Rifle technique

My 15yo daughter has been shooting our Bergara .308 once or twice weekly since early spring, practicing for next month's hunt. I mounted a Magpul bipod, and that has tightened her groups. Today we graduated to 200yds, and a confusing problem arose. The rifle shoots about 3" high at 100 yds from the bench, centered horizontally. Prone, with bipod supports, it shot slightly high but 3-5" left for her, low and 1-2 right for me. I am baffled. Barrel temp was warm from start to finish at 200 yds, so I don't think barrel heating was an issue, nor wind, loads, weather. Perhaps we squeeze the trigger differently? Is one of us, likely me, is twisting the rifle as the trigger breaks? We are both right handed, shooting a right handed Bergara with 22" barrel, and 7.62x51 ammo with 147gr bullets. FWIW, I'm an NRA certified basic rifle instructor, but not tons of experience at it and I haven't taught in several years.
Any ideas? Thanks

Parallax. You and she may be centering the target differently in the eyepiece?

Just speculating.

Jim

I would check the cheek welds being different from bench to prone. Take a photo of both and review them. Wrist and hand angle on the trigger hand would be the next thing to look at.

Slight differences in how you and her hold it can have big differences in point of impact which is why a person should sight in their own gun

Cheek weld is definitely different from bench to prone for both of us. The rifle butt also fits into the shoulder differently too, because of obvious difference in the spine's angle relative to the bore. How does one adapt to the differences in geometry of bench vs prone?

Parallax is a reasonable possibility. On line sources disagree, and variously state our scope (Leopoldo 1.5-5x) is parallax free at 100 or 150 yards. Either way, it doesn't seem like it would amount to that much difference.

Thank you both

Oops! I meant Leupold 1.5-5x. Dang auto-correct🤬

Buy a bubble level that attaches to the scope. If the rifle is canted one way or another it really gets magnified with distance

Very little, if any, at standard ranges. Long range yes, but not the case here. Save your cash and look at the above mentioned issues. Possibly try shooting from bags, just for grins also? Cant can certainly cause issues at much longer ranges though. Also make sure rails/bases and rings are all good to go. Good luck

yep. or just consciously straighten up the vertical crosshair.

You cannot do this, there is no way you can straighten up the crosshair, put a level on your rifle and try if you don't believe me. what appears plumb through the scope in different terrain is not plumb. been shooting deer at ungodly ranges for years and I can't do it!

A plumb bob string in the line of sight will be easy to tell if your angle changes with different holds.
Where or how the pod is mounted may be considered. Shoot a group, take it off and repeat.

Try using a back bag if you weren't already. Rice bag or something under the rear point of contact for the stock. Basically you just have to pull the trigger at that point.

LEAD SLED Line it up and shoot. THEN you shoot it at same range. Then let her shoot it. Sand bagged or bi-pod for you and her. IF shes hunting with it why bother how it shoots for you ? Some around here worry how the rifle shoots for the grown up because if the Parents target deer steps out the kid is moved out of the way and parent does the shooting....
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Could be any one of the things others have mentioned. I would also check finger placement on the trigger. One of you could be pushing or pulling the trigger to one side or the other. This usually doesn't show too much with a rifle but really shows when shooting a pistol. Little things like this are amplified by distance and the difference between two shooters and the same rifle. Just my .02 worth.

Give her a empty chamber and see what happens, I’d film it to be able to review it and go over it later.

Take a level to the range and draw a perfectly plumb vertical line on your target. Now, each of you line up, naturally, on the target and see how the line on target lines up with your windage crosshair. Should tell you something.

Never paid much attention to the affect of a canted scoped rifle, as for the vast majority of my shooting, it was close range at big targets. It wasn't until I started to focus on accuracy with of all things......an air rifle.......did I realize the nature of the problem.

When you get right down to it.......assumption is that vertical cross hair lines up directly with the center of the barrel. Any bullet fired would thus have to remain centered on that line to hit where you are aimed. Cant the rifle even a little and you are sending the bullet off to the side. Farther the distance, the farther off you are.

Solution most have come up with is to find a way to plumb the gun.......either a bubble level....typically on the mounts......or hang a plumb bob string at target to line crosshair on.

Bubble level means you have to look outside the scope......better than nothing, but you can still screw it up as you move back and forth. Strings don't work when hunting or for most other targets that are other than on a fixed range.

Seems to me the best option is to put a level inside the field of view of the scope. Apparently Leopold and a few others have electronic versions, but I'm not a fan of anything on a rifle that requires a battery to operate......as we all know Murphy was an optimist. Battery will almost certainly die when you want it the most.

What would seem to be a better option would be a mechanical inclinometer. Similar to what pilots use in planes to know if they are flying level.......or some vehicles and sailboats use to know if they are level on their feet or leaning. These are all p[owed by gravity.....same as the plumb string. Put it right inside the scope so you know you are level. And to go with that, positive right angle stops on scopes and mounts so scope registers and is always mounted square to the rifle.

1 sight alignment with a scope this means your eye is behind it and you don't see shadows at the edge of the optic crisp clear image edge to edge , build up cheek riser as needed so her eye is in the same place with a solid cheek well also vertical sights or cross hair

2 sight picture with a scope , this is placing the cross hair on the target , sounds simple , but you need to use your body position to the rifle and not your fine motor muscles

3 respiratory pause empty your breath watching the sights fall or rise to the target as you let your breath out , let it out till you are empty take a few seconds to adjust your body to get the sight picture then breath again you can only really see what your sight picture will be when you are at the bottom if the breath cycle

4A focus you eye on the front sight crisp sight blurry target
with a scope this is a lesser step
4B focus your mind on keeping the front sight on the target
your focusing on keeping the cross hair on the target

5 squeeze the trigger , sqweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze lots of E's to emphasize it is not a pull or a jerk it is a building of pressure till the break not just sqeeeze but strait back and not dragging wood with your trigger finger the trigger finger from the point it leaves the palm of the hand doesn't touch anything but the trigger , work on moving your index finger without sqweezing the rest of your hand center of the pad of your finger on the center of the trigger.

6 follow through hold the trigger back , call your shot a mental snapshot of where the cross hair was when you broke the trigger. you can take a breath post recoil when you have gone back and forward




if you are using muscles to hold the rifle on the target , as you get tired you can't hold it , if you position your body to place the rifle on target you are in a relaxed state

people who hold the gun with muscle can relax as the trigger breaks and throw the shot

respiratory pause breath in and out a few times letting the sights fall to the target. empty is empty , some 1/4 or 1/2 let out of breath is slightly different every time

follow through is huge , keep the trigger back , keep the cheek on the stock , you shouldn't be using muscle and should be relaxed. call the shot
this is where shooting steel helps , get used to not moving or doing anything until you hear the clank of the bullet hitting the steel then inhale , let of the trigger , if it is a bolt action work the bolt trying not to break position , get back to position run the 6 steps again


NPOA is huge , but not really addressed in the 6 steps
Natural Point of Aim when relaxed at the bottom of your breath where is your body pointing the rifle
it is sort of a 2B
you run breath , exhale , adjust body to get sight picture , breath , exhale test

this all sounds like it takes a long time but once you master it you get fast , as a test we transition to prone , load , find npoa , fire 2 , reload find npoa , fire 8 repeating the process with every shot and have some time left on 65 seconds putting 10 rounds in the target at 300 yards every breath is a shot


Law dog makes a good point about flinch , ball dummy drill to see if she has a flinch then keep it going dummy till the ball surprises her

5 inches at 200 yards from a rest is a lot for just parallax or just the difference in how the gun recoils against you vs her

I like a 200 yard zero on a hunting gun , then there is no guessing on 100 yards , you get zero at 200 and see where that hits at 100 it will be the least difference it can be then if you plan to shoot further you see where you fall and write it down.

Okay, thanks T-men. I've got a few ideas to look at, probably Monday. I appreciate your inputs.

Cool picture of the little man with his first buck!

I'll tell you, I've read the comments. Very good chance the young lady is flintching. Not how much she weighs? But a .308 is a big gun for a kid. I'd rather see kids started out with small guns. A habit to flintch is a hard habit to break!

Could be the length of pull? If she's not squared up, that would put her off.

If you're handloading ammo, you can back it off on the load. Let her practice, and get comfortable with the gun, then when season starts give her full power ammo.

If she's afraid to pull the trigger, she's not going to be able to stay on target.

Not sure? But I wish her good luck.

People have called us liars for years but I have experienceed a rifle that is sighted in for one person be completely off for another. One example is my dad and little brother and I and deer rifles. I could pick up my dad's rifle and center punch anything you pointed at and he could do the same thing with my rifle but neither of us could get anywhere close with my brother's rifle nor he with ours all the same model rifle with the same stock and virtually identical scopes. Don't know what caused it but I was a fact. Possibly because my dad and I were both heavier built and had bigger shoulders than my brother and it made for a different hold. I have also seen a friend who could drive nails with a bipod off a bench not hit an 8 inch circle with the same gun at the same distance laying prone with his bipod on the ground. Turned out to be the difference in material that the bipod was setting on. The recoil reacts differently on different surfaces.

if the cheek weld is different I do not think that you can expect the same point of impact.....you might have to find a way to make the same weld influence your point of aim. It would be best to shoot from the position you will be shooting for real from with the same/similar rest. When possible I prefer sitting on my butt, knees up and using a two legged shooting stick if that is not possible I would prefer to brace off of a tree...no benches where I hunt and prone is not usually practical although I have shot two deer from prone in cut crop fields. Both times I had to crawl around some brush because they came out a different place from where I expected them to come out....I keep a bipod on my rifle for that and for placing it on the ground while hunting. Good luck.

The above is jmo, I am not an expert.

Bought my grand daughter a single shot 22 cricket. Has a peep sight. She is so tiny its the only firearm she can shoot. I had to cut the stock down on her red ryder bb gun.

She was shooting with the gun twisted stead of perpendicular. I had to keep reminding her at first. This was at 20 yards. Got to where she was whacking the black pretty good. She started getting bored so we quit. I think a few more times she is going to be ready for a squirrel hunt.

I think we have our problem ironed out. Turns out her bipod allows the rifle to rotate a little. In aviation terms we'd call it the roll axis. We shot today paying attention to that possibility and were rewarded with consistency. We sighted in her .308 with hunting ammo, Nosler brand 168gr. loads. We'll probably shoot the hunting loads at 200 yds one more time, and save 20 or so rounds for our hunt, which starts about the 12th. As a side note, I'm becoming fond of her Bergara rifle, and I also like the bipod we attached. We'll be above tree line on tundra.