Various airgun shooting, this week..

Well. I have a small bit of a confession to make. When I say small, I mean large. This is the cardinal ***king sin of target shooting, and I've been making it for a while now. You know that whole zero point thing? You know how you were always told that you should be "a bit above the target"? Well maybe you should. Not as much as I have been though.

All the way through I've been pointing, shall we say, a bit on the high side. But sure what matter says you, it'll drop down anyway. Well it will, says I, but it'll take a while. And it won't stop on target either. Meaning that I've been misdiagnosing my over-dropping with not getting enough height. While leads to a cacophony of problems, let me tell you.

How did I make this wondrous discovery? While reading The Ways Of The Rifle it reminded me that the best support for the rifle with your left arm is when you can feel it running down through your leg and into the floor. So I tried this, and it made me place my elbow right on my pointy hip bone, at which point I could really feel it in my leg. As the rifle now had huge support and wasn't going anywhere it became immediately obvious that dropping from a foot above the target down wasn't going to work. Cue moving in right foot. Cue tiny wobble around 10 ring. Cue 10s. Balls.

So yes, I was zeroed waaaaay to high, for several years. It really should be made clearer that the target should always be inside the foresight. It makes things so much easier. More fool me for not sorting it earlier I guess though. I'm putting this down to a long experiment on my part, a costly one, maybe, but worth knowing. If I can stop one person from making the same mistake it'll be well worth it.

On the topic of ariguns, I shot my first pistol match yesterday, courtesy of UCDRC. It was an entry to the DURC open, the main body of which will be run this weekend. It's a bit of a laugh. I didn't change the sights and so was aiming around the bottom of the metal target plate (those of you who have shot on MegaLinks will know what I'm talking about) which does not lead to good shooting. A final score of 303, which, I don't think is that bad! Changing the sights to something more comfortable might work though :D Maybe next time.

I hope to get a bit of training in today maybe, and hopefully Sunday shall be a good day. Well, it'll be a good day anyway, but a well scoring one :)