Doc
Member
the lovely Miss Wanda (aka Mrs Doc) and i just returned from a two day precision rifle tutorial at Rifles Only in Kingsville Texas. Jacob Bynum runs the school along with his wife Lisa; and they are the consumate hosts. We went with our constant companions and hunting buddies from Austin Texas: Dr Jawbreaker and his wife 'the church lady.'
we flew to Corpus Christi and drove south to Kingsville (only about 30 minutes) where we stayed in a local motel. Rifles Only does have bunk house style accomodations, but the motel was close and preferred by the executive committee (Mrs Doc). The Rifles Only compound was about another 15 minutes south of Kingsville just off hwy 77. Kingsville is quaint town with every amenity and with plenty of good Mexican, BBQ and seafood. The King Ranch Leather Store is there as well and worth stopping by. we shot: 338 Rem Ultra Mag, 30.06, 308 and 300 win mag; all were equipped with 15x mil dot style scopes (except mine, the 300 win mag had a traditional leupold fine duplex),
PR-1
the range is best described as in all directions and at all distances!
from up close and personal for tactical training to 1000+ yards, even lighted ranges for night fire. they have the capabilities for any weaponry from handguns, through and including 50 BMG and RPG's (which did get a call from the neighbors to make sure everything was OK...)
first morning Jacob covered the basics of precision rifle fire in the classroom:
position, breathing, trigger control, natural point of aim, recoil management etc. He said that natural point of aim is key for position shooting while trigger control is the key to long range and extreme range shooting.
Jacob stressed that when we shoot we often can't or don't have a 'perfect' set up with each and every one of those aspects, so he introduced the notice of "trading." Particularly in a hunting or tactical situation (as opposed to a bench rest match), we understand that we can't perfect everything which gives us that perfect shot. And we know it, we must admit which components are not/ cannot be perfect, so we 'trade' what we can get perfect (ie breathing & trigger control), for that which we can't (natural point of aim or good sling techinque).
he mentioned some of the 'tricks of the trade' of precision long distance and extreme distance shooting. His preference is for shooters to be directly aligned behind the gun (rather than canted to the left as per old military doctrine).
While this was difficult for me initially, i did not learn to shoot a rifle from prone that way. i think it makes a significant difference in controlling recoil and shooting better, at least for me. he had us get on target, then stand upbehind the gun square to the target, then get back down onto the scope. Jacob also stressed to lean forward onto the bipod, which also helps with recoil control. we shot exclusively from prone in the class.
Jacob also spoke about wind effect, terminology and demystified mils. We doped for elevation and held for wind for the entire class, a system that is immanently practical and easily undertood. part of the rationale is to keep that perfect cheek weld once you have it, and not move to see/adjust the windage knob on the right of the scope.
After the briefing we headed out to verify our rifle zero at 100 yards on paper. once we were set, we moved to the tower (for some shade and to access the long range targets) and shot 300, 400, 500. at all distances after we zeroed the guns on paper, we shot steel LaRoue targets painted white.
We all had dope on our rifles to 500 or 600 yards so we were quite sucessful hitting out to those distances. We broke for lunch and met jacob's parents who live nearby and saw his dad's world class trophy room including elephant, cats, domestic species and a bongo from cameroon last year.
Jacob had one of his instructors (Lindsey) run his state of the art ballistic computer, and we had starting places for elevation for 600, 700, 800, 900 and 1000 yards. They doped the wind for us and called our shots. WHAT A HOOT! There were cattle in the far pasture with the 900 and 1000 yard targets, so occasionally the course of fire was interrupted by the warning of, "COW!" jacob was good natured about the potential threat to his dad's livestock and ask us to please only shoot a small one since they are easier to drag and field dress for the BBQ.
That was day one and quite a lot of fun.
Mrs Doc's kimber did not hold group well out past 400 yards so Jacob graciously loaned her his rifle: Rem 700 action in 308 win with a Mark Scott barrel, Accuracy Internation chassis put together by G A Precision and Jet suppressor topped off with a Schmidt & Bender 5-25x scope (WOW! now i understand why good glass really is better, and really is worth the additional cost). She started day two acquainting herself with his rifle at 500 yards. Her smile was never wider! Then she jumped to 1000 yards and was able to call her own shots since the scope never left the target, even in recoil. After we all got some trigger time at extreme range we broke for lunch with the Bynums and another of the instuctor staff who was spotting and helping dope the wind: Frank Galli,(snipershide.com), who had arrived to prepare for the Sniper's Hide shooting match starting the next day.
After lunch we left the relative comfort of the tower for the movers range.
We shot static steel to get the dope for wind (0.3mil left to right) then started engaging moving targets. AWESOME! We shot a 12 inch round plate moving at a walking pace. Needless to say, Miss Wanda was the star, hardly missing at 400 500 and 600 yards. (I think that rifle was cheating)
Back to the tower we tested our laser rangefinders on targets at unknown distances and interpolated our elevation dope for those intermediate distances between 500 and 800 yards.
Lastly we put the 400 yard dope on the guns and shot 300 500 and 600 yards using holdunder and holdover for elevation (about -0.5 mil, +1.2 mil and +2.7 mil if you're curious).
All in all, it was the best rifle class i have ever attended. My hesitancy to shoot PR because of my limited rifle skills was obliterated in the first few rounds at 300+ yards; and still if i close my eyes i see that reticle superimposed on the LaRoue targets...
doc
we flew to Corpus Christi and drove south to Kingsville (only about 30 minutes) where we stayed in a local motel. Rifles Only does have bunk house style accomodations, but the motel was close and preferred by the executive committee (Mrs Doc). The Rifles Only compound was about another 15 minutes south of Kingsville just off hwy 77. Kingsville is quaint town with every amenity and with plenty of good Mexican, BBQ and seafood. The King Ranch Leather Store is there as well and worth stopping by. we shot: 338 Rem Ultra Mag, 30.06, 308 and 300 win mag; all were equipped with 15x mil dot style scopes (except mine, the 300 win mag had a traditional leupold fine duplex),
PR-1
the range is best described as in all directions and at all distances!
from up close and personal for tactical training to 1000+ yards, even lighted ranges for night fire. they have the capabilities for any weaponry from handguns, through and including 50 BMG and RPG's (which did get a call from the neighbors to make sure everything was OK...)
first morning Jacob covered the basics of precision rifle fire in the classroom:
position, breathing, trigger control, natural point of aim, recoil management etc. He said that natural point of aim is key for position shooting while trigger control is the key to long range and extreme range shooting.
Jacob stressed that when we shoot we often can't or don't have a 'perfect' set up with each and every one of those aspects, so he introduced the notice of "trading." Particularly in a hunting or tactical situation (as opposed to a bench rest match), we understand that we can't perfect everything which gives us that perfect shot. And we know it, we must admit which components are not/ cannot be perfect, so we 'trade' what we can get perfect (ie breathing & trigger control), for that which we can't (natural point of aim or good sling techinque).
he mentioned some of the 'tricks of the trade' of precision long distance and extreme distance shooting. His preference is for shooters to be directly aligned behind the gun (rather than canted to the left as per old military doctrine).
While this was difficult for me initially, i did not learn to shoot a rifle from prone that way. i think it makes a significant difference in controlling recoil and shooting better, at least for me. he had us get on target, then stand upbehind the gun square to the target, then get back down onto the scope. Jacob also stressed to lean forward onto the bipod, which also helps with recoil control. we shot exclusively from prone in the class.
Jacob also spoke about wind effect, terminology and demystified mils. We doped for elevation and held for wind for the entire class, a system that is immanently practical and easily undertood. part of the rationale is to keep that perfect cheek weld once you have it, and not move to see/adjust the windage knob on the right of the scope.
After the briefing we headed out to verify our rifle zero at 100 yards on paper. once we were set, we moved to the tower (for some shade and to access the long range targets) and shot 300, 400, 500. at all distances after we zeroed the guns on paper, we shot steel LaRoue targets painted white.
We all had dope on our rifles to 500 or 600 yards so we were quite sucessful hitting out to those distances. We broke for lunch and met jacob's parents who live nearby and saw his dad's world class trophy room including elephant, cats, domestic species and a bongo from cameroon last year.
Jacob had one of his instructors (Lindsey) run his state of the art ballistic computer, and we had starting places for elevation for 600, 700, 800, 900 and 1000 yards. They doped the wind for us and called our shots. WHAT A HOOT! There were cattle in the far pasture with the 900 and 1000 yard targets, so occasionally the course of fire was interrupted by the warning of, "COW!" jacob was good natured about the potential threat to his dad's livestock and ask us to please only shoot a small one since they are easier to drag and field dress for the BBQ.
That was day one and quite a lot of fun.
Mrs Doc's kimber did not hold group well out past 400 yards so Jacob graciously loaned her his rifle: Rem 700 action in 308 win with a Mark Scott barrel, Accuracy Internation chassis put together by G A Precision and Jet suppressor topped off with a Schmidt & Bender 5-25x scope (WOW! now i understand why good glass really is better, and really is worth the additional cost). She started day two acquainting herself with his rifle at 500 yards. Her smile was never wider! Then she jumped to 1000 yards and was able to call her own shots since the scope never left the target, even in recoil. After we all got some trigger time at extreme range we broke for lunch with the Bynums and another of the instuctor staff who was spotting and helping dope the wind: Frank Galli,(snipershide.com), who had arrived to prepare for the Sniper's Hide shooting match starting the next day.
After lunch we left the relative comfort of the tower for the movers range.
We shot static steel to get the dope for wind (0.3mil left to right) then started engaging moving targets. AWESOME! We shot a 12 inch round plate moving at a walking pace. Needless to say, Miss Wanda was the star, hardly missing at 400 500 and 600 yards. (I think that rifle was cheating)
Back to the tower we tested our laser rangefinders on targets at unknown distances and interpolated our elevation dope for those intermediate distances between 500 and 800 yards.
Lastly we put the 400 yard dope on the guns and shot 300 500 and 600 yards using holdunder and holdover for elevation (about -0.5 mil, +1.2 mil and +2.7 mil if you're curious).
All in all, it was the best rifle class i have ever attended. My hesitancy to shoot PR because of my limited rifle skills was obliterated in the first few rounds at 300+ yards; and still if i close my eyes i see that reticle superimposed on the LaRoue targets...
doc
