On the subject of how to hold the rifle steady, here's a good forum post that I found on  www.airgunbbs.com. Click here for the full forum post.

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It is all about minimising the amount of jelly holding the rifle!

Your muscles are useless, they are the jelly. You need to use your bones to support the weight, not your muscles.

Stand with your non trigger side foot pointing roughly in the direction of the target (it won't be straight at it, so don't be silly) so that you are comfortable. Your weight should be on your back leg, straight up and down over the leg.
Your front leg/foot is for balance only.
Forward hand under the rifle, it is up to you how you actually hold the forend, but many top shots turn their hand backwards, so their fingers are pointing at their chest and they rest the rifle on the flat of their first section of fingers (the part that you thump people with).
Your forward arm should be directly, and I mean absolutely directly, under the rifle. The weight of the rifle is then straight down through your fist, forearm and your hips. Yes, you dig your elbow into your lower ribs, better if you can contort to put it in the gap between bottom rib and pelvis (so you are sticking your backside out like a mother holding a baby on her hips).

This hold supports the entire weight of the rifle straight down through bones (which don't wobble nearly so much as muscles).

Your trigger arm shoulld be raised at the elbow, so that your elbow as at least at right angles to the gun - it sticks out sideways as if you were going to smack someone in the chops stood beside you. Some shots actually lift their elbow a little above the horizontal - it is up to you, whichever feels more natural and you can hold better. The reason your elbow is raised so far is that it then forms your shoulder to provide a pad for the butt.

Practise this stance - it feel scompletely awkward, but it is the stance adopted by the top shooters because it is the one that provides the rifle with the most support not relying on muscles. You still have to control your breathing and let off, but the stance provides the support for the rifle, you don't try and hold it.

If you need to shift the muzzle angle, do it by adjusting your feet and the angle of your hips, NOT by lifting with your muscles. If you try and hold the rifle using your muscles they will be constantly contracting and relaxing, in minute amounts that you probably can't even feel, so you will think you are holding steady, but in reality your muscles will be constantly compensating for each and every adjustment other muscles make. That is bound to induce a wobble, plus the fact that soft tissue does not make a good support.

If you had two long bones and lashed them together you could make a bipod from them - because they are rigid. If you had two long lumps of meat they would make a hopeless bipod because they are not rigid. They would make a good pad to rest on though!

the other thing you need to be aware of is your pulse and heartbeat. prone is the worst for this. Try lying flat on your chest and take a prone position, then watch how your heartbeat lifts and lowers the muzzle even without you breathing. You can see it in the scope, every heartbeat. The same pulse is going on when you are stood, kneeling, sitting or prone, youneed to assume a position that doesn't allow it to interfere with your hold in each case. This is done by taking the weight of you and the rifle off any pulse in your body.

Hope that helps a bit. The practise in the house bit is excellent advice. Looking in a mirror and trying to hold steady on yourself (line the scope up with the scope in th emirror. Also try picking a small target and holding on it. A joint in a wall of the house up the road, the insulator on a telegraph pole, a crab apple on the tree.....a dandelion on the lawn, whatever.

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