Older gent with some strange issues

[stuckinthe60s]

if you help him, he will blame you for missing.
let him keep blaming the gun.
at least youll still be able to shoot with him.

[Blindstitch]

You could always shoot bad around him and then offer to buy it down the road as a re-barrel project.

[ghbucky]

You could always shoot bad around him and then offer to buy it down the road as a re-barrel project.

LMAO! Best advice in the thread!!!!!

[DaleA]

HiBC post #6 Cataract Surgery.
Thank you for describing your experience. Glad things went well.

[Aqualife]

Originally Posted by ghbucky

Next time we meet, I think I'll get him to fire off-hand and study his position, and then see what he is doing on the rest. I'm thinking he is changing something when shooting from a rest.

I think you’ll find this is the best approach. I’m assuming his vision is better Shooting off hand vs the bench. It has to due with his alignment while looking through his glasses.

I struggle with this when I shoot archery with my progressive glasses (similar to bi-vocals). Slight movement left or right and I lose vision.

While on bench he’s adjusting to the seat and rest, it wasn’t fitted to him. Shooting of hand everything comes naturally into alignment.

[stagpanther]

Why would he shoot so poorly off of a rest, and shoot so well off hand?

Hmmmm...it's also possible he was trying to teach you a thing or too. There might have been more to his aim than the group.

[Bake]

"G-D" the reason is simple, He's a Marine! Everybody knows that Marines always shoot better when "Pissed-off". Tell him to get his ass in the dirt and start shooting "Prone", then from the Knee, Sitting, and Off-hand. Maybe you could spray him down with a garden hose, "If it ain't raining, it ain't training!". Grunts always shoot better in the dirt, only POGs shoot better from a bench...

[Brian Williams]

As a glasses wearing Marine, make sure he is viewing the sights through the center of his glasses while shooting from a bench. I prefer to shoot offhand or sitting than from a bench. I typically use a bench to setup a rifle and for load development, the rest of my shooting is from field positions.

[Armybrat]

HiBC....

I had the same eye surgery earlier this year with the same results, except had to have additional retina surgery on my left eye.
It could take several more months to clear up completely according to the doc. The right eye is 20/20 distance, and I use 3.25x readers.

Haven’t been to a range yet though, with all the Chinese Virus going on.

[HiBC]

Armybrat...I was one of those,too.

I'm real happy with my outcome. Up close,approx 2.5 diopter readers are necessary. But I can see handgun sights just fine with no correction.

I haven't been shooting yet,either! Still have one more post op appt.

Of course,I don't know if the Gentleman from the OP has the same issue.

[PocketCamera]

am i the only one thinking here,

the issue is most likely that he is resting the wrong rifle component on the bench rest,


OR get this,

the chair/bench/rest setup is NOT letting him get the rifle mounted to his shoulder properly. There are times that if you cannot get the rilfe mounted to the shoulder correctly, you wont hit a washer box at 50 yards.

[Hal]

Why would he shoot so poorly off of a rest, and shoot so well off hand?

Quit trying to fix what isn't broke.
He shoots well - just leave it at that.

There is no hard and fast rule that says "Everyone in the world has to shoot this way - or else".

What works for him is what works for him.
He shoots exactly the way he was taught to shoot & by your own admission, it works very well for him.

Trust me on this - if you try to force him to change, all you'll accomplish is to piss him off to the point that he won't ever want to shoot again.

[zukiphile]

Originally Posted by Army Brat

HiBC....

I had the same eye surgery earlier this year with the same results, except had to have additional retina surgery on my left eye.
It could take several more months to clear up completely according to the doc. The right eye is 20/20 distance, and I use 3.25x readers.

Haven’t been to a range yet though, with all the Chinese Virus going on.

Originally Posted by HiBC

Armybrat...I was one of those,too.

I'm real happy with my outcome. Up close,approx 2.5 diopter readers are necessary. But I can see handgun sights just fine with no correction.

I haven't been shooting yet,either! Still have one more post op appt.

Just had mine last month, but my vision was corrected for a bit less than three feet. No insurance coverage, but without the procedure I wouldn't have been able to drive at night, which is more than 16 hours per day in winter.

It's hard for a person to appreciate the severity of the impairment until after the remedial surgery.

[Bowdog]

72 year old Vietnam vet just started wearing glasses in Jan. 2020. Had to learn to shoot using the center of my glasses. Looking at target from top or bottom of glasses would not work.

[Deja vu]

I’d suspect it’s vision related. The angles are different from your eyes to the sights/target when resting rather than standing.

[ndking1126]

What works for him is what works for him.
He shoots exactly the way he was taught to shoot & by your own admission, it works very well for him.

Hal, the OP said he was visibly upset after shooting poorly from the bench. I dont think its working for him. And he asked how he might be able to help his brother.. not make him do something differently.

I'd also guess something to do with the glasses and changing eye sight alignment when shooting from the bench. There are certainly other possibilites though.

[Reloadron]

I'm looking to see if someone can help me remote diagnose some shooting problems my brother is having.

He's a USMC vietnam vet and was trained on the M14. He recently purchased a brand new Springfield M1A1. He says that it BS, it is an M14 . We were shooting with the stock peep sight today.

I too am a Vietnam USMC Veteran who trained with the M14 rifle. I also own and shoot a M1A. I am not going to get into foolish arguments of M1A verse M14 considering many versions of the GI M14 were marketed under a M14 name. All here nor there.

As to your brother's issues hitting the target. Possibly he is forgetting some of the fine marksmanship skills beat into our young minds. Holding and squeezing, sight picture, sight alignment and breathing control. All of those ingredients hold as true today as they did over 50 years ago when they were hammered into my head. They work as we discovered and I have applied them over all the years since I was taught.

I wear transitional lenses and my distance is fine but the once clear ring of the peep sights is now a round black circular blur but I have learned to place the front sight centered in the round black blur as I hold and squeeze. I have also noticed that the ten pound rifle now seems to weigh twenty-five pounds.

My wife gave me my M1A as a gift during maybe '93 or '94. About 25 years since I had held the rifle M14. It took several trips top the range to become reacquainted with the rifle, it was not like riding a bike, not for me anyway. The ability to master the rifle does come back with time, patience and some work. We are no longer the 18 ~ 21 year old kids we were during our introduction to the rifle 50 plus years ago. That does not mean we can't become proficient with it again.

Now as to the M14 being capable of full automatic fire? Yes, it can but I could never manage a group or even a pattern with it in full auto.

Ron

[ghbucky]

I’d suspect it’s vision related. The angles are different from your eyes to the sights/target when resting rather than standing.

It is. We've finally figured out that he isn't able to use any sights using 2 sight points, and that includes pistols. However, if he uses a scope or RDS, he is fine.

[Reloadron]

"It is. We've finally figured out that he isn't able to use any sights using 2 sight points, and that includes pistols. However, if he uses a scope or RDS, he is fine".

Then the same would be true of shooting just about any rifle. Put a scope on the M1A using a good mount and see what happens. Pretend it's a M24.

Ron

[ghbucky]

Then the same would be true of shooting just about any rifle. Put a scope on the M1A using a good mount and see what happens. Pretend it's a M24.

He now has a scope mount for his M1A. We are meeting up Thursday for a day at the range.

[Picher]

I've used black pasters with pinholes on my glasses to clear up images when using iron sights for both handgun and rifle iron sight shooting. It darkens the image a bit, but makes both sights and target clearer.

I also have a pistol shooter's disk that clamps onto my glasses that works the same way, but has several sizes of holes, so I can pick the one that gives me the best image, considering the amount of light available, etc.

Gil Hebard, a Pistol Shooters mail-order house in Knoxville, TN(?) is where I bought the clip-on. Don't know if they're still in business.

[ghbucky]

I've used black pasters with pinholes on my glasses to clear up images when using iron sights for both handgun and rifle iron sight shooting. It darkens the image a bit, but makes both sights and target clearer.

How does this work? Do you have to paste them on glasses and you have a tiny hole to see out of?

[HiBC]

Thats the plan. It works like a pinhole camera.

There is an outfit named Merit that made,or maybe still makes,an adjustible iris aperture to screw into Redfield and Lyman receiver sights. They had a large disc and a smaller one for hunting. You could sharpen up sights and target by adjusting the aperture.

I don't know that anything is available for an M1A/M-14

[ghbucky]

Interesting. Sounds like it would be great for bench type shooting. I'll let him know about it.

Thanks!