F T/R Competition Bipod jump

[savageshooter86]

Have been trying to reduce the amount of hop my bipod has. I have a Savage 12 FTR 308 win and a duplin bipod. Also use a Protektor DR bag with mid ears(cordura). Have tried straight behind rifle and also slightly canted on the left side. Still the reticle moves left about 1/2-1 target over after recoil. I have a medium grip on rifle.

Any tips to try to reduce this jump off the target? No one I shoot with at my range shoots off bipod like this so I don't know what to try next.

I set my mat at a slight angle(12:30 to 6:30 ) and put my rear bag down toward target. Then I place my rifle and try to line up to target. I check and adjust rear bag and rifle until it is dead center in the black. Then I stand and verify they both are lined up straight. I then get straight behind and then line up and drop down and get my right side directly behind rifle.

Would my grip pressure/shoulder pressure reduce my "issue"

 

[XTR]

Have been trying to reduce the amount of hop my bipod has. I have a Savage 12 FTR 308 win and a duplin bipod. Also use a Protektor DR bag with mid ears(cordura). Have tried straight behind rifle and also slightly canted on the left side. Still the reticle moves left about 1/2-1 target over after recoil. I have a medium grip on rifle.

Any tips to try to reduce this jump off the target? No one I shoot with at my range shoots off bipod like this so I don't know what to try next.

I set my mat at a slight angle(12:30 to 6:30 ) and put my rear bag down toward target. Then I place my rifle and try to line up to target. I check and adjust rear bag and rifle until it is dead center in the black. Then I stand and verify they both are lined up straight. I then get straight behind and then line up and drop down and get my right side directly behind rifle.

Would my grip pressure/shoulder pressure reduce my "issue"

The rifle is moving left because of you, and you are not alone there are a lot of shooters that have the rifle come up one or two targets left, (including at least one or two on the US team) that's where 90% of the crossfires I've ever seen come up, and where 100 % of mine have come up. Lowlight has some recoil management videos on this site (on the main site not the forum)

The rifle does not jump, it comes straight back until the recoil pad makes contact with you. If your shoulder is angled back to the right then the butt slides right and the POA goes left. Try to get some video, you may discover it's not as much bipod hopping left as the rifle butt/bag scootching right. It is one of the things we F-TR shooters have to deal with that makes it harder than F-Open, you have to rebuild the position after every shot.

There are guys who hold firm and guys who flirt with free recoil. I don't know that it makes a difference one way or the other but you have to find a way that works for you and do it the same way every time. Last yr during a club match I realized that I'd settled my shoulder deeper under the stock that I usually do. It felt different, it was a club match so I sent it just to see. Solid 9 at 1 o'clock.

What you are trying to figure out now is the hard part. Wind, how you ride the rear bag, and position are the three things you can't buy, and they are more important than all the other stuff we write about combined.

 

[Down South]

I work on my position all the time to make sure im lined up perfectly and with ski type bipods and i still end up on the target to the left after the shot. I own a Sinclair Gen II and Phoenix. I switched to a Flex bipod that you actually preload and my problem was solved and my vertical on target has never been as good as it is now......Not everyone likes to load a bipod and many very good shooters use ski bipods with great results but for me personally the results are much better when loading it compared to ski types.

 

[silver-duck]

I use a bipod like that also. Your stock could be hanging up on your bag.Put some talcum powder or monkey butt powder on your stock and bag ears;line everything up as usual; use very slight shoulder pressure and let the rifle come straight back under recoil. One ski could be getting caught also.Make sure your bipod is perpendicular to the barrel and not lose at all.
I do not know much about shooting but I am learning something new every time I shoot.

 

[rcampbell]

I used a harris, and loading the bipod really helped me as well.

 

[savageshooter86]

glad to hear this is "normal" in FTR competitive shooting

 

[Denys]

It's normal but can and must be controlled in order to do well.

XTR is correct in describing how it occurs, and I will add that regular stocks such as the one on the Savage FTR rifle are more prone to the left (right for left hand shooters) hop due to the heel of the stock going back under recoil and causing the stock to go down and right, following the slope of the shoulder, away from the trunk. When I switched to my current rifle with the much flatter bottom, the tendency to hop left diminished to the point I could virtually eliminate it. I'm now considering a read bag that has a longer top to enhance the flat bottom of the stock, something like F-open rifles.

You can eliminate a lot of the hop by loading the bipod but that doesn't work very well with the wide F-TR bipods and is actually contra-indicated for those, in my opinion. Also, loading a bipod puts tension on the whole shooting system and transmits the breathing and heartbeat pulses to the scope, which I find disconcerting. I hold the rifle to my shoulder but I do not press it into my shoulder so I never see all those movements. That plus the fact my heart rate and respiration rate seem to slow down magically when I get behind a rifle.

The days when I do well, I notice that the rifle doesn't move much when I fire, I can actually monitor the target and even catch a glimpse of the trace when I'm lucky. If I'm fighting to get the rifle back on line after every shot, something is wrong. I have been known to simply stop shooting and redo my position completely in the middle of a match because I was fighting it.

It is critical that you be comfortable on the mat, and that you place no tension anywhere in your position or on the rifle. At that point, the rifle should track back, much more cleanly for you.

 

[gstaylorg]

In the olden days when cars had rear wheel drive, the trick to controlling a skid on snow or ice was turn the steering wheel in the direction the rear wheels were sliding. Obviously, that doesn't work in the modern age of front wheel drive cars, but it still holds true (for me at least) for shooting. If the angle of your shoulder when shooting prone is directing the recoil left, try angling your feet slightly more in the direction of the recoil (hop). This is analogous to the old steering wheel trick and should have the effect of bringing your shoulder closer to square with your intended line of fire/POA. It usually doesn't take much more than a slight movement to square things up and has worked well for me if I'm not lined up correctly and the rifle starts hopping to the left during recoil.

 

[pappy42]

In the olden days when cars had rear wheel drive, the trick to controlling a skid on snow or ice was turn the steering wheel in the direction the rear wheels were sliding. Obviously, that doesn't work in the modern age of front wheel drive cars, but it still holds true (for me at least) for shooting. If the angle of your shoulder when shooting prone is directing the recoil left, try angling your feet slightly more in the direction of the recoil (hop). This is analogous to the old steering wheel trick and should have the effect of bringing your shoulder closer to square with your intended line of fire/POA. It usually doesn't take much more than a slight movement to square things up and has worked well for me if I'm not lined up correctly and the rifle starts hopping to the left during recoil.

Yep, this is good advice; still works for me and I'm wrong handed.

 

[savageshooter86]

I will give it a try. So I line up the same and just move my fee to the left slightly? I had previously tried moving my body slightly left with no change so this will give me something to try and play with.

Great advice

 

[Denys]

Ok.

I was actually going to say that you should move your feet more to the right; I am lying pretty much parallel to my rifle.

 

[gstaylorg]

The shape and angle of everyone's shoulder pocket where the rifle contacts is obviously not exactly the same, but for me what has worked is to angle my body (feet) ever so slightly in the direction of the muzzle travel when the rifle doesn't recoil straight back. I favor being as straight behind the gun as possible, so if the muzzle is jumping slightly left, it usually means I'm slightly misaligned to the right and I'll angle my feet/body slightly to the left. It usually doesn't take much at all and I have found by experimenting that I can actually switch the muzzle hop all the way from one side to the other by changing my body angle behind the gun in this manner.

I think a lot depends on exactly how you're behind the gun to start with, and how the shape/angle of your shoulder pocket changes as you move your position. It may not be the exact same for any two people. However, it's pretty easy to experiment a little bit and see if it helps correct the hop. If the hop is caused by another factor such as gripping too tightly, etc., you may not notice much of a change, but it's worth a try to see if it helps. The key is to find exactly what position works for you, then get to where that is normally the position you get in when you first lay down behind the rifle. Once you find the sweet spot where the gun is coming straight back and you don't lose your sight picture during recoil, it becomes much easier to build that position the next time. After doing this for a while, it should hopefully become the exception when you find you're not lined up like you want, rather than the norm. Good luck with it.

 

[silver-duck]

Thank you guy's for the helpful information.