Bench Rest shooting style

[Rangeball]

Curious how you get your best accuracy with hard .45 and up recoiling loads from your H&R/NEF CF from the bench.

For the poll options-

Hard hold= trigger hand pulling the stock tight into your shoulder, front hand pulling down and back on the forearm to control barrel rise under recoil.

Free recoil= Trigger hand pulling the stock tight into your shoulder, front hand off forearm so it can rise as it wants under recoil.

Other= you tell me

Someone once told me that the stock angle of the handi's makes shooting with free recoil problematic at best as far as accuracy goes.  Curious how you guys do it.  If you could add what type of rest you are using at the bench, such as lead sled, etc, that would be great.

Thanks

[petemi]

I hold my .45-70, 30-06 and some others tight to the shoulder and down on the forend.  If not, they'll slap the pee out of you.  It seems you can get away with a soft hold on some of the pistol calibers and .22s.  I tend to hold them all to the shoulder cause that's the way I shoot.  I was taught that at age 11 in Junior Rifle Club. with my 521T Remington .22LR.  That's a LOOOOONG time ago.  Old habits kinda stick around.

Pete

[eskimo36]

I have two newly acquired rifles in 9.3x74R and a 416 Rigby and you better hold on tight with both hands. My 500 S&W handi is no slouch either with a 700 grain Ranger Rick bullet.  I feel a more field like shot is produced holding the forearm.  I shoot off a combination of sandbags so heighth is adjustable to fit a more upright shooting position at the bench.

[gendoc]

i use a strapped leadsledII
and it don't matter what you put in it..
.338 thru .500
the only thing you touch is the trigger....
and you don't feel nut'n... can't say that for the..BLAST!!!!!
its good for paper when site'n in. thats the only thing i use it for.
i don't do much paper punch'n

[dpe.ahoy]

I always hang on to the forearm, I feel I will have it sighted in better if I hold it like I was shooting from a field position.  Don't know if that is true or not, just seems like it should be.  If resting the forearm on the bags can make a difference on groups, hanging on to the forearm should have some impact as well.  CW,Tim, anyone else, what's your feelings on this?  DP

[quickdtoo]

I shoot from a Leadsled DFT, hold the forend just enough to keep it from bouncing up, some rifles like the 45 Colt BC carbine with Ruger/TC loads take a lot more holding than a regular monte carlo stock does tho!! I try not to put much downward pressure on it, just hold it to control it.

Tim

[stimpylu32]

Most of the time I just let the butt slide back to me and put my off hand over the scope ( not sure were else to put it ) and let the rifle recoil as it wants , works ok with just about everything but the 45/70 using Ruger loads . 

stimpy

[bobg]

  I do about like stimpy only my off hand goes in front of the rear bag. I even shoot my 12ga. slug gun that way. Jumps like heck but it seems to work.
    bobg

[tykempster]

It just depends on the gun, as others have said.  However the trigger on a Handi isn't gonna be permissive to true free-recoil shooting.

[Rangeball]

Thanks fellas

I'm shooting a .50 smokeless ML conversion by SMI  on my 12g USH with 250-300gr bullets at 21-300 fps, and if I shoot free recoil with my front hand off the gun, bullets go everywhere.  But if I hold on tight, she's a shooter.

As I said, someone mentioned it was a function of the angle of the stock on the gun not being as in-line with the recoil as say a bolt action gun, and I was curious what others were experiencing.