do you shoot offhand?

Offhand shooting has been an important part of marksmanship training since marksmanship training came about.
If you can get good at offhand shooting , the rest of the supported positions will only get better.
Often times in the various bpcr matches the winner is also the one with the highest offhand score.
I also shoot revolver and try to shoot onehand unsupported as much as possible as well.

Like most of the replies I shoot from the bench only for sighting in or load development. But the rest of the time I want to be the one shooting, not the bench.

To be fair I've got a mat that I bring along to allow me to shoot from prone for longer distances. But now I need to work on using crossed sticks for my long range "buffalo" event shooting in SASS events. Last year the grass was taller at one of my events and I found I couldn't see the targets unless I were to trample down a good 5 yards worth in front of me. Well, it's a FIRING line so I couldn't. So now I guess I need to work with a short stool and some longer crossed sticks.

Yeah, I could kneel but the 60 year old bones means that I'd need a skyhook to get back up after 15 or 20 minutes of being down there....

I love shooting free standing at one of the little rimfire flip up targets with my various rimfire rifles out at 50 yards. I may not hit them all the time with boring frequency like I do if shooting rested. But it makes the "DING!" all that much sweeter when it happens.

Having said all this I do find that shooting from bags and rest blocks instead of from a sled is a whole other skill that is as hard to master as free standing. With rimfire it's easy since I can just rest the gun and let it kick with no support. For center fire where it'll try to kick the rifle up and over my shoulder some downward retention is needed. And that's a different story. It's tough to figure out a way to support and hold the rifle so that it's dead on even from shot to shot.

Yep, its more comfortable than prone.

With these two rifles off hand @ 200yds every practice & match.

I shoot almost exclusively off-hand, with both rifles and handguns. I'll use a bench to work up a load or zero a gun, but any shooting from informal plinking to target work to hunting is mostly off-hand, with some occasional prone and sitting positions for military rifle.

I practice off-hand (both pistol and long gun), for I never take a bench hunting with me. Off-hand shots are rare for me in the field, but I know how to use them.
I do, however, usually bring a shooting stick for those events where I might be forced to take a standing or kneeling shot over 200 yds.

Handguns only standing. Rifles unless shooting off sandbags to sight in, I start standing, then go to kneeling or sitting as I get tired and finish off prone if I can see over the weeds.

I rarely shoot offhand anymore. I might do it with the pellet gun or the .22 but not with the center-fire rifles.

Of the 100+ deer I've killed I'd guess that only 2 or 3 have been shot offhand. I can always find a stable position wether it be by using a tree branch, my shooting sticks, or by proning out and using my pack.

When zeroing a weapon, I always shoot supported if I can. But after that I always shoot "offhand" or unsupported.

Its the only way I shoot. Thats why I like the CZ527 carbine, its small and light, so much. I know I could do a lot better with optics and a rest but something about off hand just appeals to me. Maybe it's because I started out with pistols where there are no rest.

Click to expand...

Same here, there's just something about the 527 that begs to be shot unsupported with iron sights. I wouldn't mind having a fiber optic front sight for it.

This poll would suit me better asking if I ever used a rest. Seldom.

I use a rest only to make sure the weapon is doing it's job correctly. Then I shoot off-hand and re-adjust the sights to accommodate my trigger pull, or any other factor, which might throw off my shots during real-world shooting...... To me off-hand shooting is acceptable when I can group minute of squirrel/rabbit head at 55 yards with .22lr. minute of coyote/bobcat vital at 85 yards, with .22WMR
minute of deer vital at 125 yards with the 45/70, minute of deer vital at 250 yards with the .270 win. and finally minute of deer vital at 28 yards with my compound bow. Off-hand I shoot a different POI than with a rest, I want to compensate for this with my sights, while practicing, so the shot will be on while hunting. If my target does not fit the above parameters, I get closer or I don't take the shot. Once on a dog drive I took a 340 yard shot on a deer so the dogs didn't chase it into the $50 fine a dog zone.
I aimed at it's nose and hit it in the hind quarter. Not getting a clean kill was hard on me, I no longer do dog drives, and strictly limit how far my shots are.
STW

I love shooting my mosin offhand at 500yards. I don't hit the torso-sized steel every time, but hey, when I do, I sure smile

I try to shoot my rifles offhand a couple times when I'm out shooting. Especially my CZ 452 Trainer. Boy I love those irons!

Club only allows rimfire rifles and handguns off hand.
Centerfire rifles are all to be fired from the bench, both elbows on the table.

Growing up it was repeated many times over, if you have a rest use it. I did and still do when I can.

That said I voted "frequently (7x per year or more)". Actually it is WAY more than that, but when I have the time or something really handy I use it.

I shoot my revolvers actually more than I do my rifles, but I'm no slouch with either. I hunt with them both and am very comfortable offhand out to 50+yds with all of my revolvers from my 41 up thru 454. I can shoot the smaller 357 just as accurate only I don't usually haul it out for hunting that often. I use hunting somewhat loosely here as when I am at the farm, you can bet I am within reach of something. You never know when a hog will just wander right out of the brush or woods.

With rifles it only takes setting the cross hair where i want it. I have dropped many a critter with no qualms what so ever out further than most shoot from a rest. I have some that I do better with than others, but if needed I can handle swinging a lead on a hog or deer even with my heavy ol Sendero.

I typically shoot a few rounds off hand on each trip.

I shoot offhand pretty much every time I shoot. It is your weakest position, and needs to be practiced to keep your tone and skills up.

I dry fire in the house all the time too, both rifles and hand guns. Dry fire lets you "shoot" for free, and pays dividends.

It depends on what I've taken to the range that trip. If the only rifle I take is my Remington (a 700 that I'm slowly rebuilding to eventually use in F-t/R). then I'm unlikely to shoot any offhand with that one.
my 10/22 or My wife's AR (retro build) now those will likely never see a range session without offhand practice.

and yes i'm a pistol (1911) shooter as well

It is definitely a minority that shoot rifles offhand at the ranges I go to. Often, I'm the only one. Maybe it's something about when I go. Do bench-only shooters have a 10am Tuesday thing?

I would be sad if no ranges in my city offered off hand rifle shooting.

All the time, I only shoot off the bench for testing purposes.

For the most part, I shoot offhand. At my age, it's too darn hard to get back up.

I've seen people define off hand shooting as not using a sling in various threads on this board. I've been shooting 50 years and I never heard that idea until about a week ago. A sling isn't a support. It's a way of holding the rifle steady without the need of anything else. It doesn't really matter a lot in this poll. I shot for many years off hand without using a sling. Now I use one and it's nothing like even leaning against the side of a tree for adding stability.

To back up what I have learned about a sling and off hand shooting I found this quote:

"An article in the 1950 edition of Gun Digest illustrates how to use the military leather sling and body position to create a solid off-hand shooting platform."

They had a different interpretation of what an off hand position is because in the photo they show someone sitting a firing with the classic sit down and use a sling technique. Still they didn't consider a sling as something that made your shooting into something else besides shooting off hand.

Then there's this quote from a Field and Stream article:

"David E. Petzal teaches you how to use a rifle sling or carrying strap to increase your accuracy from the off-hand and kneeling positions."

The photo there (part of a video actually) shows the shooter standing and using a sling and they are calling that shooting off hand.

I'm sure others have obviously heard the term used differently. But where I come from using a sling doesn't alter the fact that you're shooting off hand.

I will shoot anywhere from 50 - 100 shots offhand per week