Hello Team

Gavin Hadfield just send me some photos of me shooting at the Marlborough Outdoor Champs looking at them I am wondering how my position is looking?

Any feedback would be great!

May be wrong, but are the fingers on left hand touching the barrel?

Nop it gets to hot to touch ;-)

Heres another pix of you Danny. I think I already said to you but here it is again; the angle that your forearm is to the ground should be about equal to the angle of you upper arm to the ground, looking at the photo it would appear that your upper arm is at much a steeper angle.

So if he were to shuffle back in order to equalise that angle, the result would be the rifle being too high, therefor the sling would need to be extended ... right?
This would be a massive position change for Danny. (or anyone in this situation)
How detrimental to performance is his current position out of interest, ie. what is the potential effect of continuing like this?

I will give it a go and note all my setting so I can put it back if needed

Heres another thing to think about. You obviously have a good fitting jacket. When this is the case in the prone position you don't actually need to do all the buttons up. Some may use a couple or even no buttons at all. The reason why alot of shooters in New Zealand do all their buttons up is that they don't have a jacket custom made to their build. I'm assuming yours is so at some point just try using 1 or no buttons.
If you do try this make sure the left hand part of your jacket is tucked under your body.

Thas what I do but probably for different reasons, the only button I can have and do up is my top button because thats all that will pass inspection at the gear test . But youi are quite write with regards to prone shooters as the buttons only serve to hold the jacket in place and once you are lying down its really only the bit acroos the shoulders that do any real work

I may not explain this very well but remember reading some where to "get your arm pit on the ground"
You achieve this not by pulling back but by extending your elbow forward or "reaching" out.
To achieve this may involve shifting your Hand stop further forward which may feel rather strange for a time!
Obviously you have to achieve a balance where you have a legal position-- not too low!
When getting more angle on the upper arm you can also have more problems keeping the sling in a constant position requiring a good coat.

Have fun
Martin

ISSF rules require that the angle scribed by the axis (not the fwd part of the coat or arm)of the forearm and the ground shall not be less than 30 degrees, which looks realy quite flat.

When you hold/rest your rifle in your left hand when you are in position (with no sling) should it be balanced 50/50

Like should it just sit there?

With the sling attached and the rifle out of the shoulder, mine is almost balanced with the butt end slightly heavier. VW has a steel plate under his butt plate which adds something like about 250 grams to the weight at the butt end and he has his forestop well forward which will make his rifle feel and balance even heavier towards the butt end. So I guess you could say that the weight is taken by the shoulder & the left hand and the point of balance is somewhere between.

What effect does it have when the angle of the upper arm and lower arm relative to the ground are different? Is it to do with spreading your base/increasing your footprint as such, therefore giving more stability in your shooting position?

If the angle is too steep your position ends up too high & unstable. With the angle shallow ,there is a chance the sling will slip down the arm and anyway it will not provide sufficient support. Ideally (for me anyway), the centerline of the barrel should line up with the centre of contact between your shoulder and butt plate and the trick is to set up you position around that.

So I should have a go letting my sling out 4-5 ? would not lower my arm?

My tip: Try holding the rifle without handstop or sling. Move elbows around and alter the angle of the rifle to the body line. Try and get the rifle to come to you, rather than try and get you to the rifle. You should be able to find an angle to the body and height of rifle that just seems to be comfortable. For starters don't worry about the angle of the left arm bits. You will find that if you are too high it will feel unstable, likewise if you are too low then the left hand seems to want to disappear to the target. In this exercise it is necessary to grip the rifle with your left hand. You should be able to find a confortable spot the elbow tip as well. Once the possie is found, get someone to move the handstop to the left hand and adjust the sling whcih needs to a tad tight at this stage by a notch or so. Then when you relax the position should just settle a bit when the weight goes onto your sling as you 1) relax the forearm totally and 2)just enough pressure is felt in the shoulder to keep the butt comfortable without slipping down the shoulder.

I would be shocked if a position change of that nature did not cause a severe reduction in performance for several weeks or a month. If you've got time to recover from a change without impacting your scores it may be worth experimenting.

I can be good to get a friend, take the handstop off loosen your butt gear. Get your friend to take the weight of the rifle while you find a comfortable position. Then your freind can slide the handstop to meet your left hand and tighten up anything thats going to move when you get out of position. Use that as a baseline and spend some hours tuning it. If you can spend some hours at home pointing at an aiming mark for a week or two it helps. Having done that don't change a thing for at least a month, until your muscle memory adapts.

Looks to me like lowering your shoulders could literally cause you a pain in the neck. You've already got sight raising blocks and you would have to be look up further to see through the sights.

If the text book position is never going to be comfortable it's never going to be of any use. Sorry if this is a grandmother sucking eggs post!