I have a friend who grew up next to a UMC manufacturing plant and bought .22 seconds for 50 cents a shoebox. He and his buddy would take bottlecaps emptied from coke machines to a safe place and try their hand at hitting them on the fly with their .22 rifles. They got to a consistent level of 6 out of 10, which is good given the knuckleball flight of a bottlecap! But what he really took home was a really good gun mount.
Much as an archer finds an anchor point behind his ear and goes to it every time, Mr. McNeill's method was to make the anchor point his cheekbone. In raising the gun, he had it come up perfectly level--not with the muzzle slightly pointed up at the target, but dead level. He never put his cheek down to the gun, but rather raised the comb up to his cheek without moving his head at all. When it hit his cheekbone, he was absolutely lined up with the sights and able to shoot mighty quick. He then moved from the hips like a turret, and anything he looked at was pretty much in trouble! The first thing that touched his body was the stock comb, not the butt. Quick and smooth, although his practice with a rifle led to point shooting, and not leading the target. He could shoot anything that had the right comb height, other measurements being fairly superfluous.
Given that my problem is usually a ragged transition from beginning to follow the line of flight with the end of the muzzle to getting cheeked without extra corrective movements, I am considering retraining myself with a totally level gun approach, cheek first, with the shoulder THEN snugging into the butt. What think ye?
Last edited by steve white; 03/02/12 11:25 AM.
