Precision Rifle Competition

I live in Missouri now, and one thing that is very different from Iowa is that precision rifle competitions are alive and well here. Check out the Missouri Steel Tactical Facebook Group and you'll find a very active club of like minded folks.  I couldn't be happier with the gun culture down here.

My post today isn't about the Missouri gun culture though, it's about my experience at the precision rifle match I attended this past weekend.  The Rolling Hills Gun Club near Mack's Creek Missouri hosted the event.  We shot at distances of 250 yards all the way out to 900 yards and everything in between. 

There were 60 shooters, which is the most of any Missouri competition in the history of the club! Due to the large number of people, the match directors decided to divide everyone into squads.  Squads in this context means that you evenly distribute the people and send each group to the various stages in a rotation.  As each squad completes a stage, they rotate as a unit to the next stage, and the next.  The system worked fairly well ensuring minimal down time. 

One of the most challenging stages for all squads was "the rope" stage.  This barricade was far more difficult than it appeared. Typically you can lean forward into the object you're shooting off of and get some level of support, but here the rope offers very little stabilization.  The distances don't really matter, but I think these targets were engaged at approximately 250-300 yards. 

A few of the other barricades were kneeling behind a bench, propped up on a tank trap, prone on a platform, sitting on stairs, and kneeling behind some stacked culverts.  Each one provides a new opportunity to discovery just how little you know about precision rifle dynamics.  I discovered a lot this weekend! 

The biggest challenge for everyone at this match was the wind.  This is typical of long range shooting of course, but wind is not as difficult to figure out when it's constant and from only one direction.  The winds at Rolling Hills were coming from at least 3 different directions with 3 different velocities.  This rendered tech devices, such as the Kestrel weather meter, basically worthless for wind calls. After a complete miss of my 400 yard cold bore shot, I figured out, in theory, what the wind was doing.  Hits came a little easier for the rest of the day.

It's always a bit intimidating shooting in a competition along side some of the best in the industry.  George Gardner of GA Precision, and a few of his employees, also competitors, were there.  George has been a part of this game for a long time and easily pulled off a 4th place finish.  In comparison, i've only been shooting competitively for about a year and I finished 29th. There were a few other guys competing that are nationally ranked in the Precision Rifle Series.  They finished ahead of me as well. #sigh

I did learn a few things about my gear.  I learned that I need a bag or barricade pad for the front of my rifle.  Resting my folded bipod directly on top of non-flat objects doesn't make for a very stable firing position.  Having a bag up front would help immensely.  I learned that slings are a vital piece of kit for anytime you need to be able to pull some downward pressure on the front of your rifle.  I also learned the hard way that Kelbly's actions are not the most durable when it comes to rough tactical matches.  I'm not here to smear them though, so i'll just keep those comments to myself. 

All in all it was an excellent match and I'm pleased with my performance for the most part.  As always, I need more practice shooting from various positions and barricades.  I also need to start working off of a timer.  First to get my internal sense of timing figured out, and second to add that additional stress that seems to render my brain a pile of mush during matches. 

Three weeks until the next match.  #practice

- ME

Rimfire Long Range Trainer

Wait what? Long range rimfire? Hashtag - oxymoron.

I know it seems a bit strange but let me clarify. I'm not using a rimfire rifle to shoot long range. I bought a .17hmr to use as a practice gun for precision rifle competition. And before I get into my thoughts about this, the target above was shot from a bench off a bipod with relatively unstable rear support. (I forgot my rear sandbag) The circles with numbers measure approximately 3 inches. So when I say that my best group of the day measured roughly 1moa for 10 shots, please don't crucify me. I'm leaving out other variables like altitude, pressure, and wind just to simplify.

Recently I read an article about what the top PRS (precision rifle series) shooters use during their training sessions and I was intrigued by the concept.  Most of these folks are using .22 long rifle, .17hmr, or .223 training guns.  It makes a lot of sense that they don't use their competition rifle due to the wear and tare and the price of quality match grade ammo.  This resonated with me instantly because I have been contemplating getting into long range competitions this year, and the thought of ammo cost and barrel wear are real issues.  This is not a cheap hobby, and so when I hear that the pros are using a $400 gun and ammo that costs next to nothing for their training, you better believe I'm taking notes.



I bought the Savage 93R17 TR.  TR for tactical rifle. It has a heavy fluted barrel, oversized bolt knob and a stock that very closely resembles the Manners T4 on my competition gun.  Besides the obvious things like lack of recoil and a longer trigger press, I should be able to get the same level of training with this gun as I do with my comp gun.  I will be able to put a lot more rounds down range and not break the bank.  For example: I shot 100 rounds yesterday and it cost me $28.00 total.  One hundred match grade rounds for my 6.5x284 competition gun would have cost me $250.00!  Enough said right?

I know what you're thinking, "but you can't shoot that .17hmr out to 900 yards." This is true, but I can shoot it out to 400 yards.  The interesting thing about ballistics is that often you can find close enough parallels to make one bullet just as challenging to shoot as another.  The .17hmr requires a 23moa elevation adjustment at 400 yards.  My 6.5x284 requires a 23moa adjustment at 900 yards.  Get the picture?  The ballistic corrections I have to perform with the .17 are almost identical to the ones I make with my competition rifle at these ranges.  This make training with the .17 very similar to the big gun. It won't always work out this way of course because the bullets and their ballistics are very different overall.  It works well in this particular case though.

It's all about efficiency.  I have X amount of training time and Y amount of training dollars, and I want to maximize what I get out of both those investments.  Buying a precision rifle trainer accomplishes this for me.  And a 1moa group (top left, just outside the head) at 100 yards, in a stiff wind, out of a cheap .17hmr, is a pretty stellar result in my book.

-ME