Why high?

[CZforlife]

You think you guys got problems....try keeping all these things in proper alignment on a rifle that is being shot by a fast growing 13 year old who is a master class shooter and can tell you when the scope is 1/2 bubble off plumb or her head is a few degrees out of kilter...

Kitty

[BCloninger]

You think you guys got problems....try keeping all these things in proper alignment on a rifle that is being shot by a fast growing 13 year old who is a master class shooter and can tell you when the scope is 1/2 bubble off plumb or her head is a few degrees out of kilter...

Kitty

Aren't teenagers always a few degrees out? And how's the knee?

[jneihouse]

I'm glad I've had this one since a pup. Would be totally out of the loop if not. At least this one translates her friends comments for me. Knee is trashed, won't support me and is extremely painful. Appointment with the surgeon has been moved up to Dec 6th. Can come soon enough for me, I cant take much more of being grounded.

Kitty

[BCloninger]

I'm glad I've had this one since a pup. Would be totally out of the loop if not. At least this one translates her friends comments for me. Knee is trashed, won't support me and is extremely painful. Appointment with the surgeon has been moved up to Dec 6th. Can come soon enough for me, I cant take much more of being grounded.

Kitty

You should write a dictionary for the rest of us!

Godspeed with your knee.

[tenx9]

The fact is, Kitty is right and it is pretty simplistic. I find that young people and women are the easiest to get to shoot well. Women because they listen and are not over-whelmed by testosterone and young people because they want to please, listen and have superior eye hand coordination. Off hand shooting is having a decent hold, smooth trigger release and when the brain says pull the trigger, IT DOES. Old people, like me, when the brain says, "Pull the Trigger", I wait about a 1/2hr then I pull the trigger. Thats the beauty of being young. As far as all that stuff that worries you, don't, have fun. The scores will come and then peak, then you have to fight for every animal. Thats why theres only one champ in a match.

[BCloninger]

tenx, you forgot to mention the random finger twitches age gifts some of us with.

Youngsters in general and women in particular are also more flexible physically. Mini-Kitty has an amazing sense of physical orientation, and by extension where the rifle is and what it's doing. Add in that she is completely at ease with firearms and has had great coaching from the start, and you have an amazing shooter. While most of us fret about adapting the equipment to us, she's already adapted to the equipment and started practicing with it!

[Jason]

John can speak on this much better than I, but I don't think she has had to adapt to the equipment very much. I hope she hasn't, anyway. My whole goal in setting up my equipment is to have everything "just work" so that I don't have to think about anything other than the spot on the target. For me, putting a bit of can't into my scope makes it so that when I mount the rifle in the most comfortable and stable position the crosshairs are plumb and level. That's as important to me as having the right length of pull, scope height, scope eye relief, and trigger shoe placement. Sorry if I didn't make it clearer earlier, as looking back I don't think it probably wasn't obvious that this about making things less complicated during shooter rather than more.

[BCloninger]

John can speak on this much better than I, but I don't think she has had to adapt to the equipment very much. I hope she hasn't, anyway. My whole goal in setting up my equipment is to have everything "just work" so that I don't have to think about anything other than the spot on the target. For me, putting a bit of can't into my scope makes it so that when I mount the rifle in the most comfortable and stable position the crosshairs are plumb and level. That's as important to me as having the right length of pull, scope height, scope eye relief, and trigger shoe placement. Sorry if I didn't make it clearer earlier, as looking back I don't think it probably wasn't obvious that this about making things less complicated during shooter rather than more.

You're right - her equipment is tailored to her, but she tries every new rifle that visits the range and shoots every one of them like a master.

One of Kitty's mantras is repeatability - do the same thing every time. Setting the rifle up comfortably is important, especially for multi-day matches, so what works for me won't suit you in every way. My best scores were with a box stock Remington 504 and a Leupold VX-II 6-18x40 on medium Z-Rings (I think) that I practiced with consistently. Over the winter I got a 1712 and my scores never recovered despite endless tinkering: muscle memory and reflexes were tuned to that particular combination and moving to much better equipment destroyed me. Weird maybe, but lesson learned. You really cannot imagine how much I admire Mallory's adaptability!

Set up your rifle so it's comfortable and repeatable, and then practice, practice, practice. Use whatever you like, and that works for you. But high rings lift my face up so far that I can't feel the comb, and since I index on the comb, repeatability suffers.

[Tancred]

Ok, just so I understand this...you use high rings so your neck is in a low fatigue position and that results in poor check weld, so you cant the rifle and that causes a need to adjust windage. I'm being to think the cure is worse than the disease. I told my dad about this (who is an old school high power shooter that shot in the 70s) and he just shook his head. Maybe once I shoot a full season I'll understand.

Tancred

[Innocent]

Tancred, high rings are good for some. Depending on the style of the stock and the body/neck build of the shooter. Cheek weld is important, canting the scope is back to a fit situation, some do it with some rifles and not others in their collection, depending on the stock style.
I do agree with head as erect as possible, stock on the shoulder, but some body builds vary in neck length. Experiment with your rifle and where the most natural position of your head is.

Mary

[teetertotter]

"A Men" Innocent.

[Bob259]

[quote="BCloninger"]tenx, you forgot to mention the random finger twitches age gifts some of us with..........quote]

Don't you just love those...

[BCloninger]

It adds a whole new urgency to keeping your finger away from the trigger.

[jneihouse]

Twitchy fingers lead to premature trigulation which leads to projectile dysfunction.

Kitty

[BCloninger]

Twitchy fingers lead to premature trigulation which leads to projectile dysfunction.

Kitty

All of which is funny until someone gets an eye put out.