Benchrest Shooting the 03/03A3

[Calfed]

Others believe recoil doesn't take place until the bullet leaves the barrel. Does anyone have any thoughts in these areas? Good Shooting......Rick H.

I suppose that from a practical standpoint, the question isn't literally "Does the recoil take place after the bullet leaves the barrel", but rather, has the bullet long since left the barrel by the time that the recoil has overcome the inertia of the mass of the rifle enough to affect the trajectory of the bullet. There are a lot of variables implicit in that question. Barrel length, rifle mass, bullet weight, powder charge, and possible other variables would all play a role. Frankly, I'm not sure.

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[jmoore]

Some good old reference books on rifle accuracy below. The info within may not be specific to '03s but it will make you think about more of the factors involved in getting your bullets to go where you want.:

Warren Page's The Accurate Rifle is virtually required reading if you want to be anything more than a trigger puller.
http://www.amazon.com/Accurate-Rifle.../dp/1886681066


Stuart Otteson's The Bolt Action is much more technical, but is worth having- the appendices alone will give you great insight into what makes a design efficient and accurate. It DOES have an entire chapter devoted to the 1903 Springfield action. Umm, he doesn't pull punches, BTW.
http://www.amazon.com/Bolt-Action-De.../dp/0876911750

Harold Vaughn's book, Rifle Accuracy Facts is a bit more "hands on" and, to me, a bit odd, but shows what results a bit of tweaking can achieve.
http://www.amazon.com/Rifle-Accuracy.../dp/1931220085

Sorry that the above are sales links, and may expire, but in the short term it'll steer you in the right direction.

Johnny Peppers has already mentioned Hatcher's work. Another required bit of reading to be sure!

I'm sure there's more new good books, but those came to mind immediately. Read them. More than once. Then refer to pertinent sections as required.

[Rick H.]

Thanks to everyone that responded to this post. It is obvious that we all have differing views on this subject and use whatever works best for us. I am going to do something a little bit differently next time I go to the range with my 03 in regards to how I hold it. If things go the way I think they will I should have somewhat better results. I would have to think that holding just the rear of standard weight rifle stock may NOT result in the best groups when shooting off a bench. I guess I got into this position from shooting heavyweight tactical rifles and just carried it into shooting my 03's and 03A3's. In any event I will see what happens......

Rick H.