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Practical distance rule of thumb for shooting positions

longrange772

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Apr 19, 2021
117
102
US
Is there a general rule of thumb for the various shooting position's effective distance for IPSC sized target? For example, off hand 100y, kneeling 200, stack foot, sitting, etc... Not the one in a million shot but considered 90% effective for the distance.
 
Fire a group from each of positions yourself and then compare the ipsc moa size to that group at say 300-400 and see how much it differs from the expectations and you have a ratio.

You have to test yourself since positional shooting skills vary a lot.
I considered myself pretty ok until one guy at the range started pinging the 300m 12"x16" steel casually from a standing position when he got bored of prone.

My hit expectation off-hand is 2/3 to be within 2moa in no wind conditions. 1/3 are pretty well scattered everywhere, bad trigger presses / forced shots usually. I have trained/tested against scatt with higher pulse by sprinting first and it did not lower my accuracy but after real fatigue + competetive stress sets in there is huge reduction in accuracy that I have not measured / calculated yet.

And I am sure the AR with factory trigger will give me way worse results under fatigue, even in steady pulse it does give me the similar results as 22 rifle with BnA.
 
Yeah, not sure there is a specific distance. So many variables including speed. One really interesting drill is called "Rifle Bounce." On a timer, one starts at high ready and engages a standard pepper popper at 100, 200 and 300 yards. Each must be engaged from a different position and one must move about 3 feet to the right between each shot.

I shot this drill at a scout rifle class. One older guy was extremely slow but was able to complete the drill using standing, squat (AKA rice paddy prone) and kneeling. He did this very consistently but took close to a minute to do it. That old guy was amazing at his ability to keep steady enough at 300 yards with his support elbow resting on his knee.

Most shooters used standing/sitting/prone. A time below 25 seconds was good. A time below 20 seconds was stunning. There was one guy who did it in just over 15 seconds.

In that same class, we had a shoot-off at the end. This was a man-on-man with 2 targets. One was at 60 and the other at 200. On signal, the first target had to be shot from standing and the second from any position. I won by going from standing to prone and looping into the sling on the way down. To me, it was more reliable than what the second place guy did. He went from standing to sitting and he was VERY fast (the guy just collapsed into the sit) but he had a hard time getting his second shot off as quickly or as accurately as me because he was less stable.

The third place finisher needs mention here as well. He was a rookie but was shooting an AR15 (the rest of us had bolt guns). He went from standing to sitting and usually missed his first round at 200. He just kept hammering away and would fire 3 to 4 shots before the other guy got off his first shot at the 200 yard target.

I guess the point of all of this is to emphasize that one should train hard and figure out what works FOR THEM. If one thing doesn't work for you, keep training or try something else. The old guy with the bad back and knees was better at kneeling than I am but he took forever to get there. I'm faster into prone than most. The second place guy was lightning fast into sitting but was never as stable once there. Third place guy needs help with fundamentals but used his equipment to his advantage.

Here's the video from the class

 
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When it comes to estimating distance & what shooting position I use, I have 5 distance brackets which generally work fairly well.
1) Short way.................................................................................0 to 120 or so. Off hand or, a handy rest.
2) Little bit long way.................................................................120 to 300. Steady off hand rest, car bonnet etc.
3)Long way................................................................................... 300 to 500. Car bonnet, truck rack, fence strainer post, prone.
4) Fucking long way................................................................... 500 to 800. Good shooting bench, prone, lay on car bonnet etc.
5) Can hardly see the cunt...................................................... 800 to 1200. Prone on ground, lay on car bonnet or truck back.