don't curl your toes!"    ;D

haha yea, can't say I've ever thought about the toes specifically.

But generally relaxing most muscles is good.