Shooting Practice: How to Train for Hunting

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A favorite Marine Corps mantra is “Train like you fight.” Similarly, if you’re a hunter, you’ll be more successful if you practice—train—for the shots you’re likely to encounter.

That means different strokes for different folks. Western hunters are more accustomed to moving, glassing and stalking. Out there, shots at game are often dictated by terrain, so it’s essential to be versatile. You make do with what you have, from natural rests to carry-along shooting aids to the good old basic NRA shooting positions.

This kind of field shooting is unfamiliar to many American hunters, because more of them are whitetail hunters than all the rest put together. Much whitetail country is too thick for effective stalking, and today most shots at whitetails come from tree stands, ground blinds or similar hides.

Regardless, there is no substitute for good benchrest technique. On the bench, we remove the human element and let the rifle do its work. This is where we best learn and practice the shooting basics of breathing, trigger control and perfect sight alignment. It’s also essential for checking loads and achieving the perfect zero we want.

Positional Shooting

On many public ranges, virtually all centerfire shooting is done off benches. And many of us, myself included, get lazy. We go to the range, get set up on the bench, fire a few groups with satisfactory results, call it a day—and call it practice. Not for field shooting it’s not.

For genuine field shooting practice, it’s essential to ditch the bench and learn to get steady from as many potential field positions as possible. Today, the concept of field shooting is greatly aided by new shooting games—such as PRS and NRL Hunter—that didn’t exist when I was young. These drive us to leave the bench and learn how to shoot accurately from many other positions.

There are differences between shooting at game and shooting at steel targets, of course. Depending on the size of the gong and the distance, shooting steel may require more or less precision. The vital zone of a game animal is not small, but steel rings wherever it is struck. Game animals must be struck in the vital zone.

In some competitions, shots have a time limit. In shooting at game, there’s always a time limit as well, but you have no idea how much or how little time you have before the animal moves. Whether you opt for these new shooting games or are just trying to become a better field shot, try to increase your speed. Practice with a full magazine, firing multiple shots while maintaining your position.

Practice Anywhere That Permits

If your range doesn’t permit shooting away from the bench, remember that all position shooting can be practiced in your backyard, basement or garage with an accurate air rifle—although if you intend to shoot an airgun in your backyard, be sure it’s legal where you live.

You can also dry-fire all the positions and even include the speed element I mentioned above—cycling a manually operated action like a bolt, lever or pump. You can do it with an empty gun (always check and double-check), or you can use snap caps, which are available for most cartridges and pretty much required for rimfires to avoid firing-pin damage.

I’m fortunate to have access to an informal range on a friend’s ranch, and there I can lean against a tree, practice off sticks and set up field shooting positions. I use plastic tubs, toolboxes and packs to replicate boulders and logs.

For targets I often use 10-inch paper plates. They’re much cheaper than printed targets and are a reasonable approximation of the vital zone of deer-size game. I also do a lot of shooting with .22s, using Birchwood Casey interactive steel targets. I’ll often do this while waiting for a centerfire barrel to cool between groups.

Field Shooting

I think all field shooting stems from the four NRA shooting positions: prone, sitting, kneeling and standing. It’s not necessary to master all four, but they form a good base. In the field there is no rulebook, so all these positions can be endlessly modified—and improved—with bipods, tripods, packs, rolled-up jackets and various shooting sticks.

For several years I’ve assisted my daughter Brittany with her She Hunts skills camps, and as part of that attendees get a seminar on Field Shooting Simplified. We teach just three positions: prone, augmented with sandbags; sitting, with or without augmentation; and standing with three-legged sticks.

The bipod is a wonderful tool, and with practice shooting prone off a bipod should be almost as steady as a benchrest. This is a favored position for many instructors and long-range shooters, as well it should be. However, in real field shooting, terrain and vegetation often make it impossible to shoot prone with a bipod. But a bipod can be placed on top of a pack, rock or log. Then you can sit, kneel or stand to get the height you need.

I still prefer resting over a backpack. That’s my comfort zone because I always carry a pack. It usually works, although sometimes I have to pile up more than one pack.

Be Creative

The point is, be creative in your practice. Be flexible and avoid restricting yourself to just a few positions. If you hunt in various locations, be prepared for prevailing styles and practices. In Africa, for example, be ready to shoot standing off sticks. Over there, it doesn’t matter how good you are prone off a bipod at 500 yards. You’re not going to flop down amid thorns and mambas. More likely you’ll be expected to make a 150-yard shot off sticks.

And then there’s hunting from elevated stands, which is a whole different deal. For one thing, no matter how carefully the stand is situated, animals can show up in unexpected places, and you may have to make a complicated shot. Whichever is your strong side, you may need to shoot from the weak side. I’m very left-handed and left-eye dominant, but I always practice weak-side shooting. I’ve been able to shoot several deer right-handed because I’ve practiced it.

A major key to stability is to anchor your shooting elbow—right elbow for righties, left for lefties. In a box blind, I orient myself to the left so I can anchor my left elbow out the left-side window or against the blind. Most of you would do the opposite.

That isn’t always possible, so an extra board or even a hiking stick cattycorner for an elbow rest makes a huge difference. I’ve been hunting for 50 years, and Mr. Buck Fever is still there. I don’t care how simple the shot—I’m still excited and need all the help I can get to get steady and do it right.

The Best Advice

The single best piece of shooting advice I have ever received came from the SAAM shooting school in Texas. Faced with a shooting opportunity, you need to establish a firm base for the shot. Understanding that your quarry could bolt at any moment, you assess the situation, figure out the best way to get steady and, as they say at SAAM, “build your house.” It may be as simple as putting your pack on a log and slipping in behind it. Or, as I mentioned earlier, you may need to pile on your buddy’s pack to get the height right.

In situations where it works, prone with a bipod is about as simple and steady as it gets. However, often you need to get a scrunched-up hat or a rock under the rifle’s butt to get the height just right. That’s house building. Things could go sideways at any instant, but you can’t shoot until your house is stable. There’s a lot of pressure and excitement in any shot at game, so “build your house” is sort of a mantra I use when setting up for a difficult shot.

As I said, shooting sticks are almost universal in Africa, and they’re also widely used in Europe—and increasingly in Texas and parts of the American West. Most common are three-legged shooting sticks, and they’re still my favorites because I’ve used them for so long.

I prefer sticks with legs that break down so I can also use them from sitting and kneeling positions. Standing, they are wonderfully fast, but they do have their limits. Even with years of use and frequent practice, I still have a slight wobble. I figure I’m steady to about 150 yards, but that’s my limit.

Everyone is Different

Everyone is different, though. My wife, Donna, is much steadier standing on sticks than I am and can shoot farther with confidence. Some people can get steady on a tall bipod, but I’m not one of them. I’ve tried, but I can’t get past a serious up-and-down wobble.

One size doesn’t fit all, so it’s good to experiment and learn what works for you and what doesn’t. Fortunately, shooting sticks have advanced in recent years. There are sticks with lever-adjusting legs, and increasingly popular today are tripods that clamp to the rifle.

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