Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation by Wayne van Zwoll
Offhand is the most difficult position and the one you’ll use for fast, urgent shooting. It requires plenty of practice, a fine trigger and a rifle that handles with uncanny grace.
The biggest elk I’ve shot was someone else’s. It had been crippled. The hunter and I hurried after it to beat dusk, and we found it on a sage flat.
“It’s probably the one,” I whispered. A big bull, indeed. But it looked alert, bedded on the knoll. No wound was visible, and we had to be sure. “Let’s get closer.”
We crawled a few more yards, and I took the Weatherby to give my companion a breather. At that moment the bull got up and spun toward the rim of a canyon, scant yards away. The way he moved left little doubt. With no time to return the rifle, I jumped up to clear the tall sage. The crosswire swung into the shoulder crease, bounced and kept swinging. The bull continued on and vanished over the lip before I could cycle the action. But I’d felt the kill. It had come to me at the instant of discharge, the confidence that the bullet had found its mark.
In my delinquent youth I shot sparrows with an air gun. My tallies steadily improved because I shot a lot and because the gun had so little zip that I could watch BBs in flight. Tracking them, I learned to correct my mistakes. (It was no coincidence that offhand practice with Daisys turned recruits into air gunners in World War II, teaching them lead, swing and follow-through.) Mostly, I shot standing, or offhand. The gun was light enough to hold, and position shooting was far in my future. Besides, the most colorful marksmen I knew about shot standing. Men like Ad Topperwein.
A century ago, Winchester began employing “missionary” salesmen, who’d call on dealers for orders which they’d turn over to jobbers. Among these salesmen were exhibition shooters who’d demonstrate the product. Adolph Topperwein had begun his shooting career at age 6 in the circus. A Texas native, he started work as a Winchester missionary 26 years later in 1901. “Ad” accomplished many remarkable shooting feats over his long career, but he’s best known for his endurance shooting with rimfire rifles at hand-thrown wooden blocks. These measured only 2½ inches square. Shooting steadily for 10 eight-hour days in 1907, Ad shot at 72,500 blocks and missed only nine. Of the first 50,000, he missed four. His longest run without a miss was 14,540! By the way, his wife Elizabeth (whom he met in a Winchester loading room) had her own following. After Ad taught her to shoot, she accompanied him under the nickname Plinky. At the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, “Plinky” broke 967 of 1,000 trap targets. Three years later she hit 1,952 of 2,000.
More:
http://www.rmef.org/TheHunt/During/OffHand.aspx
