shooting from the bench?? do's & don't ??

[mstake]

I have my gun,scope,reloads. now it is time for the bench,see what it will do. hmmmm wait! a few things i have to consider. i have read that any part of the pistol should not touch anything,(barrel,frame,grip) when you bench a pistol should you use a pistol rest were your barrel is supported and grips rest on. should you use like a hart or "the rock" type rest with just the barrel supported or just the sand bag with your hands resting in the bag and pistol not touching anything.

[jhalcott]

some people rest their wrists on the bags,not letting any part of the gun touch any thing. With a 14" contender this can be a problem. I rest the fore arm on the bags ( always be aware of the recoil ).Try to keep the same grip for each shot.If you try to hard to fight the recoil, you will find your self slamming the gun back down on the bags. Another thing with hard kickers ,get some kind of elbow protection.!
  the rear grip of the T/C should not be rested on the bags. This USUALLY makes the shot go high.At least for me!

[Spyro Andes]

MSTAKE,

This is how I do it...

I use a front rest, be it a pedestal rest or just a carpeted V notch, and I support the barrel with the rest.

I will support the rear of the handgun with a bag BUT you only want a tiny portion of the front part of the bottom of the grip touching the bag.  With the littlest recoil, the handgun will be off of the rear rest.  If you support too much of the rear, your groups will either shoot high.  If you are inconsistant in grip support, your groups will string out.

For big boomers, I'll rest my the rear most portion of my forearm, just before the elbow, on a half filled sand bag that is place upon a piece of carpet.  It provides a soft rest that will move on the bench.

[rickyp]

My set up:
I have a hippies bench rest and use an lead shot bag filled with sand that I rest the for end of my contender on, I never let the barrel touch the bag.
I use a norther shot bag filled with sand to rest my grip hand and wrest not the but of the contender, then I take my last sand filled shot bag and rest my elbow on it to protest it from the recoil and the bench top.

[Curtis]

Someone on another thread provided a link to the Specialty Pistols web site.  I read some good articles there.  Here is one on bench shooting for gun and load evaluation (as opposed to bench rest shooting): http://specialtypistols.ottllc.com/sp2.html  It has some good ideas or at least food for thought.

Curtis

[Dragon31]

Mstake:

Since I don't consider myself a shooter as much as a hunter, I try and make the bench as much like the hunting situation as I can.  I always use a rest but make is as much like hunting as possible.  I try never to let the barrel touch what I'm resting it on which can be anything from my back pack to the to one of a professionally made pistol rest.  Using a contender is a bit different than a revolver or autoloader.  The contender is sensitive to where you rest the it on the forearm (at least mine are), so I must use the same resting point each time.  Using a revolver I try to rest it on the frame in front of the trigger guard.  Remember using a revolver the flame from the cyclinder gap can tear up anything that is immediately to the right or left of the rest.  Shooting and auto loader (Coonan or Glock) I rest it on the frame in front of the trigger and try to not let the slide contact any thing during recoil.
consistency is the key to accuracy.  In hunting that is what never happens.

[rickyp]

what type of hunting are you doing?

It makes a difference.
If i hunt from a tree stand I use the padded rail for a rest
If i am hunting from the ground I take along a home made shooting stick.
if i am hunting small critters I take a small shovel and a few empty sand bags. when I get to my hunting spot I will dig a Little hole and fill up the sand bags.

[Duffy]

If your rear bag is soft your shot's will hit high, if it's firm and you don't have to lift the grip to get sight alignment it should be dead on. Biggest thing, is to do everything the same for every shot. Little changes make big differences.

[Lloyd Smale]

I like to rest just my wrists on a bag. It seems to put the poa closest to off hand.