Follow through in benchrest.

T

tjensen

New member
Hi.
We all know that follow through is important. But I´ve been wondering.
On youtube and elsewhere there are many slow motion videos of guns being shot.
One of them shows how a scope bends like spaghetti when firing a big bore and thats incredible but all videos have one thing in common and that is that the gun doesnt move until many milliseconds after the bullet leaves the barrel.
Bolt actions, semi autos, rifles, pistols, all the same. Recoil comes after the bullet leaves the barrel.

So what are your thoughts on this, is follow through overrated?
 
Inferred too much from the videos!

Physics dictate that there is an equal and opposite reaction when the primer is ignited. The gun is beginning to move at that time. The amount of movement is much, much less than a bullet in the barrel because the mass of the rifle is much greater than the bullet, but never the less, the rifle is moving. In terms of the question about the importance of follow through, some of that is contingent on the accuracy of the firearm vs how poor is the follow through. Having said that, good follow through trumps bad follow through every time.
 
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IMO, follow through is all about making sure that you are not moving in a way that opens your group during the shot. If we are still for a moment after the shot breaks, we are unlikely to make a bad move during the shot. There is also the matter of how the rifle sits on the bags. If you do something that changes the rifle's relation to the rear bag, from shot to shot, I believe that under good conditions with an accurate rifle it could show up on the target, even though what took place happened after the bullet was out of the barrel.

A good friend had a big magnum built as a long range hunting rifle, on a bit BAT single shot that was trimmed down, a carbon fiber and walnut stock, with a good trigger and a big Nightforce on top. He was able to shoot that monster into just under a quarter inch (five shot group) and I think that one of the main reasons was that, watching him shoot, he was like an inanimate object as the shot went off and after. There was no visible reaction when that .338 Lapua wildcat went off. I know that 10 1/2# 6PPCs are a lot less violent, but when your goal is to shoot groups under .2, little things become a lot more important, and IMO follow through is on that list.
 
Follow Through

What are the physics of "Follow Through" when shooting "Free Recoil" with a rifle equipped with a 1.5oz trigger?

Once the trigger breaks,the shooter is out of the equation. Or,is he/she?




Glenn
 
Glenn, with your expertise and experience you can answer your question better than I, but seeing as you referenced 'physics', I take it you would like me to respond. Having jerked a trigger, started to open a bolt on a hang-fire, and less than rock solid benches leads me to believe there is still physics involved in benchrest follow through even with free recoil which is how I attempt to shoot.
 
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You had better have very good bench manners shooting a rail to get good results. Not just a bag gun.


Joe Hynes
 
Follow through

Thanks for the response Randy. trust me. I don’t play games. I didn't intend to single you out. With all my experience(15yrs), I don’t know all I would like to know about this Sport.

The OP asked if “follow through” is overrated.

Organized Sports Coaches teach the Physics of “Follow through” and the affects. The concept has been around a very long time. No doubt about it,Follow through works in those Sports. I played worse Golf after I took lesson’s from a Pro. That should tell you something about my learning abilities.

Shooting is an entirely different animal for me. the only thing I’ve been taught related to “follow through” in shooting is to take a deep breath,exhale and SQUEEZE the trigger.

If you can trust your Rifle,Deciding when to send one down range may be the most important decision one can make in this game. It is for me. I have accidentally touched the trigger and the bullet landed in the same hole as the four previous. Maybe I follow through and don’t realize it.

I’m just trying to generate some discussion. Somebody in cyberspace could learn something,including myself. Besides,I’m getting good practice on my computer.


Glenn
 
tjensen said:
Hi.
We all know that follow through is important. But I´ve been wondering.
On youtube and elsewhere there are many slow motion videos of guns being shot.
One of them shows how a scope bends like spaghetti when firing a big bore and thats incredible but all videos have one thing in common and that is that the gun doesnt move until many milliseconds after the bullet leaves the barrel.
Bolt actions, semi autos, rifles, pistols, all the same. Recoil comes after the bullet leaves the barrel.

So what are your thoughts on this, is follow through overrated?
Click to expand...

I think follow thru is tremendously UNDER-rated.......IMO it's the largest factor of all. (After all, the real reason jerking the trigger is hard on groups is because it screws up the follow through!)

Here's just one of many examples....... I went to the "Leonard Brownell" school of gunsmithing back in the day. I was taught that one of life's defining moments was that point at which one was exposed to the perfect trigger, "The Trigger That Broke Like A Glass Rod" (or broke like an icicle, or felt like tipping over a fi'ty cent piece or the sound your nose makes when the glass door isn't open.....pick your metaphor) and as such, when I was exposed to accurate rifles with Jewell and Shilen triggers I set them up this way. I was so proud of the fact that I had 5 rifles where the trigger was so fine that you could not tell when it tripped.......I cleaned up Jewell's so they din't even MOVE!!!


They just BROKE...


And I shot like kr@pp

or like D0ggy P00P

or even $#!t!



Or whatever else descriptor this software disallows.


I COULD NOT get good groups day-to-day. I remember getting a BR rifle from the builder, being absolutely blown away by the way it shot, "even with the loose sloppy trigger"..... and then it got finicky. I tried everything.

Then the innernet happened.

This forum happened.

I asked questions,
I chased my tail,
I bought more bags,
I quit coffee when shooting,
I quit cigarettes when shooting,
I bought heavy sand and bigger bags,
I bought Twisted Gaiters and loosened my pants,
I bought a vibrator cuz I played with my sacks so much........

And then I was shooting one day with a successful BR competitor and he tried my rifle, stating that "it WANTS to shoot, but it can't for some reason"

And he tried it.

And he said "WHO SET UP THIS TRIGGER!!??!?!????"

"I did that myownself" sez I......

"WELL" sez he, "God Hisself couldn't make this setup shoot!"

And this shooter, bless him, gave me about an hour of lessons on follow through. But FIRST of all we backed off the overtravel screw on that dad-blasted Break Like The Wind trigger. And now all of my triggers are LOOSE behind the break so's I don't drive the bloody gun all over h@de$ while the bullet's still in the bore. (There's plendy other ways to drive the gun off target) but at least the Big One was fixed!

LOOSEN that overtravel screw!!!

Cuz the bullet IS STILL IN THE BORE for an eternity of the recoil cycle. Depending of course on the setup somewhere's between a tenth and a quarter inch of recoil THE BULLET'S STILL IN THERE!!! A typical BR rig it's still a tenth of an inch....and that's HUGE....

This particular highly competitive shooter shot ONLY free recoil, yet he had a soft sponge rubber bumper glued to his buttplate, something to help him feel through his tee shirt and stay OFF the gun. And he had a soft rubber bumper glued to the back of his trigger guard. And he had a hand support bag, and a towel, and he "pinched" the trigger from outside the zone. He sometimes purposely stopped shaving 4 days before a match. No FACE, no THUMB, no SHOULDER, no LOOSE CLOTHING etc etc......

follow through is a Big Deal,

IMO,


opinionby




al




To answer the post below without muddying up the thread....... I used the free-recoil illustration here just to make the point that EVEN WHEN FREE-RECOILING follow through is huge. Of course it's even more a problem when shooting using other, more conventional methods.

And who told you "1911's aren't accurate?"

Tell The Miculek that!

I wouldn't want to be standing at 1000yds and Jerry with a 45ACP.......he'd be GETTIN' SOME!
 
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Thank you all for your replies I am printing them out for reading again.
Free recoil of course is only an option on a bench, how about when hunting?
And what about pistol shooting where they shoot 1911 that arent that accurate anyway, at targets maybe 25 yards away?
Just thinking aloud, just woke up :)
 
Quote Originally Posted by alinwa View Post LOOSEN that overtravel screw!!!

John Kielly said:
Amen!
Click to expand...

ALLLLL my guns, pistol and rifle,hunting and off hand target have what they call "roll triggers" If I shoot a gun with a trigger that I can not hang on, after more than several shots my inner peace and harmony factor goes way down. Gotta go back to my own gun. Takes couple to a dozen shots to get right. Lerned it from an Olympic Bullsey shooter hundred of years ago." How in the name of whatever can you shoot this trigger"?A smile and he replied." I like to feel the trigger working"
LASER
 
Sorry about that 1911 statement Alinwa, but 1" geoups from a machine rest at 25 yds dont impress me. Jerry Miculek doesnt have that probæem, he just tells the bullets where to go.
And they obey :)
 
tjensen said:
Sorry about that 1911 statement Alinwa, but 1" geoups from a machine rest at 25 yds dont impress me. Jerry Miculek doesnt have that probæem, he just tells the bullets where to go.
And they obey :)
Click to expand...

LOL, too true about Jerry.......he has Da' Powahh...

And to be perfectly clear, I CANNOT make a 1911 stand up and bark. I suck. I used to build them, and "test" them, and use a Ransom rest on them and I thought they were Spray-N-Pray all the way. But then I saw what SHOOTERS can do with them and learned that the problem was ME and the RANSOM REST.

A real shooter can hit anything the gun's supposed to hit, and some, like Jerry and Elmer Keith, and my old boss can do unreal things with them.
 
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