Watch: Harrell on Accurate Shooting When Deer Hunting
Russ Chastain 10.28.20
(Image: Screenshot from video)
If you’re a Paul Harrell fan, you may or may not be happy to hear that he’s about to drop one of his signature phrases. He opens this video by saying he will be doing most of his videos on a newly-acquired piece of ground and we will probably not be hearing the familiar, “Please bear with gunfire in the background.”
This video is about accurate shooting while hunting big game, and Paul covers four main shooting positions: Standing offhand, Kneeling, Sitting, and Prone. (Shooting out the window of a pickup truck doesn’t count.)
As he shows the standing position and talks about slings, I’m mildly surprised he doesn’t use the sling to his advantage. Heck, even just grabbing a fistful of sling and pulling the rifle back against your shoulder can go a long way in increasing your stability. Later on he does use it, though.
This video is a bit longer than his usual fare, mainly because he fires “five one-shot groups” from the first two positions, and that ain’t fast. Me, I skipped ahead through that.
He keeps saying he’s getting better groups, but I’m not seeing much difference in the overall group size from kneeling to sitting to prone.
Around the 11:45 mark he decides to do some repetition by repeating the prone position from standing. Again, I skipped ahead. C’mon Paul. Once is enough to make your point. Maybe he’s a masochist. Repeatedly lying down and getting up on rain-soaked ground isn’t much fun for most folks.
He wraps up the topic of shooting positions around 15:20, but transitions to something else.
“There is another topic I want to discuss that doesn’t have very much to do with shooting positions, but it is something that I consider very important for accurately shooting while you’re in the field or hunting.”
You’re going to want to keep watching, because the story he tells next is pretty good.
