The Trouble with Jackets

If there is one bit of kit which seems to present more problems than any other, and certainly the one about which I get the most questions, it is that of shooting jackets. Other things seems to be much more of a science: rifles are pretty well understood*; spotting scopes themselves are fairly easy, and positioning a mere matter of trial and error; mats ditto; hats a personal preference but still fairly hard to get wrong; gloves ditto. By way of contrast, nothing but nothing seems to be so perversely difficult to get right as obtaining and maintaining a properly-fitting jacket. Unfortunately, this is one area where I definitely do not have all of the answers.

My personal bugbear in this regard is that I appear simply to require that I get a new custom-fitted jacket made every two to three years, or at the very least have my existing jacket retailored. This is expensive and a logistical pain in the arse. I have mentioned problems I have had with jackets in other posts but that was really the result of a one-off change in my body shape; what I'm really referring to in this post is what I shall term jacket fatigue.

Understanding that you need a new jacket or that your existing jacket needs a spruce up is only the start! Tales abound of recut jackets fitting even worse, and the sheer worry of sending off your order to Switzerland or Finland with the best part of 500 quid spent only to get something entirely unusable back drives many to despair. Believe it; it happens.

Why, Dear God, why is it so hard?

Shooting jackets must fit well across the shoulders and the backs of the arms to allow proper position and relaxation of the supporting arm as well as consistent positioning of the sling. Tension in this arm, or a sling which gradually slides down, pulling the jacket with it, is not a recipe for top notch accuracy. Even if you are able to maintain a good hold and release for individual shots, the shifting position will also shift your natural point of aim, which is very likely also to shift your point of impact.

Shot with a jacket which allowed the sling to slip. Each individual shot is good, with low trace and release numbers but the overall group is shoddy because of inconsistent NPA.

Firstly, jackets wear and stretch over time: Even the best materials are slowly distorted by the forces imposed on them during shooting. Secondly, our bodies also change in shape over time**. I have both lost and subsequently redistributed weight, but others will gain it or will change shape in other ways because of exercise, injury, illness or the aging process.

Possibly more than this, at least in fullbore where serious coaching may be a rare commodity, shooters don't always know as much as they might about how it is that jackets actually fit and commit a variety of misdeeds. I've certainly been guilty of this in the past and one of the only upsides to having to go get refitted every so often is that I learn more each time. Chief among these crimes is the idea that the jacket should fit as tightly as possible, most particularly in the padded shoulder, whose straps are cinched to twanging point. While this is an occasionally-useful hack to make an oversize jacket work, it is not really a sustainable solution and can result in further stretching and distortion.

Note the straps in the right shoulder have taken up the slack, but aren't so tight as to completely distort the fit of the jacket.

While I'm hesitant to give hard recommendations on this issue because I seem to have so many issues with it personally and I'm not going to recommend a particular brand or style of jacket because all of them can be made to work if they fit appropriately, a few of the lessons I have learned are:

When buying a new jacket...

1. Take the time to get jacket fitting right - Jackets are very expensive and even more so when they don't work because of time taken to get them sorted, wasted training hours etc...

2. Don't necessarily expect it to fit perfectly first time - I have been fairly lucky in this regard so far**, as only 1 of the jackets I ever had just outright didn't fit. It was still an expensive experiment and wasted a year of my time before I got it sorted. Friends, particularly females, have sometimes had serious issues in getting jackets fitted correctly. This seems to be more of an issue in ladies with an impressive decolletage.

3. Think about a local supplier who can make alterations - When #2 is an issue, you're going to need to get it recut. If at all possible, find someone local to fit it to you who can make minor tweaks to the fit as this will save a long lead time if your jacket is made abroad. I recognise that this may not always be possible.

4. Consider whether your existing jacket just needs a refit - Sometimes there's nothing really wrong with the old jacket that some new pads and a bit of a recut won't sort out. Many shooters out there run with the same jacket for many, many years before needing a new one. (Just not me, apparently.)

5. Do not get rid of your old jacket - A well-known shooter and former world champion of my personal acquaintance got a new jacket (supposedly an upgrade) and proceeded to have a miserable season; however because he still had his old jacket available, he was able to swap back and saw his scores climb back up to what they had been previously.

6. Buy your jacket at the end of the season so you have the winter to get used to it and have time to sort out any logistical cockups. Ordering a new jacket to arrive the week before the Nationals is not a risk-free exercise.

More generally...

7. Jacket fit is driven by bodyweight and body shape. Most of you will change in your body weight but relatively little in shape once you're in your twenties; however be aware that major changes in lifestyle can effectively change your bodyshape semi-permanently***.

8. The jacket doesn't need to be as tight as you can possibly fit into; it should be snug but allow you to breathe. The fit across the shoulders is more important.

9. Do NOT have the straps in the right shoulder as tight as they will go because this will tend to loosen the jacket in the opposite shoulder.

10. If you find your SCATT tracelengths increasing, or if you find you have to adjust your position during a shoot with your groups enlarging as a result then your jacket may be coming out of fit.

In summary, buying a jacket can be expensive, difficult and time-consuming. My suggestions above do not in any way guarantee success because jacket fit is an art not a science; however I'm hoping that they may reduce the frustration a little.

* Although I admit that stock fit can sometimes present a few issues.

** Hold this thought, I'm in the process of having a new Kurt Thune Prone 600 jacket made at the moment. Review to follow.

*** Try going from no significant exercise in over a decade to running 60+ miles per week. That ought to do it.

What have shooting jackets ever done for us?

A member of the UK Fullbore Facebook Page recently asked a superb question, which I paraphrase below:

Isn't the shooting jacket just a convenient place to attach your sling?

Personally,  I really hope not, otherwise I have wasted a serious amount of cash over the years which could have been better spent on bullets or beer; however the questioner has actually got a bit of a point. What do jackets actually do for us and quite why do we spend so much money on them? First, an experiment...

SCATT Practice in the garage. Hard to see from this angle, but the jacket is completely undone.

If you're a regular reader, it cannot have escaped your attention that I like experimental evidence because it tells us the way the world really works, and not how people believe that it should work. In this case, I wanted to see what effect completely undoing my jacket would have on SCATT as some smallbore shooters are known to do in the prone position. As an experiment to see what effect this has on support and stability*, this was done completely on a whim so I don't pretend that it is statistically valid, but it is at least interesting.

While the group was slightly larger, the vital numbers are essentially no different, even taking account of the odd third shot in the second string, as the screen captures of the SCATT sessions below demonstrate.

Ignore shot 3 in the second string. Probably interference.

 Qualitatively, the hold did not feel as secure without the jacket done up, and certainly when not on final aim it did seem to wave about quite a bit. Additionally, the butt of the rifle was harder to place in the shoulder and I don't feel that it would have behaved quite the same under recoil; however this is essentially conjecture without a trial. In conclusion, despite the results from SCATT being essentially indistinguishable I won't be shooting with my jacket undone any time soon!

So, what have shooting jackets ever done for us?

In addition to being an excellent place to attach your sling and make sure that it stays roughly in the same place relative to your musculo-skeletal system, your jacket fulfils a number of other functions in fullbore rifle shooting: it provides support and allows you to maintain the proper position for longer and more consistently as a result; the rubber on the elbows and in the shoulder prevent you from slipping between shots or while in the aim; the stiffness and thickness of the material helps soak up a little bit of the recoil, which reduces fatigue, and it helps to isolate the rifle from your heartbeat; and finally it gives you some protection from the elements that we have to endure when shooting outdoors.

It is possible to shoot decent scores without using a full shooting jacket; I remember forgetting my jacket many years ago, improvising with a greatcoat and a belt as slingkeeper and shooting a 35.5 at 300 yards; AP of Australia won the Corporation of the City of London match at 1000 yards with a score of 50.9 (dropping his last shot to a cooking bull, no less) in 2016 using a harness-like arrangement sold by a well-known UK shooting tailor. Despite this, I would suggest that your scores are going to be more consistent using a well-fitting jacket of roughly conventional design.

* Yes, before you all shout at me, I know that a lot of the stability for the sling position in particular comes from the fit across the shoulders and upper arms.

Welcome to Season 3 of Gun & Run!

It has been a while; and it has been great to have a break; but after three months off, it's time to saddle up and get training and shooting again.

I have already talked about the importance of taking a break in Training Cycle 4 - Rest and Recovery but taking a little time away from shooting (although this is largely enforced by the winter weather we get here in Waitakere) gives me time to get out on the roads and get fit for the start of the shooting and trail running seasons. It also gives me the opportunity to post a little less for a while, and refresh the creative juices a little. I try hard to write thoughtful and interesting pieces on shooting, but I need inspiration to do this and not a little cognitive space. A busy schedule of work and travel for shooting last year wrung me out a little, but what a season it was.

The 2016/2017 season is looking like it's going to be a big one: I've got work trips to North America on the cards, as well as at least one trip (probably two) to the UK planned, as well as at least one (possibly as many as three) trips over the ditch to New Zealand's West Island* in the coming 18 months.

The handloading bench is going to get a lot of use in the next couple of months. The hammer is purely for emergency use.

Having taken three months off sport-specific training and live fire, I'm going to have to get off my backside and prepare for the coming season ahead. In no particular order, I have to:

• Give my rifle a thorough check over and clean;
• Load a shitload of ammunition for training and competition;
• Dig out the SCATT and do some training;
• Sort through my kit to see if I need to replace anything;
• Think about what aspects of my position and technique I'm going to need to work on; and
• Get out on the range and do some live fire.

 All of this renewed and reinvigorated interest in shooting, competing and qualifying for the most exclusive club shoot in the world is going to stimulate me to do a bit more writing too, I hope. I've already had a few ideas and started to mull over them while running. Future topics are likely to include: Wind reading, electronic targets, handloading, rule making and its consequences, volume versus quality in training, performance enhancing drugs in shooting (and sport in general), and possibly a book review or two.

I'm looking forward to it. I hope you are too.

* Also known to some people as "Australia".

Proper prior preparation prevents...

It's been a while because of work, family and (to a lesser extent) running but today I made it out onto the range for the first time since I shot at Bisley in July. Actually, I must confess to being a terrible hypocrite because much as I go on about training, I've virtually not picked up a rifle since then either; and it shows.

While my core groups at 300x today were OK, I had a flyer at each range: one was definitely me, as I saw it go way left in the inner and the target came up with the spotting disc pretty much where I thought I had put it; the other I didn't see go, which worries me. On the other hand there are two handy potential culprits today:

1. It's better when your foresight iris doesn't unscrew itself while you're shooting; and
2. One of the pillars that holds your cheekpiece in place stops doing that



If it does this, don't shoot.

The good news is that I can fix both of these things very quickly and it was only a practice; this being what practice is for. The bad news is that its doesn't matter if it was an equipment failure, these are avoidable errors. Still, lesson learned. Move on.

To finish on a positive note, there were many things which went well today. I felt comfortable with the rifle and although my first few shots were wobbly (two V sighters in my first shoot, thank you very much) things started to settle down quite quickly. My routine seemed to re-establish itself quite quickly (see video below*.) My test ammunition also shot well, with both short range and long range loads going well.

I've got 22 days before the nationals at Trentham so I need to get on the case with the SCATT and the visualisation. Fortunately I only have 3 days left until I'm on holiday for Christmas and only another 3 days at work. I will inevitably spend some of this in a G 'n' T, wine and port-induced stupor but I do intend to spend at least some of it working on my game.

* Yes, I now have a GoPro. Actually, I have a SJCAM5000+ which is as good and about a third of the price. I'm going to work out if and how I can use it to learn more from my shooting training sessions. I apologise in advance if you see lots of short videos of me shooting from now on.



Has TR become an equipment game?

A comment on the Facebook UK Fullbore forum a while back interested me. A member of the forum commented that he couldn't stay competitive in fullbore because of cost, and he would be happy to see fully-adjustable stocks, right sights etc... banned from the sport. After some sober reflection, I disagree with his choice of examples, if not some of the sentiments expressed in his post. I do not believe that many of the flash new gadgets that are around have really increased accuracy and frozen out those who cannot afford them.

There is no doubt that costs are rising and it is putting people off the sport; however I don't think the problem is the equipment of shooting, rather I believe it to be the variable costs. Had he singled out increases in the cost of ammunition or targetry as having priced him out of the sport, then I would have agreed wholeheartedly. I don't believe that the equipment necessary to compete has fundamentally changed in at least a decade and you can still be competitive with largely second-hand kit.

I have seen little evidence that the use of an eagle eye leads to any reduction in group sizes for people of moderate or good eyesight (but if you've got some then I'd be very pleased to see it and will publicly revise my opinion on this blog.Either that or mercilessly demolish the analysis. One of the two.)  I could be persuaded that they assist the seriously visually challenged. When I made comparisons about a decade ago, I found that my group size was unchanged when swapping between the two. I freely admit that these were not statistically significant as I didn't fire enough shots or perform any kind of detailed numerical analysis. I swapped to a 30mm foresight with a 0.5 Eagle Eye in 2010 because it enables me to have the target and a readable target number in the sight picture at the same time at long range. That said, perhaps I have just exchanged the occasional crossfire at long range for the occasional crossfire at the shorts as I did in the NZ Championships at Trentham in January because I now can't read the target numbers at this distance! A certain former World Long Range Champion and Commonwealth Games gold medallist is known for not using an eagle eye, as are a number of the other very top shots.

Similarly, I have serious doubts as to the advantages of having a fully-adjustable stock. They have been on the market since the late nineties (if not earlier) and yet I can't remember a single member of the World Championship-winning 2007 and 2011 Great Britain Palma Rifle Teams having used one and there are only one or two shooters on the 2015 Palma Team who use one. Similarly, only one of the people in the mix during Glasgow 2014 was using one. If there is some inherent advantage in having one of these, then it certainly isn't showing up at the top of the sport. I use a UK-made clone of a Mastin stock, not particularly cheap but less than half the price of a Gemini.

It is certainly true that without the right kit, you're not going to be competitive; however the kit required hasn't really changed significantly in a long time. I qualified for and shot in the 2006 and 2010 Commonwealth Games, as well as on the 2006, 2007 and 2011 Great Britain Rifle Teams using a second-hand Swing Mk. III in an original "paddle" stock. I do admit to having put a new set of RPA Trakker sights on the rifle when the time between backlash fixes became intolerably short, and my shift to a Barnard in 2012 came about because of worries about malfunctions and a lack of spare parts, rather than a lack of faith in the accuracy of my two Swing rifles.

Better optics? Not convinced here either. While I know of a lot of shooters who have spent a fortune on Leica scopes and fancy scope stands, there are still a decent number of people who operate very effectively with much cheaper options. Having said this, I do admit to having splashed the cash on a Kowa TSN821-M and Ewing prone rifle scope stand back in 2005, but I was living in Atlanta at the time and it cost me approximately half the price it would have in the UK (850 bucks vs. 850 quid when the dollar was 2:1 against the pound.) Up until then I used my father's 60mm scope and the folding stand he had an Bristol University smallbore club back in the sixties.

The one area where I have spent a lot of cash over the years and felt that is has made a difference is on shooting jackets. They are remarkably expensive and can have a quite an astounding effect on the accuracy of one's shooting. Again, though, it is not necessarily the case that a vast amount of money need be spent.  Fit seems more important than the precise material, given the number of people who shoot year-in, year-out with delightfully antiquated canvas. An increasing number of people are having their existing jackets retailored by leather shops, tailors and shooting jacket specialists rather than buy new ones. Also jackets made of canvas and cordura are probably as good as those made of leather provided that they are correctly fitted. Even if you do choose to spend 400 odd quid on a custom-made leather jacket, provided that you don't put on or lose too much weight, there's a good chance that it will last you 5 years or more.

I don't think that it's possible to buy yourself medals in TR (yet) simply because the amount you need to spend to get the right kit is not that high and the odds are still immensely stacked in the favour of those with the skills. You still need to point it in the middle, hold it still and squeeze the trigger gently. Long may it continue.

Answers on a postcard please.

Creedmoor Hardback Jacket Review

Creedmoor shooting jackets have been gaining popularity over the past few years and were used to great effect by a number of Commonwealth Games medallists in the fullbore event at Glasgow 2014. They work out slightly cheaper than the competition (particularly if you're used to flying to Switzerland to have the jacket custom-tailored) and are clearly capable of producing the goods at the sharp end of fullbore. The bottom line is though, would a Creedmoor work for me?

After a slightly dodgy season in 2014 where I had real problems holding any kind of group consistently, I decided that it was time for a new jacket which would fit my rather slimmer frame. Training for and running two half marathons had melted away over a stone (6.5kg) and my old Truttmann jackets weren't cutting it any more, even after some radical alteration by a skilled tailor. After a bit of thought and conversations with a few top-flight shooters, it looked like a full leather Creedmoor Hardback Shooting Coat might be the way to go. After a bit of worry-warting, I bit the bullet and ordered one from their website on August 11th and after speaking to a few other folks, promptly amended my order to request a few alterations to the basic product a day later. Creedmoor's team were more than accommodating, and promised to make the desired alterations. Fast forward a couple of months and the jacket had arrived in New Zealand; however I had to wait until our big move to Auckland to give it a go, and it wouldn't be until January that I'd get a chance to bang some rounds down with it.

First Impressions
Having opened up the package and taken the jacket out, my initial impressions were favourable. The quality of the leather was pretty good, the finish of the stitching was neat, and the rubber on the elbow and shoulder pads felt grippy. I also checked that the modifications were in place that I had been advised to make by Tony Sultana (a Creedmoor import agent in Australia who I met during the 2011 WLRC) and all looked to have been made exactly as requested:

1) Reversed Buckles - For reasons unknown, the buckles on the Creedmoor jackets are set up on the lefthand side of the jacket (from the point of view of the wearer) which means that right-handers shooting in the modified Estonian position get them in the ribs. Ask for them to be swapped over.




My first impressions of the Creedmoor Hardback Shooting Coat were positive.

2) Long Sleeves - I'd been advised that the sleeves are quite short and to get sleeves 2 inches longer than standard.

3) Modified Compression Straps - The default straps on the right shoulder are a bit wimpy and need an upgrade. I asked that they use the same straps for the shoulder as for the sling hook.



Chunkier shoulder compression straps.



4) Adjusted Sling Hook - The strap for the sling is a bit far back on the shoulder by default, so I asked for it to be moved forwards slightly.



Sling hook on the front of the shoulder.



5) Positional Upgrades - These are zips in the sides of the jacket. They make getting it on and off a bit easier. No more "Truttmann Shuffle" on the back of the firing point.

6) Ventilation - Panels of loosely-woven nylon which make the jacket more breathable and less sweaty in hot weather. Important in the Southern Hemisphere.



Positional upgrade zips for standing and kneeling/sitting in highpower, or easier entry/exit in fullbore! Also, not the ventilation panels.

Probably the most significant worry I had was about the right shoulder. I'd seen lots of people shoot in Creedmoor jackets in Canada, the USA and the UK and they all looked to have a loose, baggy right shoulder with a lot of excess material. The cut of the jacket made this feel like it might be a problem for me also, but that would have to wait until I got a chance to do some SCATT and livefire with it.

Fitting and Dryfire
Not having all of our possessions from the UK in NZ (most of them were still drifting their way across the ocean) I picked out one of my tighter-fitting hoodies and used that in place of a more normal shooting jumper. Fortunately I did remember to air-freight over my glove, sling and hat.

Putting the jacket on properly for the first time with a view to doing some dryfire, I was interested to feel how stiff it actually felt, and the level of support that the quilted back would give. My key goal for the session was to work out how much tension I would need in the chest and shoulder straps to give a good level of support without interfering with my natural position or breathing. Even though I had gone for a 36 inch chest I still needed to tighten the chest straps to a surprising degree and, as I had worried, the shoulder felt quite loose when standing up, so I needed to put a high degree of compression into the shoulder straps also.

As is normal for such a session, there was quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing from trying the jacket in the prone position to removing the jacket and adjusting the straps before getting back down into the aim. After about eight or ten iterations I felt that I had found a sustainable and natural-feeling position, and did a 20 shot dryfire session. I didn't have the SCATT available at the time, so wasn't able to make a quantitative comparison with my best form using either of my two Truttmann jackets (I'll probably do this for a future blog post) but it would have to be good enough, as the NZ Nationals down at Trentham were looming fast.

Livefire
While I had wanted my first time out with the jacket to be on the range with my new club at Clevedon, near Auckland; however it was straight up into the Masefield 300 yards shoot down at Trentham. The Masefield is roughly equivalent to the pre-Grand shoots in the UK, as they do not count for the NZ Championship, which is concurrent with the Ballinger Belt series. Very often when making a change to equipment, and particularly something so fundamental as a jacket, what feels good when dryfiring turns out to be less than ideal on the range, even wholly unworkable sometime. Fortunately, it seemed that the position I had worked out suited the range as well as my living room carpet and I squeezed in a solid 35.5 ex 35.7 with only a few minor niggles.

Probably the most significant of the niggles was the removable towelling collar, visible at the top of the photo below, which I could never seem to get right. Sometimes there are little sequences of actions that can deal effectively with these niggles, such as putting the jacket on in a certain way like left arm first and then the right, but in this case nothing seemed to work. No matter what I did, it always ended up tucked inside the collar of the jacket and not hanging out over it. In the end my perseverance came to its limit and I removed it. That said, I don't think it's a bad idea per se, it maybe just needs a little alteration. I'm going to try putting in some more Velcro on the outside of the jacket to hold it in position more firmly. I'll let you know how I get on.



The removable towelling collar proved troublesome and I discarded it at the Kiwi Nationals.

My big worry about the shoulder proved unfounded in either individual shooting, where I shot through without removing the rifle from the shoulder, or in the team matches, where some decidedly tricky conditions meant that I had to put the rifle down to rest during some of the more wayward patches of wind. The material seemed to deform consistently and form a 'pocket' in the right place in the shoulder, and I experienced no issues with variable NPA (natural point of aim) or fall of shot. My zeroes were very consistent throughout the ranges, and the vast majority of my sighters were converted.

Getting in and out of the jacket was initially almost as difficult as with my old Truttmann jackets, but I soon worked out a trick to this: undoing the positional upgrade zips made the jacket a bit more flexible and easier to get into. Doing them up just before getting down tightened everything back up nicely.



Shooting at Trentham. Image reproduced with the kind permission of Richard Rowlands.

I was very happy with the performance of the jacket overall and will continue to refine my position and technique with it. I ended up 3rd in the Ballinger Belt and 5th in the NZ Grand Aggregate a couple of points off the lead, despite firing a shot on the wrong target at 300x in the first day of the Ballinger series. All (of the very few) shots lost to elevation I can conclusively say that I knew where they had gone and why, and points lost to wind corresponded very well to the conditions.

Shooting in the Ballinger Belt Final at Trentham. Maybe I need to think about mat position more carefully! Image reproduced with the kind permission of Richard Rowlands.

Conclusions
Will a Creedmoor work for you? I can't say for sure, but given the solid built quality of the jacket and the recent pedigree of performance behind it, it's got to be a contender if you're in the market for a jacket. The mixed leather/Cordura and Cordura-only models will bring the price down further. They do have a couple of issues, but these are minor and can probably be rectified fairly easily. Keep an eye out for them on the ranges and go ask other shooters what they think.

Disclaimer - I have no commercial relationship with Creedmoor or any of their agents. All thoughts are my own.