Here are some suggestions, which follow on some of those above.
1. Front bag. You have to match the bag to your forearm. Protektor bags come in three standard widths: three-inch flat for benchrest stocks, medium curve for round "beavertail" stocks, and narrow curve for sporter stocks. You want to be able to secure the rifle with the ears of the bag, but with a rimfire rifle, I suggest you not crank the ears down really hard because you want the stock to recoil freely. More on that below.
2. What kind of sand in the front bag? I recommend you not use "heavy" sand in the front. You want one or both bags to absorb recoil so the stock doesn't bounce so much that you get vertical dispersion. I recommend you fill the front bag with what hardware stores sell as "play" sand. Sandblasting sand like Black Diamond also works.
3. Don't fill the front bag so tight it looks like a sausage. If it's too tight, it'll be like shooting on a brick and you'll get vertical. Make sure you have some "play" in the bag, so that if you press your finger into it, you can actually depress it.
4. Rear bag. Again, get one to match your stock. Do you have a flat edge on the bottom of the butt? Get a bag with a flat space between the ears. Round butt? Get a bag with a round slot between the ears.
5. Assuming you have the right sand in the front bag, you can fill the rear bag with heavy sand if you wish. I shoot both CF and RF BR, so I use heavy sand to stabilize the rear bag during recoil. If you're shooting RF only, you can probably use lighter sand. Just make sure the bag stays put during recoil. If you're shooting on a slick concrete surface, a rear bag stabilizer helps. See <
https://protektormodel.com/products/b-b-bag-stabilizer?_pos=2&_sid=51979b495&_ss=r> and <
https://www.sinclairintl.com/shooti...ries/otto-rear-bag-stabilizer-prod34998.aspx>.
6. As with the front bag, don't fill the rear bag like a sausage. It should have some "give" to it. At a certain point in your learning curve you will probably experiment with "tuning" the bags with various amounts of fill to give you optimal results.
7. I have shot countless thousands of rounds off bags and have never seen pulse effect. I do when shooting with a sling, but not off bags. If you're seeing pulse, you're holding the rifle way too tight.
8. My advice: let the rifle recoil as freely as it wants. Hold it just enough to be able to keep it stable during trigger pull, but no more than that. Let it torque to the side during recoil. It won't hurt anything. Let it push your shoulder back. Don't try to oppose the recoil, because doing so will affect how the rifle moves during recoil, and, therefore, where the bullet goes. Remember that RF bullets have a relatively long dwell time in the barrel. You need perfect follow through. Stay as still as a statue for a couple of beats after the shot breaks to make sure you're not moving the rifle prematurely. You do not get extra points for cycling the bolt fast.
9. Minimize your use of muscles. Don't use your muscles to steer the rifle to your point of aim. Muscles are unreliable; they get tired and they twitch, and any change in the direction and degree of force that you exert on the rifle will affect point of impact. Steer the rifle with the windage and elevation controls on your front rest.
10. Touch the rifle as little as possible. Avoid cheek pressure. Ideally, your cheek should be off the comb or just grazing it. You may want to get higher scope rings or a higher base for the rings in order to avoid cheek pressure. Use your neck, not the stock, to support your head. Use a light grip and practically no force against your shoulder -- again, you want to let the rifle recoil freely.
11. Take your time setting up the bags and rifle on the bench. The stock should be perpendicular to the front rest's top, not at an oblique angle. You have to move the rifle around quite a bit when shooting on the RBA targets, and you want to avoid binding the stock in the front bag as you're moving it from one bull to the the next. The rear bag's slot should be in a straight line with the bore, so when you slide the rifle fore and aft, the crosshairs move straight up and down. When you set up at the beginning of the match, center the front rest's top in the middle of its windage range, and then move the front rest and rear bag until you're aiming at the middle of the target in the horizontal plane. That will maximize the amount of side to side movement you can get on the target and help keep you from binding the rifle in the front bag. The RBA target is wide, and at 50 yards, your rest may not give you much movement beyond the sides of the target.
You strike me as being very diligent and motivated in improving your shooting, and that's a great thing to see. You're now sorting through all the stuff I spent years sorting through, and am still sorting through. If you'd like to discuss by phone, send me a pm and I'll give you my phone number.
Dave Rabin
Do cardio 3x / wk. Reeled in diet and lost 25 lbs. Started a dedicated hydration program and have already seen modest improvement in eyeball "floaters"
