Shooting at long range can be complicated, but more often than not mastery of shooting fundamentals, effective practice and establishing good habits still have the biggest impact on long-range accuracy.
Check out these 8 tips for improving long-range accuracy:
1. Stop Sweating The Small Stuff
2. Focus On What You Can Control: Consistency
3. Stop Magnifying Your Errors
4. Make Your Next Shot Count
5. Get Off The Bench
6. Shoot Less Ammo
7. Shoot More Ammo
8. Become A Creature Of Habit
None of these tips involve buying a new fancy piece of gear or upgrading the equipment you already have. This is because I believe that a good shooter with a decent rifle, scope and ammunition can outperform a poor shooter with the best rifle, scope and ammunition.
Hopefully you’ll see a bit of a connection, or trend, from each of these points to the next.
1. Stop Sweating The Small Stuff
I get it: Part of the fun of learning to master long-range shooting involves getting into the nuances of ballistics. However, that’s not going to make you a better shooter, or necessarily improve your long-range accuracy.
Unfortunately, you’re way more likely to miss a target because you estimated the range incorrectly or you applied improper trigger control.
Focus on the basics and execute them well. Only after you can consistently shoot at least a 5-inch group at 500 yards (1 MOA) should you start to worry about the spin of the Earth affecting your bullet at farther distances.
2. Focus On What You Can Control: Consistency
Pay attention to what you’re doing, and focus on how you can do it better. This is as much a lesson on how to live a full life as it is to how to shoot better at any distance.
Everything you do, or don’t do, to the rifle that results in the bullet hitting or missing the target has to do with what you did up until the rifle shoots. Mastering what you do so that is consistent every time is the key to accurate shooting.
Focus on your technique before looking to upgrade your gear. After all, if you don’t improve yourself and instead only improve your equipment, are you really needed in the shooting equation?
3. Stop Magnifying Your Errors
Turn the magnification on your scope down immediately! Seriously.
Yes, sometimes you need high magnification to be able to see a target that’s small enough and far enough away. However, too much magnification can actually hurt your long-range accuracy.
First, it can cause you to focus on the nice, big and pretty target image instead of the reticle where you should be focusing (remember, focus on what you can control).
Second, it can magnify your errors and cause you to worry too much about the wobble/shake in your rifle. This is likely to cause you to hurry up and jerk the trigger when the reticle is closest to the center of your target. If your scope was low enough magnification that you can only tell that the reticle is generally in the center of the target, then you can apply proper trigger control without trying for perfection.