This article was published Precision Rifleman and it contains info that I believe will help a lot of shooters. I shot a match at River Bend, Ga and worked on several shooters equipment that had these very same problems. Here are some things that may help you with your spring tune up. Everyone I checked with had not read the article in the magazine....go figure.
Bart
Common Benchrest Faults and Fixes
This year I have been working off and on with a few new shooters. While doing so I have noticed some common faults. Once I started checking, I found that many of these problems affect not only the new but also the more experienced shooters as well.
Here are some of the issues that I keep seeing:
Front bag to hard
In general most front bags are packed too hard resulting in unexplained flyers. This year we changed my shooting partner Billy Stevens', front bag to a fluffier front bag like mine. After a few months he said, "You know this front bag doesn't throw shots nearly as consistently as my old one!"
Some bags are packed with too much sand while others have packed down from shooting on them. In my opinion you should have the front bag more on the fluffy side. My front bag is like a marshmallow. The ones I've checked are closer to bricks. So let some sand out and fluff them up. All bags will pack down over time. I make it a point to reach up and squeeze/fluff my front bag each time I set up at the bench. Hall of Fame member Smiley Hensley was getting unexplained shots at the 2013 Super Shoot. Someone suggested fluffing his front bag and there you go! Problem solved!
My personal preference is regular sand, not zircon. The weight and density of zircon tends to pack down too hard too fast.
Guns Too slick
Many shooters spend a lot of time trying to get their guns slick in the bags. Just put two fingers on the gun and pull it back and push it forward. Its as if it's riding on air or roller bearings! Hey guess what? Its not what you want! The problem with this is that gun handling errors are significantly magnified. So if you make a little mistake (such as slightly jerking/slapping your trigger or bumping the gun), it will show up big time on the target.
The worst setup I've seen is shooting an unpainted fiberglass stock with a cordura front and rear bag. This setup is super slick. I've had guns like this and it feels like you can't get near the thing without it moving. Stock tape can help to slow them down as well as providing consistent tension when sliding on the bags.
Proper Front Bag Tension.
This is part of the gun being too slick. One of the first things that Tony Boyer corrected in my set up was having my ears on my front bag too loose. On his range you're shooting slightly up hill. He came over and pulled my rifle back and forth and said."You need to tighten those ears." I was surprised at just how much he cranked the screws down. Tony told me it would cut down on the "finger-vertical" I was getting. Guess what??? He was right. Since that time, I've shot with very firm fore-end tension on my rifles.
Consistency
What I'm talking about here is when your rifle slides back and forth. It should be very consistent and feel the same as you move the gun back and forth. This allows the rifle to break the same everytime when fired. Actually "FIRM and CONSISTENT" is what you're looking for. Some bag set ups are grabby. As you pull the rifle back it catches and break loose, then catches and breaks loose again. Not optimum! Others feel kind of stuck as they first move and then break loose. So if your gun is doing any of this, you need to work on it.
I took Billy Stevens lead and went retro with my bag set up. We started talking about front and rear bags and decided our guns shot better and more consistently twenty years ago. So we have both gone back to leather bags (front and rear) and using baby powder! This gives me a set up that provides consistent and firm tension.
Front Rests
Another very common problem is simply forgetting to tighten things down on your rest. Always check to make sure the feet on you front rests are tightened down. Also check to make sure the center post of your rest is locked down. It's easy to forget and can cost you dearly during a match.
Farley Front Rest
The Farley front rest is probably the most popular front rest in Benchrest. However of the new shooters rests that I have checked most of them were too loose. What I mean by too loose is when you let go of the aiming handle while looking through your scope you can see the crosshairs move.
So, a properly adjusted Farley will move smoothly and stop when I stop. When I let go of the handle, the crosshairs should stay put. If yours isn't doing this, simply loosen the two large nuts and turn the tensioning screws clockwise for increased pressure. It's important that each screw be turned the same amount, and it only takes a small adjustment.
Scope and Rings
This is all very simple stuff, but still often over looked. A loose screw on a scope ring or base can ruin a match or even an entire season! Rifles have been sold and perfectly good bullets and barrels tossed aside because of not diligently checking these things! I had a killer heavy varmint rifle. It shot well enough to win a yardage and grand aggregate at the Super Shoot! It also won my first Hall of Fame point! But it quit shooting! I couldn't figure it out. I tried different barrels, scopes, bullets. I changed out triggers the firing pin springs, nothing helped. Finally, I took off the scope and sat the rifle in the corner. I gave up on it for years. Finally one day durning the winter with nothing to do, I started going through the rifle again. To my surprise I found that one of the screws on the front base was loose. That one little screw caused all this trouble. So check everything. It's the little things that kill us.
Scope Lock Rings
No matters what scope you own it has one or more lock rings that you must pay attention to. Tony Boyer was probably the first to notice that the lock ring for the eye piece on the Leopold competition scopes loves to come loose.
The first thing I check on a rifle if it starts shooting crazy is the objective lock ring (if the scope has one) and the lock ring in front of the eye piece. I can't count the times this year that I found the eye piece lock ring loose on shooters scopes! Just because you tighten it down that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. At the last match of the year at Brock's Gap I tightened lock rings five times. Twice on one shooter's gun during the same aggregate!
If you don't think the lock ring in front of your eye piece is doing anything, loosen the ring and just push around on the eye piece while looking through the scope. That should make you a believer.
So if it has a screw, tighten it! If it has a lock ring, lock it! If it has a knob twist it!
None of this is rocket science. It's just meat and potatoes common sense. The devil is in the details. In this sport, close isn't good enough. Your equipment has to be at 100 percent in order to compete, and to stay on top of it, you must constantly check it!
Conclusion
Implement the above changes into your set up, and I think you will see an increase in your accuracy and a lot fewer nasty flyers!
Bart
Common Benchrest Faults and Fixes
This year I have been working off and on with a few new shooters. While doing so I have noticed some common faults. Once I started checking, I found that many of these problems affect not only the new but also the more experienced shooters as well.
Here are some of the issues that I keep seeing:
Front bag to hard
In general most front bags are packed too hard resulting in unexplained flyers. This year we changed my shooting partner Billy Stevens', front bag to a fluffier front bag like mine. After a few months he said, "You know this front bag doesn't throw shots nearly as consistently as my old one!"
Some bags are packed with too much sand while others have packed down from shooting on them. In my opinion you should have the front bag more on the fluffy side. My front bag is like a marshmallow. The ones I've checked are closer to bricks. So let some sand out and fluff them up. All bags will pack down over time. I make it a point to reach up and squeeze/fluff my front bag each time I set up at the bench. Hall of Fame member Smiley Hensley was getting unexplained shots at the 2013 Super Shoot. Someone suggested fluffing his front bag and there you go! Problem solved!
My personal preference is regular sand, not zircon. The weight and density of zircon tends to pack down too hard too fast.
Guns Too slick
Many shooters spend a lot of time trying to get their guns slick in the bags. Just put two fingers on the gun and pull it back and push it forward. Its as if it's riding on air or roller bearings! Hey guess what? Its not what you want! The problem with this is that gun handling errors are significantly magnified. So if you make a little mistake (such as slightly jerking/slapping your trigger or bumping the gun), it will show up big time on the target.
The worst setup I've seen is shooting an unpainted fiberglass stock with a cordura front and rear bag. This setup is super slick. I've had guns like this and it feels like you can't get near the thing without it moving. Stock tape can help to slow them down as well as providing consistent tension when sliding on the bags.
Proper Front Bag Tension.
This is part of the gun being too slick. One of the first things that Tony Boyer corrected in my set up was having my ears on my front bag too loose. On his range you're shooting slightly up hill. He came over and pulled my rifle back and forth and said."You need to tighten those ears." I was surprised at just how much he cranked the screws down. Tony told me it would cut down on the "finger-vertical" I was getting. Guess what??? He was right. Since that time, I've shot with very firm fore-end tension on my rifles.
Consistency
What I'm talking about here is when your rifle slides back and forth. It should be very consistent and feel the same as you move the gun back and forth. This allows the rifle to break the same everytime when fired. Actually "FIRM and CONSISTENT" is what you're looking for. Some bag set ups are grabby. As you pull the rifle back it catches and break loose, then catches and breaks loose again. Not optimum! Others feel kind of stuck as they first move and then break loose. So if your gun is doing any of this, you need to work on it.
I took Billy Stevens lead and went retro with my bag set up. We started talking about front and rear bags and decided our guns shot better and more consistently twenty years ago. So we have both gone back to leather bags (front and rear) and using baby powder! This gives me a set up that provides consistent and firm tension.
Front Rests
Another very common problem is simply forgetting to tighten things down on your rest. Always check to make sure the feet on you front rests are tightened down. Also check to make sure the center post of your rest is locked down. It's easy to forget and can cost you dearly during a match.
Farley Front Rest
The Farley front rest is probably the most popular front rest in Benchrest. However of the new shooters rests that I have checked most of them were too loose. What I mean by too loose is when you let go of the aiming handle while looking through your scope you can see the crosshairs move.
So, a properly adjusted Farley will move smoothly and stop when I stop. When I let go of the handle, the crosshairs should stay put. If yours isn't doing this, simply loosen the two large nuts and turn the tensioning screws clockwise for increased pressure. It's important that each screw be turned the same amount, and it only takes a small adjustment.
Scope and Rings
This is all very simple stuff, but still often over looked. A loose screw on a scope ring or base can ruin a match or even an entire season! Rifles have been sold and perfectly good bullets and barrels tossed aside because of not diligently checking these things! I had a killer heavy varmint rifle. It shot well enough to win a yardage and grand aggregate at the Super Shoot! It also won my first Hall of Fame point! But it quit shooting! I couldn't figure it out. I tried different barrels, scopes, bullets. I changed out triggers the firing pin springs, nothing helped. Finally, I took off the scope and sat the rifle in the corner. I gave up on it for years. Finally one day durning the winter with nothing to do, I started going through the rifle again. To my surprise I found that one of the screws on the front base was loose. That one little screw caused all this trouble. So check everything. It's the little things that kill us.
Scope Lock Rings
No matters what scope you own it has one or more lock rings that you must pay attention to. Tony Boyer was probably the first to notice that the lock ring for the eye piece on the Leopold competition scopes loves to come loose.
The first thing I check on a rifle if it starts shooting crazy is the objective lock ring (if the scope has one) and the lock ring in front of the eye piece. I can't count the times this year that I found the eye piece lock ring loose on shooters scopes! Just because you tighten it down that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. At the last match of the year at Brock's Gap I tightened lock rings five times. Twice on one shooter's gun during the same aggregate!
If you don't think the lock ring in front of your eye piece is doing anything, loosen the ring and just push around on the eye piece while looking through the scope. That should make you a believer.
So if it has a screw, tighten it! If it has a lock ring, lock it! If it has a knob twist it!
None of this is rocket science. It's just meat and potatoes common sense. The devil is in the details. In this sport, close isn't good enough. Your equipment has to be at 100 percent in order to compete, and to stay on top of it, you must constantly check it!
Conclusion
Implement the above changes into your set up, and I think you will see an increase in your accuracy and a lot fewer nasty flyers!
