Long-Range Shooting: Practice before gear...

[The_Next_Generation]

First off: It's great to see so much interest in this type of shooting.

I recently shot in the Long Range Operators Challenge in Colville, WA. For my partner and I, it was our first-ever shooting competition. There were five active-duty teams, and I believe they were all snipers save one team of three (They were some kind of designated marksmen I believe. They ran the 7.62 16" LaRue OBR). During the competition my partner and I were certain these guys would beat us. Two teams in particular had M2010 rifles in 300WM, top-tier scopes, AAC suppressors, and top-of-the-line rangefinding and peripheral equipment. Not to mention heaps of training.

My partner and I (mostly me) were not so well-equipped. I used a standard R700 Varmint in 308Win (26" 1:12). SWFA 10x42 Mil/Mil scope in Millet rings and two-piece bases (I know, I should be ashamed) and a non-swivel Harris bipod (not having the swivel feature cost me some points in the heat of the moment). My buddy ran his Ruger Precision in 6.5cm with a Leupold MKIV 4.5-14. His rifle, however, had a swivel bipod. We shared a Sig Kilo 2000 rangefinder. I used a 208gr Amax @2,550fps, and my partner used the factory Hornady 140gr Amax load. I am not sure which load the military teams were using.

This competition was anything but a "belly shoot". On our first stage we were able to go prone, but that was not at all the norm! Stages required us to shoot off of the other's shoulder (since we didn't have a fancy tripod and Hog Saddle) and other improvised positions. On day one we were responsible for finding and identifying *all* targets. We were provided azimuths, but that was it! Ranges were unknown, and we typically only had 6-8 minutes total for both of us to accomplish everything, including the shooting. Targets could range from ~300 to just over 1,000 yards on a single stage. Winds averaged about 4-8mph with varying direction for the duration of the shoot. Total round-count for the two-day match was ~175 per shooter.

To make matters even more difficult, my partner's zero was off by a full revolution of vertical adjustment. This meant that he scored zero points for almost four of the thirteen stages.

What I'm getting at is that this whole thing was a bit of a cluster for us, being our first rodeo. Yet, we were still able to finish ahead of four of the five sniper teams, to include the teams running the high-tech gear. This is not in any way meant to discredit their abilities as snipers. I understand that there is a ton more to being a sniper than pure marksmanship. However, I was a bit surprised to see the results.

The reason I am making this post is to illustrate to would-be shooters that your personal abilities as a shooter have a far greater impact on your performance than your caliber and gear choice. Can a better caliber help your shooting? Yes, but not if the money you spend on that new setup means you have less to spend on practice ammo!

Before this competition I was really considering doing a full custom 6.5CM build, or at least trying out a Ruger Precision Rifle in that caliber. However, now that I have actually gone and tested myself and my equipment I know that this is not yet necessary. Had my ability to read the wind on the fly been better, I would have scored at least another hundred points. Had I been better at building a stable shooting position on the side of a muddy hill, I would have scored better still. And on and on.

The point is, there are many skills to improve upon as a shooter before you need to think about upgrading equipment. A boring bolt gun and a basic scope is all you need to get started. Most people that want to "get into long range" likely already have everything they need gear-wise - they just need to find a spot to shoot.

Just thought I'd share my thoughts and experiences on this. I'm sure others will chime in and we'll have a fruitful discussion.

Edited to Add: The three-man team ran 16" OBRs.

 

[agtman]

Good post with good points made. Also congrats on your results. Great shooting. Thanks!

 

[Llama Bob]

It's somewhat of a truism that as long as you don't care about terminal performance, all cenerfire cartridges are pretty similar. You can shoot a .223 against a .300WM and while there are trajectory differences, unless the competition takes place mostly beyond 1000y the .223 is in the game.

I've also found that often when it's put to an unambiguous test the US military doesn't do so well in the marksmanship department. I've seen this in several interesting places ranging from comparing 25y rifle shooting to being baffled by mis-zeroed ACOGs (tip zeroed at 25y equals air balls at 600y+) to the atrocious ammo shipped vs. bad guys killed stats for the sandboxes to what you noted where the sniper teams shot worse (presumably having done something like this A LOT) than you guys did while having your "cluster".

By most accounts the US military does better than our foreign competition though, which has to count for something.

 

[ontarget]

Shooting at known distances is a whole different animal than what you were doing. Most military personnel are trained at KD. You did a great job and should be proud. I wish I could give it a try. Sounds like a blast.

 

[JustsayMo]

Excellent report.

I think I read about this competition on 30 cal gal's blog. Looks like a ton of fun and a real challenge.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[The_Next_Generation]

Thanks for the support everyone! However, I think I should clarify a few things.

After re-reading what I posted, it might come across as if there were only the 5 military teams plus mine. This was not the case. There were a total of 25 teams, of which my partner and I finished 18th overall. Honestly, we were just happy to be there. Everyone was great to hang out with between stages, and it was obvious we were all on the same side. There were some highly-skilled, sponsored teams that certainly earned their scores. Here are the totals from the public facebook page for the event, my buddy and I were team 21:

TEAM SCORE
7 1585
2 1540
8 1480
4 1375
1 1280
19 1255
5 1115
16 1100
20 995
9 870
22 860
6 785
23 750
18 745
17 690
11 MIL 685
15 610
21 595
13 MIL 545
14 MIL 540
10 MIL 505
24 505
12 MIL 365
3 325
25 215

The 1st place team donated their prize of two matching Leupold MK6 scopes to team 14 (or maybe 10, I can't remember. They were the DM guys with the OBRs). It was really cool to see that kind of generosity.

One last thing. If you have a 308win and want a ballistic "boost", try switching to the 208gr Amax (or better yet, the ELD). The new projectiles have a G1 BC of .670, which is ridiculous for a 30cal projectile. I am able to push them to 2,550ft/s out of a 26" 1:12 barrel with 43.2gr of RL15. Yes, I have to single load them but its COMPLETELY worth it. During development I found that if the velocity dropped below 2500ft/s that groups really opened up (from 1" or less to over 5"). I figured this was because the slow twist of my barrel wasn't stabilizing them effectively.

My reason for choosing the 208gr projectile was because the initial description of the competition said that we might have targets at 1300 meters. According to my ballistic software, the 208gr Amax was the only projectile from a 308win I could ever hope to keep near supersonic at that range. Had I been aware that ranges would be within 1,100 yards I may have gone with a 150gr Amax at closer to 2,950ft/s. I could have used my rifle's magazine, and there would have been less drop at closer ranges (most targets were between 400 and 700 yards). Not to mention more room for error on the moving targets.

 

[ontarget]

Still an awesome day for your first outing in a new competition. Years ago I placed in the top 50% (don't remember exact place) in the Eastern Division matches at Stone Bay Rifle Range, Camp Lejeune. It was the best time in my whole enlistment. There were many distinguished shooters, FBI, DEA, and even a contingent of British Royal Marines in the match along with a couple of hundred more of my fellow Jar Heads. It was a blast.

 

[taliv]

fantastic! glad you had a good time and shot well and thanks for posting.

good observations. i'd really recommend you attend one of Scott Satterlee's classes up in WA. Also, i'm pretty sure there's still some spots open in one or two of the WA PRS matches. And I think the snipers hide cup is in WA this year. Even if you don't get in, i'd encourage you to consider volunteering to be an RO. You will get to watch 100+ guys shoot and see what works and what doesn't. very educational.

i'll be flying out to the rock lake PRS match in washington in a few weeks. I just shot the Accuracy International Long Range Classic at CORE in Florida this weekend. Awesome match.


(i will note in the PRS matches, some minimum equipment is beneficial. detachable magazines, for instance)

 

[The_Next_Generation]

Thanks ontarget and taliv.

I definitely want to do more competitions, but fun-money is a little tight because of a big trip I'm taking this summer before my last semester.

I heard about a lot of neat-sounding matches from other shooters - if not this year, next year for sure! It'll be a good excuse to practice more anyways

Rock Lake is actually WAY closer to me than the LROC match! I won't be available for the PRS shoot out there, but hopefully there are some more casual shoots out there before then that I can go to.

Being an RO is not something I've considered until now. Definitely seems like something worth looking into!

Cheers.

 

[taliv]

talking to Scott, who is in Spokane, says

Upper Nisqually sportsmans club is a local match you should check out
apparently there are more than 70 1 day matches in the area over the next year.

 

[FL-NC]

Competitions like what you described, the USASOC match at Ft Bragg, International at Ft Benning, and the various other LE matches and the like are often a wake up call for people who overestimated their abilities. If you think about it, "high speed" advanced skills are usually just the basics with the volume turned up and maybe a few "tricks of the trade" added in. I have seen dirt poor teams using "outdated gear" literally spank the pants off of- shall we say- "high profile" teams with all the gucci kit. Skill and knowledge isn't bought from companies like Larue, US Optics, or the like (even tho I LOVE their stuff). You have to get it the old fashioned way- practice and continue seeking the knowledge and "mad skills" yourself.

 

[David4516]

The_Next_Generation,

Your experiance sounds very much like mine. Last weekend a friend and I decided to shoot in a rifle match, something neither of us had done before. This was also in Washington state (Eatonville)

Our gear was vastly inferior to most the other competitors. He had a savage bolt action .308 (his hunting rifle) and 168gr A-MAX bullets. I had a single shot Ruger No 1 in .223 shooting cheap 55gr soft points. We decided to go to the match at the last minute and this was what we had on hand. Some of the other guys had gear that cost more than I make in a year.

It was not a "team" match it was every man (or woman for that matter, out of the the roughly 30 shooters there was at least 1 female) for himself. Targets were between 100 and 550 yards. There was a time limit for each stage, usually between 60 or 80 seconds, so not alot of time. And when the clock starts you being in a standing position holding the rifle, so a good chunk of your time limit is spent just getting into position. Speaking of shooting positions, of the 6 different stages of the match, only 2 were shot prone. The others were from awkard positions (just to make it more of a challenge).

Long story short, we had alot of fun but didn't do very well. My friend tied with another guy for last place, and I was just above them. I feel that our poor results were more due to our lack of experience with this type of shooting, rather than our rifles / ammo. Having that short time limit really made it difficult too. I plan on shooting more matches in the future, I think the best way to improve is to just keep going and getting as much practice/experience as possible.

I don't plan on buying any new equipment either. Having a single shot might have slowed me down a bit (I didn't get as many rounds off as others in the given time limit), but I still missed alot of the shots that I did take. I figure the time to buy a new rifle is when I am hitting every time with the single shot. I could go buy a semi-auto today and I'd still miss, just miss faster LOL

Anyway, The_Next_Generation, you should check into the Eatonville match. Get on facebook and search for "UNSC Practical Rifle Match"

Edited to add:

I just noticed taliv post, the Upper Nisqually match is the one I'm talking about. It was a blast and I can recommend it.

 

[taliv]

Just as an aside, from a match directors point of view the reason we start people standing instead of prone is when we are trying to get people to move along. If you let them get in position before the clock starts they will take 5 minutes sorting their crap out. If you put them on the clock it will take about 5 seconds. Makes a big difference when you're planning how many stages and people you can run before the sun goes down