Hunting Rifles Reviews > Rifle Brands

For a $10 bill or a bit more, you can be a better deer hunter when next fall rolls around. Sounds like a bargain? Or a gimmick? It’s more in the category of common sense. Buy a half box of cartridges for your deer rifle. Buy a box of .22 long rifle cartridges. Then use them on a rifle range before deer season. That’s all there is to this scheme. You may not even need to buy one or both of these items. You may have sufficient .30-30 or .30-06 or .243 ammunition on hand for a little practice. And most anyone who’s got a .22 rifle around the house or in the pickup has a box of cartridges for it.

Probably 90 percent of Arkansas deer hunters haven’t done any shooting since last deer season - if they shot at all then. Oh, we know how to shoot that favorite rifle. “When I get to camp, I’ll sight it in” is a favorite line. Sighting in at camp means firing three shots at a paper plate or a tin can some unknown distance away, “about 30 steps, that’s the distance you’ll shoot a deer in these woods.” Another theory going along with this camp sighting in is that the rifle’s sights, telescopic or iron, may get bumped in travel, making last-minute testing a must. But shooting is what we’re talking about here. Most of us don’t shoot enough to remotely claim to be proficient with a rifle. Here’s a remedy:

Take your .22 rifle and a box of 50 cartridges out to a shooting range. There’s a fine one east of Mayflower operated by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and it doesn’t cost you anything. A number of other ranges are around Arkansas, some unmanned but free for anyone to use. Get your target up, then fire quite a few shots from the bench rest position. This will tell if the sights are right or not. Be sure to use the fundamentals you were taught long ago - or should have been taught. Relax, take a breath, let part of it out, squeeze the trigger. When you’ve popped off your bench shots, 20, 25, 30 or so, get into the position you are likely to use in deer hunting and shoot up the rest of the box. If you use a tree stand, you can shoot from a sitting position. Your hunting might call for firing from the standing position. Use this on the range. Prone position shooting isn’t likely in Arkansas deer hunting. Kneeling position might be used occasionally but not often.

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You are shooting a .22 rifle, certainly not what you will be using for deer hunting. But you are shooting. That’s the main thing. You’re using a tool that you need to be extremely familiar with. You need to hone the mechanics of rifle shooting, whether it is large caliber, small caliber, bolt action, autoloader or whatever. On the same session at the range, or on another trip a few days later, take along your deer rifle, fire a few shots from bench rest then a few from your chosen position, seated or standing. Ten rounds with the big gun ought to be a minimum. Fire five from the bench rest, five from the hunting position.

Now you’ve done some shooting. This season, you’ve done some shooting. You’ll go into the gun deer season in November with fresh experience, limited as it might be from a serious marksman’s viewpoint. But if you’ve got the .22 to punch holes in and near the bulls-eye after some adjustment shots, and if you’ve got the bigger gun to do the same thing, you are using these tools to do what they are intended to do. A truly proficient shooter is one who uses the gun as an extension of his or her arms, hands, shoulders, eyes. It comes more naturally for some people than others, just like hitting a baseball with a bat comes easier for some people. Experience, however, is a big, big factor in shooting.
Shooting is also a confidence builder. A modest session as outlined here should send you into deer season with the confidence that you can use your rifle competently enough to take a whitetail or two. This confidence ought to let you focus more on getting into deer territory then locating an animal. If you use a slug-shooting shotgun for deer hunting, practice too. The .22 rifle work will help, then follow with shots from your slug-thrower. It’s a substitute rifle in reality.

Source: NLRTimes.com

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