Realistic expectations..

[chevy_man]

One thing to try with the CZ is putting an o-ring around the barrel and giving it a pressure point against the stock. Keep moving it and I'll bet you find a sweet spot.
Was just messing with one and it went from a 1/2" gun to a 1 hole gun. Move the o-ring to the wrong spot and it opened to 2". I've seen it with 10/22's quite often also.

One more thing to try in the black magic that is rimfire.

If you can shoot inside you'll be encouraged. Our local small-bore club has an indoor range we use during the winter. Amazing easy to shoot a .2" target at 50 with zero wind influence.

 

[barronian]

You first have to decide what your trying to accomplish. You've stated you're shooting for small groups but to what end. If the end is just small groups as opposed to developing skills for centerfire or PRS type shooting then how you approach your gun can be quite different. Fundamentals are a vehicle which simplifies your ability to do the same thing the same way every time. Your experience with the range-master shooting your rifle is a perfect example. The guy has probably fired seven gazzilian rounds and has no fundamentals but he shoots lights out. How can this be? It's simple. After the 7G rds. he does the same thing the same way every time which is the key to accuracy.

A question for you. When a group goes awry do you wonder what happened? If you do it will often cause you to alter your approach to the gun. That will lead to disaster. Remember, the same thing the same way. Time and rounds fired will groove this for you. Your groups will shrink and your confidence will increase. Confidence is hugely important. It allows you keep the mindset that the next shot is the only one that counts. Dry fire at the range before you shoot your first live round. If your crosshairs move when the trigger breaks, then keep dry firing until they don't. You've got to groove your mind just like you create muscle memory.

A couple of things that are easy to implement. When your shooting groups shoot nothing but Center-X. It's a good, good meaning consistently high performing, ammo. When you shoot a five round group, stay on the gun through the five rounds.

The great thing about this is it gets harder not easier. From 1" to .9" is a ten percent improvement. From .5" to .4" is a twenty percent improvement etc. Your going to have targets that are better than anything you've done before. Then you will have more of those targets and less of the other. Finally you will have one of those days where it all comes together. Even shots that feel like you pulled one will go where they're supposed to. Enjoy the journey.

@Quarter Horse "When a group goes awry do you wonder what happened?" yes i do, and i do exactly as you suggest not to do ! Amazingly i was thinking about exactly this issue last night and had decided to go for consistent hold/trigger/etc rather than chase/correct the groups. last night's thought was that it dosen't really matter if the shots are 'off target' so long as they are consistently off target - if i get that then i can change my scope's aim point so that they are now on target ?

 

[barronian]

When you finally get truly annoyed with those odd fliers that make no sense,
do yourself a favor and make use of a ballistic chronograph
along with a ballistic calculator.
Watch the MV numbers and the impacts, correlate the two.
You'll find that it's not all you.
Run a careful visual inspection of y'er rimfire cartridges.
Even small defects can produce major variations in the trajectories.
Those rimfire cartridges may look superficially alike, but they aren't.
I complain regularly about inconsistent rimfire quality,
due to the effects on repeatable accuracy.
In many cases you do everything right, but the ammo makes it wrong.

@justin amateur i've studied every one of your tests (did i mention im a nerd ;-)) i think i have a fairly good feel for the ammo variability. My variability is still larger than the ammo variability, although with all the help im getting here i think it is going to rapidly approach the ammo variability. a bigger issue for me is that the range is in a narrow valley near the top of a mountain ..... very, very variable wind.
Having said all that i'm watching the local suppliers and waiting for a deal on a labradar. ;-)

 

[barronian]

Whether I finish higher with the Vudoo is somewhat debatable. In an “apples to apples” comparison, I have shot one “PRS-lite” (varying targets at different distances out to 150 yards, shot from a bench) match with the CZ and one with the Vudoo. These are small matches - a couple of dozen shooters. I finished 2nd with the CZ and first with the Vudoo. Now, the match where I used the Vudoo was far more difficult due to target size and a significant gusty wind.

I shoot monthly 50-100-150 yard matches where there are 20 steel targets at each range, varying in size from maybe 4MOA to about 1MOA, with rifle supported on a bench with bipod and rear bag (bag for 100 & 150 only). With the CZ, I would usually finish with a score in the mid-50’s out of 60 possible. I’ve shot two with the Vudoo. In the first, I was in a 4-way tie for first with 59/60; for whatever reason - can I blame it on a weak cartridge? - I missed one of the 2nd-smallest 100-yard targets. In the second, I cleaned the 50 and 100-yard stages with all but a few rounds almost exactly in the center of the target. But a gusty wind suddenly began blowing papers and such around as I moved to the 150 stage and somehow the 150-yard wind flag had gotten knocked down. So I dropped 6 and finished 6th out of a few dozen shooters; I was on the last flight of the day and all the earlier shooters had a much kinder wind factor.

Subjectively, shooting the Vudoo against most other rifles in the 50/100/150 matches, which are mostly shot from a solid bench with solid support and wind flags at every range, feels a little like bullying. I mentioned there was a 4-way tie for first - three of the four first place finishers were shooting Vudoos; the 4th shot an Anschutz. It’s largely an equipment and ammo race.

BUT. When the wind comes up and/or competition changes to varying distance, especially shooting from PRS style positioning on a tighter clock, the shooter becomes FAR more important. The rifle makes it easier, but, as shown with my succumbing to wind at 150 yards because the environment did not offer a good means of discerning wind at the back corner of the range where the targets were positioned, ya gotta know how to use the tool you have.

@DownhillFromHere this post has been rattling around in my head all day. Im not entirely sure why. I think my musing goes along the lines of "you take a top level competitor and the best equipment can make things easier for him, but shake him out of 'the zone' and the best equipment isn't going to save him" ? ie it isn't just about equipment and calculations there is a psychological side to the game as well. ?

 

[MDrimfirerookie]

there is a huge psychological component to PRS / NRL. there is something about hearing shooter ready, standby and then the beep of the timer that makes you lose your mind if you don't have your shit together.

obviously experienced shooters handle this better because they have more trigger time and match experience. but even those guys have a bad stage every now and then.

if it truly were a gear race, i would sell a kidney for a vudoo / top end scope / cases of lapua center x. as it stands doing that still won't get me to the top because my mental game needs work, my fundamentals need work, my approach to attacking stages needs to get more consistent etc.

case in point, i can take my cz455 with an athlon midas tac shooting eley force and practice certain stages. if i do it with no timer and focus on technique and fundamentals i can clean the stage with no dropped shots. put a timer on and boom it all changes. and this is by myself at the range. imagine now a match setting with fellow competitors watching. it would be NO different with a vudoo for me.

but what keeps me coming back is the challenge of self improvement. i hold no delusions of winning a match any time soon.

 

[DownhillFromHere]

@DownhillFromHere this post has been rattling around in my head all day. Im not entirely sure why. I think my musing goes along the lines of "you take a top level competitor and the best equipment can make things easier for him, but shake him out of 'the zone' and the best equipment isn't going to save him" ? ie it isn't just about equipment and calculations there is a psychological side to the game as well. ?

After raw talent, the psychological aspect of ANY competitive sport is, imho, more important than the equipment.

I started shooting American skeet when I was 15 years old. I started competing when I was 30. By the time I was 45, I was AAA (highest classification) in all four guns (12, 20, 28 gauge and .410 bore). I had the expensive tournament gun of my choice - purchasing that shotgun today costs the same, literally, as 5 or 6 Vudoos depending on which Vudoo you get. I shot maybe 10-12,000 shot shells a year. At that level, missing one target out of 100 reduces the other 99 to expensive practice.

Compared to precision rifle, skeet is EASY. The fields are always exactly the same dimensions. The targets are always identical and flying the same speed (in calm air) on the same trajectory and appear instantly on your call. You put the bead in the right place and pull the trigger - especially with 12 and 20 gauge - the target will break. Wind and other environmental conditions add challenge, but, fundamentally, skeet is easy.

So, as a AAA shooter who had the best equipment and years of practice and experience, did I win?

O hell no. Not at the national level.

In my best competitive season, my lowest score in 28-gauge was 98/100. But I didn’t win state awards, let alone national honors. It wasn’t at all unheard of for the guys who were the best of the best to go an entire season - at least 1200 competition targets minimum and 1000 in the smaller gauges - and not miss a single one in the larger gauges. At that level, a perfect 100 score gets you into the shoot offs. At the club level, the tie-breaker shootoffs are usually decided in no more than half-dozen pair of 3-4-5 doubles. At the world level, you better bring half-dozen boxes of shells to the shoot offs.

I knew the game. I lived it and breathed it. Most of the reason I didn’t do better was pure adrenalin, and I didn’t have that rare talent it takes to be the best.

The first time a shooter does one perfect round - 25 straight - it’s a big deal. The next step is 50. Then 75. Then 100. It’s vast;y harder to run 100s with a .410 than the larger guns due to the tiny amount of shot, but I did it. I know guys who have shot every weekend for years and never put up 100 straight in practice, let alone competition, in any gauge. It’s different when there’s a ref standing there with the pull button in one hand and the score sheet in the other. Like the earlier post about everything changes when that timer beeps. At each step of the way - 25, 50, etc., in 12, 20, 28, and that little #%$&*^#& .410 - you come down to those last few targets for the straight and your mouth is dry and tastes like brass, your hands are so sweaty you can hardly hold the gun, and your heart is beating out of your chest.

The targets are easy. The challenge is between your ears. In my last few years of competition, at least once or twice a year I’d miss the last one out for a 99. I could usually hit that target regularly from the hip. I just ran out of cool one target early. I was a far better referee than shooter; I’ve pulled for legends in the game, and I’ve been on the button when ALL of them lost big tournaments because of a one-target brain fart.

So, no, that Vudoo isn’t going to make you a better shooter. It will help a good shooter maximize talent, but it isn’t going to help you get any better any faster. I quit skeet simply because I burned out, physically and mentally. I took up rifle because it gives me the pleasure of learning and competing the way skeet used to. I’m too old and arthritic to do well in true PRS competition, but I get a lot of joy in taking the journey as far as I can, while I can before arthritis and whatever else ends it.

Enjoy the ride, and don’t get hung up in an equipment race. I can tell you some hilarious stories of things people would buy to make them better skeet shooter - like shoes with specially-angled soles and a stock attachment that put a padded bar in your mouth to keep your head on the stock. You have a good rifle, and you have an amazing resource in SH. Just have fun.

 

[barronian]

After raw talent, the psychological aspect of ANY competitive sport is, imho, more important than the equipment.

I started shooting American skeet when I was 15 years old. I started competing when I was 30. By the time I was 45, I was AAA (highest classification) in all four guns (12, 20, 28 gauge and .410 bore). I had the expensive tournament gun of my choice - purchasing that shotgun today costs the same, literally, as 5 or 6 Vudoos depending on which Vudoo you get. I shot maybe 10-12,000 shot shells a year. At that level, missing one target out of 100 reduces the other 99 to expensive practice.

Compared to precision rifle, skeet is EASY. The fields are always exactly the same dimensions. The targets are always identical and flying the same speed (in calm air) on the same trajectory and appear instantly on your call. You put the bead in the right place and pull the trigger - especially with 12 and 20 gauge - the target will break. Wind and other environmental conditions add challenge, but, fundamentally, skeet is easy.

So, as a AAA shooter who had the best equipment and years of practice and experience, did I win?

O hell no. Not at the national level.

In my best competitive season, my lowest score in 28-gauge was 98/100. But I didn’t win state awards, let alone national honors. It wasn’t at all unheard of for the guys who were the best of the best to go an entire season - at least 1200 competition targets minimum and 1000 in the smaller gauges - and not miss a single one in the larger gauges. At that level, a perfect 100 score gets you into the shoot offs. At the club level, the tie-breaker shootoffs are usually decided in no more than half-dozen pair of 3-4-5 doubles. At the world level, you better bring half-dozen boxes of shells to the shoot offs.

I knew the game. I lived it and breathed it. Most of the reason I didn’t do better was pure adrenalin, and I didn’t have that rare talent it takes to be the best.

The first time a shooter does one perfect round - 25 straight - it’s a big deal. The next step is 50. Then 75. Then 100. It’s vast;y harder to run 100s with a .410 than the larger guns due to the tiny amount of shot, but I did it. I know guys who have shot every weekend for years and never put up 100 straight in practice, let alone competition, in any gauge. It’s different when there’s a ref standing there with the pull button in one hand and the score sheet in the other. Like the earlier post about everything changes when that timer beeps. At each step of the way - 25, 50, etc., in 12, 20, 28, and that little #%$&*^#& .410 - you come down to those last few targets for the straight and your mouth is dry and tastes like brass, your hands are so sweaty you can hardly hold the gun, and your heart is beating out of your chest.

The targets are easy. The challenge is between your ears. In my last few years of competition, at least once or twice a year I’d miss the last one out for a 99. I could usually hit that target regularly from the hip. I just ran out of cool one target early. I was a far better referee than shooter; I’ve pulled for legends in the game, and I’ve been on the button when ALL of them lost big tournaments because of a one-target brain fart.

So, no, that Vudoo isn’t going to make you a better shooter. It will help a good shooter maximize talent, but it isn’t going to help you get any better any faster. I quit skeet simply because I burned out, physically and mentally. I took up rifle because it gives me the pleasure of learning and competing the way skeet used to. I’m too old and arthritic to do well in true PRS competition, but I get a lot of joy in taking the journey as far as I can, while I can before arthritis and whatever else ends it.

Enjoy the ride, and don’t get hung up in an equipment race. I can tell you some hilarious stories of things people would buy to make them better skeet shooter - like shoes with specially-angled soles and a stock attachment that put a padded bar in your mouth to keep your head on the stock. You have a good rifle, and you have an amazing resource in SH. Just have fun.

@DownhillFromHere Thank you, for taking the time to write this and your other posts. every time i read them i get a new detail out of your advice.

 

[Booner1334]

@DownhillFromHere Thank you, for taking the time to write this and your other posts. every time i read them i get a new detail out of your advice.

I agree with you: a very well-written post that puts things in perspective.

 

[MDrimfirerookie]

@DownhillFromHere - WOW thank you so much for that post and that perspective.

my background is stick and ball sports and i got into shooting in my 30s. but i can tell you the same applies to sports. i've seen high round draft picks with all the talent in the world never make it out of A or AA ball because of the mental side. on the flip side i've seen guys with AA talent make it to the show on hard work and having the strongest mental game around, nothing fazed them. my takeaway from them was put your head down, work your ass off and focus on what you can control. trying my hardest to apply it to shooting.

thank you again for sharing that.

 

[DownhillFromHere]

Thanks for the compliment, guys. The mental aspect of shooting (any discipline) fascinates me. Attitude. Staying in it with positive outlook when you're having a bad day. It can make shooting a pleasure at any level, or it can turn a hobby into a demon. It can turn people into assholes. Or it can absolutely define what I aspire to be in shooting - and in life.

With PRS and such, every match is different and scores are relative. You don't really know where you stand until all the scores are in and tallied.

Skeet is a game of perfection. The mental pressure is in knowing you have to be perfect. Here's a good analogy. Consider those triangular-springy things with handles you squeeze to strengthen grip. For most healthy young men, squeezing the handles together a bunch of times is pretty easy. So, hand your buddy a quarter and tell him put the quarter between the handles, squeeze, and hold it there. Not so hard, right? Now bet him $20 he can't hold it for 60 seconds. If he takes the bet, you'll almost certainly be $20 richer. If he lets up for an eye blink, that quarter is on the floor. So it is with skeet. The more targets, the more likely you'll figuratively drop the quarter.

Even if you hold onto it, a bunch of other people at big shoots will too. The perfect score is the admission to the shoot-offs. One reason I burned out is I never got good at shoot-off doubles. You can run hundreds all summer long and never win a big shoot if you can't do shoot-off doubles.

For a skilled shooter, the hardest competition round possible is when he/she misses the first target. You're almost certainly out of the running for top gun or even class champ. Staying in the game is tough. One of my proudest competition scores was in Salisbury, MD. , 20-gauge event. I'd never shot there before. It was hot as hades and other environmental bits tinkered with my mental state. I dropped 10 targets in the first 2 boxes (50). I almost quit rather than drag my average down any more. But I couldn't. I'd never been a quitter and I didn't want to start. I stayed in and ran the last 50, finishing with a 90. Score sucked. But the experienced skeet competitor knows how hard it is to dig out of a hole that deep. I'm as proud of that 90 as any 100 I ever posted, including .410.

The mental pressure made people crazy sometimes. I never saw it happen myself, but first-person recollections abounded of guys missing a target late in a competition and literally throwing an expensive tournament gun or driving muzzles into the dirt. There is the story of a big-$ Krieghoff shotgun lying on the bottom of the Savannah River as a disgusted shooter left Forest City Gun Club. I was THERE when a guy did poorly and sold every bit of his gear for pennies on the dollar and left (he was back the next year, and was accepted without prejudice - we had all been close to that point). And many, many times I've taken a squad member aside and told him that his cursing and throwing empty shells is understandable but it's also poisoning the round for everyone else (and every time they settled down).

The mental game is THE game in skeet. Once you can consistently hit 23 of 25 targets, the other two are mental. Whether shooting a $900 Browning or a $90,000 custom-engraved Krieghoff, the mental game is what wins.

So many of the lessons I learned in skeet are applicable to rifle (or pistol or 3-gun or...). But the main lesson is this: HAVE FUN. If you're gonna bitch and be an asshole because you're having a bad day, do the rest of us a huge favor and settle down - or leave. Don't poison it for everyone else.

Definition of class is the godfather of North Carolina skeet's approach to the game. Til is in his 80s now and still, as of last fall, a AA shooter. He was shooting back in the '60s when I started. I have seen him leave his squad on a practice day before a big shoot to help a youngster and his dad who were both beginners. With the countless championships he has won, one milestone has eluded him: he never ran a 4x4 (perfect scores in 12, 20, 28, and .410 in a standard 4-gun shoot, 400 straight). I was refereeing for his squad some years ago. It's Sunday afternoon, last box (25 targets) of .410. Til is straight for the weekend. He's working station 5 low, 388 targets in the bag, 12 targets to go for a perfect 4x4, 400 straight.

He calls. I hit the button. He swings perfectly. And misses.

No reaction, other than he reloads and inkballs his option (first miss in a round is repeated). He steps off and encourages the next shooter to be right. No one said a thing. He finished with a 399 and took HOA champ. That's the game. That. That's the attitude and mental strength I wanted to have.

Attitude, mental approach. It's everything, as far as I'm concerned.

Edit: one other thing. Nobody is going to remember a bad score next weekend. But everybody is going to remember how you act after you post it.

Another edit: I have made much of having to be perfect to be competitive at skeet. That's true only at the highest levels of the game. If it was golf, I'm talking about the pro guys on TV. That doesn't mean an average shooter can't immensely enjoy the game. If I finish in the top 50th percentile of a PRS match, that's huge for me - so it should be with newcomers to skeet!

 

[barronian]

Finally got a chance to get to the range and try some of the advice i've been given here.... I'm still at the stage where i can rarely put it all together - if i concentrate on one thing then something else will fall apart

I have the most trouble with calling my shots. the recoil produces a very short duration twitch which usually appears to be less than .2 mil (.7 MOA) before returning to on-target. the duration is so short that i rarely have more than an impression of which direction it went in. I'd say i manage to call something like 2 of 10 shots.
One thing that trying to call my shots has already helped with is it showed me that i wasn't paying enough attention to my sight picture and parallax.
I've also been working on slowing down and 'relaxing' into the shot.

Anyway, i got 3 hours in practicing all of advice i got from you all (before the rain came in and i decided that lying on the ground in the rain probably wasn't going to help my shooting that much). I kind of demonstrated @DownhillFromHere's point about concentration !

Anyway A BIG THANKS to all of you, you have improved my shooting - i'm not going to win any matches but the percentage of shots that i'm happy with is rising and i can see that it will get better with practice/concentration.
Today's targets look like this:

 

[TIMMYTOY]

Well I had the pleasure to shot a 20k skeet shot gun on Tuesday wow it felt great shot well but my bad habits kept me from shooting well.
practice practice practice . but owning a Vudoo did increase my shooting ability because I was so frustrated with the junk I was shooting it added to bad mental issues now I'm in love with the Vudoo longest I've shot so far 388yds what a feeling. ting.ting,ting sound of steel.

 

[Shooter_X]

Ammunition is the limiting factor in 22 accuracy.
Currently, Bleiker holds the Eley test facility record, with an outside edge to edge grouping of 12.4 millimeters
This equates to just a shade under 1/2 inch, or, .488189 of an inch.
This with the gun in a fixture, and shot in a tunnel, with 0 wind. I do not remember how many shots were fired, but I think 20 shots.

Below, you will find a 1/2 inch Birchwood Casey target that I shot, using a Vudoo V22 rifle, over the course of 50 shots. The whole box of RWS Target Rifle. Over a span of about 12 hours, shooting 5 rounds into the target every hour ( sometimes a little more), checking how it would fair with cold bore fliers. This was done at night, outdoors, on a calm night. It was done off sand bags at a lasered 50 yards.

This is the Target.

And this is the gun.

S_X

 

[barronian]

@Shooter_X Very impressive, both your shooting and your patience !!

 

[barronian]

OK.. im feeling pretty stupid posting these results after @Shooter_X ! However for those that aren't at Shooter_Xs level and are going through the same learning pains as i am it may be useful.

Im still trying to incorporate the advice given by everyone in this thread into my fundamentals - im at a strange and frustrating stage at the moment where things click for a couple of shots then i loose it again. so i get 2 or 3 shot groups that literally land on top of each other ... then the next shots are .... somewhere else.
see the image below for examples.

 

[Macca]

Welcome to the wonderful if somewhat inconsistent world of rimfire.

 

[barronian]

@Macca thanks ! i think ;-)
certinly not something you maste rin a week !

 

[Macca]

A pleasure,
Your groups look good to me,certainly they’re something to build upon.
I’ll give you an example of inconsistent.
Yesterday I was shooting at 100 in no wind (which is rare),1st & 2nd shot dead on & touching each other 3rd shot dropped 1 1/4”,4th shot touched the other two & the 5th was an 1/8” off the others.
No wind,same point of aim.

 

[barronian]

@Macca thanks for the encouragement