The 10 Commandments of Taming a Lightweight Mountain Rifle

Featherweight rifles are easy to pack up mountains. They’re comfy in the hand, and sexy at the range. A good, ultralight shootin’ iron doesn’t hold you back; it inspires you and fuels your drive up and over that last ridge, helping you make that final push that earns you a shot at a buck or bull of a lifetime.

However, as sweet as they are to carry, a featherweight rifle is bloody hard to shoot accurately.

Because light rifles have—by definition—little mass, they’re not inherently stable. Unlike rifles with some heft, they don’t resist muscle tremors when excitement, fatigue and oxygen deprivation set in. Nor do they lay still when you’re heaving for breath and your heart is pounding out of your chest because you’ve just done a high-altitude sprint to a shooting position.

Many custom rifle makers that stake their reputation on accuracy guarantees refuse to sell ultralight rifles. They know that no matter how accurate a 5-pound rifle is in the hands of a pro, most shooters can’t hold half-MOA groups with one. By selling the average shooter 10-pound rifles, they optimize the likelihood those average shooters will shoot better-than-ever groups—and will love their rifle.

For front-country hunters, a hunting rifle with mass is a solid investment in capability. But that 10-pound rifle turns into an anchor when the slope is steep and the altitude is alpine.

If you’re serious about backcountry hunting, you’re better off learning to shoot a lightweight rifle well than you are trying to pack an anchor-heavy rifle up the hill. And the older you get; the more crucial light weight becomes.

Shooting featherweight rifles well takes specialized skills. As does most everything worth dreaming about and doing. So how do you learn those skills? Read on, my friends.

How light is light?

To master a lightweight hunting rifle, you must accomplish two tasks: (1) achieve stability, so you can hold your crosshairs on the vitals, and (2) execute a consistent, controlled shot, so your follow-through optimizes the rifles’ accuracy.

Before dissecting and correcting techniques to accomplish those two tasks, let’s define a “lightweight” rifle. How light is light? Legendary gunwriter and sheep hunter Jack O’Connor opined that a 7.5-pound rifle—loaded, with scope and sling—is just about right for packing into big mountain country. Anything much heavier than eight pounds is obese for a backcountry rifle. On the flip side, anything much lighter than 6.5 pounds total weight gets real, real hard to shoot well.

Do rifles that light exist? Sure do. New Ultra Light Arms and other companies have made sub-four-pound rifles. Put a 10-ounce scope on it and a few cartridges inside and you’ve got a five-pound rifle. So nice to carry. So hard to shoot well.

I’ve got two rifles that weigh right at 6.5 pounds scoped, loaded and ready to head into alpine mule deer country. They’re both awesome. As long as I do my job, they do theirs. But they’re unforgiving of human errors. That’s why I think Professor O’Connor was right: A 7.5-pound rifle is light enough without being too light.

Rules for Light Rifles

First task at hand: Learn to get steady in field positions.

To accomplish this with a feather of a rifle, you’ve got to perfect your fundamentals. Just like with a basketball shot or a golf swing, correct positioning, form and follow-through are crucial. Here are the 10 Commandments of achieving a stable shooting position.

Thou shalt build upon a rock

Your skeleton is your rock, and it’s got to provide a framework that holds your rifle with as little supporting muscle tension as possible. Muscle tension quickly turns into muscle tremors, and the harder you’re gasping for air (a common occurrence at high altitude and after pushing hard to get to a shooting position), the more violently those tremors occur.

Lay prone or drape yourself over a rock formation or slump against a big tree trunk. Find something that enables a solid shooting position and provides a sort of exoskeleton to support your frame. This isn’t an article about how to configure a rifle for accurate shooting, but I’ll say this: You’ll need a bipod for a lot of your shooting in mountain country.

Thou shalt support thy rifle

Prop the rifle on its bipod and scrounge up something to stuff under the buttstock for a rear support. Whether you’re shooting 200 yards or 600, that rear point of contact is crucial for taming the tremor in the crosshairs. You can use your backpack, or a canteen, or if the shot is not too far, your support-side fist. One of my favorite tricks is to use my binocular chest case. Anything that’s close at hand and works for the task.

With ultra-lightweight rifles—say those of 6.5 pounds or less—it can be helpful to use the support hand to control the forend. Once a rear support is jammed into place and doing its job, grasp the forend firmly with your weak-side hand, and gently pull down toward the ground. This will minimize muzzle jump and can go a long way toward eliminating a featherweight rifle that leaps uncontrollably when it goes off.

Thou shalt relax

As you prepare to take the shot, consciously relax every muscle that’s not necessary to maintaining your point of aim. If that lightweight rifles’ crosshairs are still bouncing with every heartbeat, wiggle around and relax even more.

One significant source of heartbeat bounce is your abdomen; try not to lay directly on your belly. Old-time service rifle competitive shooters would draw up one leg into a right angle, at the hip and again the knee, which propped up one hip slightly and effectively reduced the contact between stomach and ground.

Thou shalt not be limp-handed

This is an exception to the relax rule. You can’t shoot a lightweight rifle chambered in a powerful hunting cartridge with a limp grip. It’s basic physics. Unlike PRS-type precision shooting, where competitors barely touch the grips of their 20-pound rifles chambered for mild little 6mm cartridges, you’ve got to give your featherweight rifle a firm handshake.

I once trained at the SAAM shooting school in Texas. My custom 7mm magnum was stringing shots vertically. Instructor Doug Pritchard watched me shoot, chastised me gently, and told me to grasp my rifle with the same grip I’d offer a man I respect. I obeyed. And just like that my hunting rifle went to shooting sub-half-MOA groups. The firm handshake grip works.

Thou shalt be a firm foundation

In order to achieve good follow-through, you’ve got to set yourself up to keep your rifle from jumping during recoil like an electrocuted kangaroo. As much as possible in whatever position you’ve got to work with, align your frame behind the rifle. Prone is ideal. The less prone you are, the more your rifle will move.

Create forward pressure into the buttpad. This “loads” the rifle and bipod with movement-preventive static force. A prophylactic, if you will, against recoil. When the cartridge fires and that old law of equal-and-opposite-reaction slams the rifle rearward, you’ll have a firm foundation that will prevent the rifle from leaping off the straight and narrow path.

Though shalt breathe

This should go without saying, but it’s amazing how many shooters hold their breath much too long before a shot. You’ve only got between 7 and 10 seconds after heaving a deep breath before your eyes lose acuity and your muscles begin to tremor from oxygen starvation. Train yourself to breathe deep and steadily as you prep for the shot. Just before you squeeze the trigger, exhale to a natural pause and apply pressure to that go-button.

Thou shalt be unflinching

Many hunters flinch. Hunters with light rifles that kick a lot tend to flinch a lot. In the disapproving tones of my wonderful British mother-in-law, “That just won’t do.”

There are various types and levels of flinching. All are bad. All cause your shots to go astray. In essence, it works like this: The hunter knows the rifle is about to bang loudly and punch him or her hard. As pressure on the trigger builds, the schizophrenic side of the brain wants to just get it over with and screams NOW! The trigger finger mashes the trigger, but not before the shooter’s body tenses up in anticipation.

Because the body tenses—even if just slightly—as the trigger is yanked, the rifle invariably moves as the firing pin drops, the primer sparks, the gunpowder explodes, and the bullet travels down the barrel. By the time the bullet exits the muzzle, the rifle is no longer aimed at the center of the target.

Heavy rifles minimize the negative effects of flinching. But lightweight rifles can’t tame poor form. There’s no better way to ensure you miss with your lightweight rifle than by applying a good flinch.

Don’t do it. Use discipline and squeeze that trigger. Slowly increase pressure until you achieve a “surprise break.”

Note, of course, that the shot itself isn’t a surprise. You just need the shot to surprise your reflexes and get ahead of your body’s compensating reaction to recoil.

Pro tip: Loud gunshots contribute significantly to flinching. Get a compact suppressor for your hunting rifle. It’ll tame recoil nearly as effectively as a muzzle brake and will reduce the sound of the gunshot to a comfortable level.

Thou shalt follow through

Assuming you’ve achieved that surprise break, the rifle will fire well supported and precisely aimed. Achieve this final commandment, and your shot should drill the vitals.

Stay relaxed. Allow physics and the resulting dynamic effect on your lightweight mountain rifle to flow and do their thing. Don’t grab frantically at the rifle as it recoils—if you’ve built your position correctly everything is under control.

As the rifle settles out of recoil and the echo of your shot reverberates off the canyon walls, allow the world to pause for a couple seconds. Your focus should be extreme, particularly if you’ve just shot at a big game animal.

With that focus, try and see in slow motion. With a bit of practice and acuity, you’ll simultaneously register how the rifle is returning to position and whether it’ll need a slight adjustment to get back on target, in case a follow-up shot is needed. You’ll see your bullet’s impact, or at least the targets’ reaction to the impact. If you missed, you’ll note how the earth splashed and what direction the wind sucked the resulting dust.

Thou shalt shoot again

Keep your cheek on the stock and your eye in the scope. With bullet impact information on board and the crosshairs tracking your quarry, smoothly work the bolt. Make a fast, precise follow-up shot. Repeat as necessary. And yes, practice this. It’s hard to do well and quickly with a lightweight rifle.

Some hunters avoid firing follow-up shots if possible. They’ll claim they don’t want to ruin meat or some such thing. That’s fair, if you’re market hunting in New Zealand or Africa or whatnot. But if you’re in America’s backcountry, particularly if you’re DIY on public land, you’ve likely earned your opportunity the hard way. You owe it to yourself and to the game you hunt to finish your task as quickly as possible. Be absolutely lethal. That often means firing follow-up shots.

Attitude

Thou shalt be ethical

Shooters armed with heavy rifles can often make wonderful shots at amazing distances. That’s a different rifle realm. I recommend against planning extreme-range shots with a lightweight rifle. Remember, featherweight rifles exacerbate every human error and situational challenge.

You may be able to hit a 20-inch steel plate with every shot from 1,000 yards, shooting off the concrete bench at your local range. I don’t care. Show me you can make a first-round hit, in steep, uncertain terrain, through multiple unknown wind vectors, at 600 yards. Then I’ll be impressed.

When built properly, lightweight mountain rifles can be very accurate. And with adequate training and practice, backcountry hunters can learn to shoot them very well. That’s admirable. Work toward that. Hone your skills. But be realistic and ethical about the shots you take on live animals.

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