heel. I find myself reverting to bad habits all the time and, in my case, holding my breath is that bad habit. Oxygen deprivation is not the issue here, carbon dioxide is. We have hypersensitive carbon dioxide sensors in our brains that immediately throw up warning signs when they detect elevated levels. We can hold our breath for at least a minute before a pulse-ox will measure it, however the brain is reacting inside and will compromise us on the firing line.
Trigger Control
Trigger control is defined as the manipulation of the trigger without disturbing the rifle or the lay of the sights on the target. Most errors when shooting can be attributed to improper manipulation of the trigger. In fact, we are such creatures of habit, we can improperly actuate the trigger over and over yet still manage to group well. This is the most influential point, because we are turning on the machine. Pressing the trigger to the rear starts the process. In most people’s minds it is also the end, which causes them to inadvertently affect the shot placement. We literally beat the bullet out of the bore by moving the rifle and altering the sights off the target. In some cases, the shooters are so relieved at having fired the shot that they immediately disengage from the rifle. This is a bad idea.
Look at the trigger finger when placed on the shoe. Is your finger starting and stopping at 3 o’clock (or 9 o’clock for a right-handed shooter) when manipulating the trigger?
The purpose of the firing hand is to manipulate the trigger and hold the rifle into the shoulder pocket. We aren’t gripping it like a handgun, rather holding it straight back to the rear. This requires very little pressure, so we don’t want to have a death grip on it. The shooter should establish a firing position on the stock that starts from the trigger back and not from the stock forward. This is more a mental process than a literal one, as we don’t want people putting their fingers on a live-weapon trigger first. The initial practice should have the shooter visualize the trigger finger before the grip. You can do this during dry practice, which is highly recommended.
We want to place the trigger shoe squarely on the pad of the finger, creating a 90-degree angle with the finger and second joint. This will vary slightly from shooter to shooter based on their hands, and type of stock, but the goal should be to get the fingernail to point to 9 o’clock for a right-handed shooter, 3 o’clock for a left-handed shooter. This right-angle position should be there before the trigger is pressed and remain there afterward. Shooters who find their trigger fingers curling or even flying off the shoe, need to work on their trigger control and follow-through.
When addressing the stock, regardless of the type, we want to make sure the movement of the trigger finger is not touching the stock. In the old days, they called this “dragging wood” for the obvious reasons. If the trigger finger is resting against the stock, you will influence the rifle, which is not good. As our skin moves, it compresses the muscles and pushes our flesh out under the skin creating a lateral movement on the stock.
The trigger finger should be moving like a hinge, straight to the rear using our body mechanics to our advantage. If the fingernail starts at 9 o’clock and ends at 9 o’clock, you can rest assured you are manipulating the trigger straight back to the rear. In many cases, you’ll find the finger is moving much less than it moves if you are incorrectly pressing the trigger shoe.
Press, break and freeze. That is the mantra.
The three fingers below the trigger finger should be pressing the stock straight back into the shoulder pocket. The pressure should not be so great to discolor them visually. We want to develop a front-to-back management of the stock, and the thumb should be there to support this front-to-back pressure. It’s not necessary to engage the thumb. Depending on the stock type, many will lay the thumb on the strong side or use it as a reference point on the stock, putting it in an out of the way place. We call this floating the thumb, and it is a perfectly acceptable position as we don’t need our thumb for the task of shooting.
Correcting a shooter’s trigger control is our main priority when teaching classes. One of the most common errors in trigger control is variety. We see shooters manipulating the trigger in a different way every single press. No consistency is what we observe.
Do not underestimate dry practice. It takes roughly 3,000 repetitions to create a new positive neural pathway and about 9,000 repetitions to fix a bad habit. The worst part about fixing bad habits is those 9,000 new repetitions have to all be exact. When dry firing, you can watch your finger.
It’s OK to dry fire your centerfire rifle. There should be no damage to the system. If you feel uncomfortable doing so, invest in a snap cap to absorb the impact of the firing pin. But it is generally safe to dry fire a centerfire rifle.
Dry practice needs to be carried out as if it is a live shot. Sloppy dry practice will instill sloppy fundamentals. Invest in perfect practice. Don’t just sit there snapping the trigger, engage the rifle like your life depends on it. The more you dry practice, the better shooter you will become. For indoor dry practice, consider purchasing an Indoor Optical Training Aid (IOTA) lens device; this allows you to focus your scope indoors at 11 feet.
On the firing line, we execute the fundamentals to the highest degree of accuracy possible. We want to be consistent behind the rifle.
Given time and opportunity before a shot, always dry fire. Set up your position so, without breaking that position, you can easily reach over and insert a live magazine or load a live round so the actual shot mimics the dry fire. We see shooters all the time dry fire perfectly and then change their hand position or cadence of fire by simply going live.
Follow-Through
Follow-through is the forgotten fundamental of marksmanship.
In everything we do, we need follow-through. I wrote earlier about other sports like football. Watch any Sunday game during a kickoff. When the ball sails past the receiver into the end zone, the kicking team will run beyond the receivers until they reach the end zone themselves. This is a basic example of follow-through.
Recently, I was browsing Twitter when I saw famous golfer Phil Mickelson shooting a 6.5 Creedmoor rifle. He was tapping the trigger with zero follow-through behind it. I sent a reply Tweet to him reminding him of this observation. Imagine if I took a golf class with Phil and after addressing the ball and adjusting my club to line up the shot, I swung and immediately upon making contact with the ball I stopped the club head or, worse, let go of the club. If he saw me do that, he would reprimand me like a puppy who just peed on the floor.
The final act of firing the rifle is follow-through. As I wrote earlier, pressing the trigger starts the machine and begins the bullet’s journey down the barrel. As with everything, this takes time. We have to allow the system the time to complete the cycle, so we have to follow through with our trigger press. This will assure shooters they are not disturbing the rifle and the sights before the bullet leaves the barrel. It’s a very simple concept. But many people, when focusing on precision, like to “tap” the trigger, allowing the finger to fly off the trigger shoe. At the same time, we don’t want to squeeze the finger and “crush” it to the rear because this also moves the rifle.
Follow-through is simply holding the trigger to the rear until the recoil pulse has ended. We don’t want to be in such a hurry that we are rushing for the bolt to reload before the bullet has left the bore. It is possible to disturb the system
