New to the sport

M

Mrdrifter

Guest
Hey everyone. I was recently introduced to reloading by a good friend of mine who has reloaded for years. He's very knowledgeable and has the patience to answer my more tedious questions. I travel for a living so my space is limited in my RV for reloading. I bought a Lee single stage press in a starters kit, and I also purchased a Lee handpress. I have started to develop a load with my friends guidence for a Remington 700 vls 22-250 I bought from him. It shoots really well and I'm hoping to bring it down to some nicer groups than it currently shoots. Im looking at purchasing another rifle that is set up for benchrest already. It is a .243ai and has another barrel for 6.5br I believe. I'm not new to shooting, but I am new to benchrest. Would anyone be able to lend some advice as I take the plunge into competitive shooting? Also since I travel as much as I do, would anyone be able to tell me where I could start observing other shooters and start cutting my teeth here in west Texas?

Thanks in advance. Danny
 
What type of shooting competition are you interested in?
I would hold of on purchasing anything for a little while and do some research on the type of shooting you want to do
 
Hi Danny,

Your questions are typical of someone new to benchrest. It is normal to find "benchrest" with rifle and caliber questions but once the accuracy bug bites, you will find that "Benchrest" (capital B - competitive shooting) can get opinionated very quickly. To help you "name your game", and to help forum regulars understand your interests, here is a primer on what Benchrest means to most of the people who frequent the "Competitive Shooting" forums of this site. In addition to the competitions defined here, many ranges have their local competitions that cater to their own membership... these are generally non-sanctioned events and rules can vary widely.

First, Benchrest is loosely split into 3 different games: short-range group, score, and long-range. There are two national organizations (NBRSA and IBS) that sanction events and each has it own rules, officers, etc. The NBRSA is slightly older and more nation-wide; the IBS split off from the NBRSA over 40 years ago and has a strong presence particularly in the northeast part of the US. I'm most familiar with the NBRSA rules so I'll outline the sport from that perspective, the IBS rules may vary.


Short-range group:
Comments: This is the "grand-daddy" of modern BR competition... shooters typically clean rifles and reload between each target, attempting to adjust for conditions. A competitive rifle should be capable of 5-shot groups well under .250" in light wind conditions at 100 yards.

Range: 100, 200, and (rarely) 300 yard

Guns: 4 classes of guns:
  • Light Varmint (LV) (10.5lb weight limit, conforming stock, front & rear rests)
  • Heavy Varmint (HV) (13.5lb weight limit, confirming stock, front & rear rests)
  • Sporter (SPT) (10.5lb weight limit, any stock, front & rear rests)
  • Unlimited (UNL) (pretty much anything, look up "benchrest rail gun" for some examples)

Dominate Equipment: 6mm PPC built on a custom action, 40X+ scopes, wind flags

Scoring: distance between widest shots (center-to-center) of the group, does not matter where the group is on the record portion of the target.

Objective: shoot the smallest group possible.

Typical Weekend Competition: Host range specifies 2 guns (i.e. LV and HV) which are each shot at 100 and 200 yards. The course of fire is 5 targets at each yardage, where you have 7 minutes to complete a 5-shot group on the record portion of your target -- unlimited sighters within that 7 minutes. So Saturday AM might be LV100, followed by HV100 in the afternoon. Sunday would likely be HV200, followed by LV200 in the afternoon. The guns, yardages, and order are up to the range. Winners are recognized for smallest group at each yardage, smallest average for each yardage, smallest average for each gun, and overall smallest average (20 targets) for the weekend ("2-Gun Winner").
​

Score:
Comments: Hunter-class score shooting started out as entry-level game to attract new group shooters, but has developed into its own discipline. Varmint-For-Score is a popular and relatively recent addition that allows equipment to be used in multiple BR disciplines. Larger caliber bullets have a slight edge due to the best-edge scoring and historically HTR-class guns had case-size restrictions, though those have been recently removed. Hence, there is much less dominance of a single cartridge than there is in group shooting. A competitive rifle should be capable of 5-shot groups well under .350" in light wind conditions at 100 yards for Hunter Class and .250" for VFS class.

Range: 100, 200, and (rarely) 300 yard

Guns:
  • Hunter Class (HTR)(10lb weight limit, hunter class - conforming stock, front & rear rests, 6x scope limit)
  • Varmint-For-Score (VFS): see Heavy Varmint (HV) definition above.

Dominate Equipment: rifle built on a custom action. (6X scope for HTR, 36-45X+ for VFS). Popular calibers include the 30BR, 6PPC, and 30x47. Wind flags.

Scoring: smallest ring on target is 10 points - dot in the center is an "X", best-edge scores so touching the dot = 10-X, 5 bulls plus a sighter bull on the target.

Objective: Shoot highest score (50-5X) on each target and the highest total for a competition. Score is first, X-count is the tie breaker, so 50-0X beats 49-4X.

Typical Weekend Competition: Similar to group above, but shooting for score. Score shoots are somewhat easier for ranges to put on, and in some areas one-day (10 target) shoots are more common.
​

Long-Range:

Comments: Long-range is usually sanctioned at 600 or 1000 yards. There are significant variations in scoring and other rules depending on NBRSA or IBS sanctions and local range facilities. Because of course-of-fire requirements, many LR shooters pre-load their ammo for competition. Competitive rifles will be capable of 5-shot groups well under 2.5" in light, steady wind conditions at 600 yards.

Range: 600 and 1000 yard

Guns: (NBRSA)
  • Light Class (LG)(16lb weight limit, front & rear rests)
  • Heavy Class (HG) (no practical weight limit, front & rear rests i.e., no rail guns)

Dominate Equipment: 28-30" fast-twist barrels on a rifle built on a custom action. 40X+ scopes. Popular calibers include the 6BR, 6 Dasher, 6x47 Lapua, 6.5x284, and many others in the 6.5, 7, 30 and even 338 calibers. Heavy, long range VLD bullets are the norm (i.e. 105gr 6mm in a 1:8 twist barrel). Wind flags are less common.

Scoring: Group size and score, smallest ring on target is 10 points - circle in the center on 10 ring is an "X", best-edge scores so touching the circle = 10-X

Objective: Shoot highest score (50-5X) on each target and the highest total for a competition. Score is first, X-count is the tie breaker, so 50-0X beats 49-4X.

Typical Weekend Competition: Much more varied according to the host range facilities... but here an example: Three targets are 600 on Sat, 3 targets at 100 on Sunday. All targets are scored for both group size and score. Awards are recognized for smallest groups, smallest group averages, highest scores, and highest total scores across all the gun classes.

​

This is a just a short overview, but each forum member has his own specialties, so you can see how you can different answers. The best advise is to attend some events and try them out. With your traveling, there are opportunities all around the country - schedules are available on both the NBRSA and IBS websites. At almost any event someone will be happy let you give it try and shoot their gun. I once shot a whole week (national event) using a borrowed rifle... this was extremely valuable in helping me make choices about calibers and the kinds of events I liked.

Rod
(Group fanatic, rarely score, LR-wannabe)
 
Thanks for the response Rod. That was a very good read with a lot of info that helped me past a hump. Im thinking I would like to start out in the 100-200 yard varmint class first. I have been thinking for awhile that that would be a good first starting point for me, and if I would fall into the addicted single minded person I can be with shooting, I would definitely want to move into competing at longer ranges. I would have to weigh my rifle to see which class I would fall into. I'm fairly obsessed with making tiny holes at longer ranges. Lol

Paul I'm sorry, but I seem to not understand the 16 or 17 limit in the lite long range question.
 
You should go to a shoot with a mentor to see the equipment used. Better yet stop by Gene Beggs's tunnel and look at a few things and he can show you the equipment used and maybe let you pull the trigger a few times on a real benchrest rig to really get your wallet lightened up. Youre lucky to be in such an area.
 
Dusty Stevens said:
You should go to a shoot with a mentor to see the equipment used. Better yet stop by Gene Beggs's tunnel and look at a few things and he can show you the equipment used and maybe let you pull the trigger a few times on a real benchrest rig to really get your wallet lightened up. Youre lucky to be in such an area.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dusty, I will look him up and see if he can spare some time to talk with me. I'm a fair drive from my friend thats gotten me hooked so its not to feasible for me to make the drive up there to shoot with him. Maybe I can find someone here that is up to the challenge of answering my endless barrage of questions and let me tag along and learn what I can from hands on experience. Thanks for the help.
 
Just a suggestion

As the fall and winter approaches some reading time might become available to you.
For serious Benchrest shooters there are not one but 2 excellent choices which will not only answer questions but will allow you to formulate questions of your mentor.

First get familiar with one of the several BenchRest suppliers.
I suggest Sinclair and look up the following two Hall of Famer shooters,
Extreme Rifle Accuracy by Mike Ratigan or
The Book of Rifle Accuracy by Tony Boyer.

Their are other books but within these two you will have a better understanding of what you will need to succeed in the 100-200 yd Benchrest.
The rest of the winter you can begin to purchase or acquire a few of the many items you will need to produce winning ammunition.
Centerfire
 
It depends upon where you are in West Texas as to what is going on in short range 100/200 benchrest competition. There are two weekends one around July 4th weekend and another a couple of months later at the benchrest range at the Midland Shooter's Assn. There are also some registered matches shot in Raton at the Whittington Center and at Albuquerque depending upon how far you want to travel and where in West Texas you are. For the most part, benchrest shooting season is over for competitions in Texas for the winter. We'll start back up in March. However, there is a local club that holds club matches at Lubbock once a month. I'm not sure when they host them or if they shoot during the winter. Some shooters you can get in touch with about the Lubbock matches are Larry Baggett, Randy Pumphreys, Aaron French, Kelly and Rusty Mormon. They all live in Lubbock. Although the 100/200 classes are called varmint classes, the rifles used don't bear much resemblance to a prairie dog rifle although and awful lot of benchrest shooters in the west Texas area cut their teeth on prairie dog rifles. The best advice I can give you is before you buy a rifle and decide to start shooting is to attend a match even the local club match at Lubbock and take a look at what is being shot. For the most part, they will be 10.5 pound 6 PPC's with 36 to 45X scopes. They pretty well use the same rifles and equipment without the intensity involved in a registered match (ie. no moving backers). All registered group matches require a moving backer system to verify the number of shots on the target.
 
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If you want to try a little bit longer range competition, you might look around here.

www.texasbenchrest.com

Not registered competition like NBRSA or IBS but no less competitive. We currently have 5 four hundred yard matches scattered around the State of Texas. There is a Shooter of the Year award up for grabs as well as individual match winnings.
But please note that neither of the rifles you mentioned are likely to be real competitive here either. The most winning cartridge to-date has been the 6.5-284 although in the last year a couple of different 7mm chamberings have performed real well. For the first time, one of the matches was won with a 6mm this year (6 Dasher). However, this made one win in about 20 matches.

Joe
 
Don't spend a nickel until you know what you're gonna do. Go look! If you are opposed to going, you need to rethink the whole thing. "Going" is a large percentage of the competition thing and for most it becomes going far.
 
Wilbur said:
Don't spend a nickel until you know what you're gonna do. Go look! If you are opposed to going, you need to rethink the whole thing. "Going" is a large percentage of the competition thing and for most it becomes going far.
Click to expand...

You may get more opinions but you will NEVER get better advice.

Joe
 
Wilbur said:
Don't spend a nickel until you know what you're gonna do. Go look! If you are opposed to going, you need to rethink the whole thing. "Going" is a large percentage of the competition thing and for most it becomes going far.
Click to expand...

Yep, Wilbur has got it.
In my case it's 80%. I got off my lazy ass and went and looked. And asked a lot of questions.
The first Benchrest Tournament I saw, it was raining cats and dogs. Some old guy asked did the rain bother me?
I said no. I used to deliver newspapers and was a US Navy Vet. He asked where I was loading. Told him I wasn't shooting. He said ya can't win, if you ain't shooting.
The next year. I was like a regular shooter. Miss a shoot and they will ask where ya been.... Then it's are ya going to be at the next one?????
It's a big family and everyone is welcome. Just show up. Be real nosey. Ask a lot of questions.
Most guys will let ya shoot a few rounds after the match is over.
Just go and watch. And hang out.
 
Thanks for all the great advice everyone. As for where I am in west Texas I'm not sure I could be in a better place. I'm in Midland. As for the competitions, I'm gonna try to find one to go watch, even if its just a club shoot out here. I'm positive those guys are just as serious about it as if it were a big one. I have some loads that I have worked on that need shooting to try and see where I'm at with my rifle. And the rifle I'm looking at, I have some better knowledge of what it is now. 6.5x284. Deals to good to pass up. Another for the collection at least.
 
Place to shoot in Midland

If your not a member yet, look up Midland Shooters Association https://msa10.wildapricot.org/
Just south of town. between 349 and 158.

Right in front of the club house is the range the BR guys use. On most weekend morning you will see guys with wind flags out. Stop by and visit, let them know your interested in shooting. If any one of them offer to let you take a couple shots... beware, BR is like crack!
 
A "6.5x284" is a good rifle but don't expect to shoot it at a group match and win. Neither will the two benches left and right win either. You would be right at home with the same rifle if it were a 1000yd event. Go look!

Whatever is happening within the distance you're willing to drive is the best advice I can offer....but as I've said a couple or three times already....go see what you'll need before you buy anything.

Make sure you read the rules for the event you choose if you go to a "club" match. Club matches often allow something other than the specific rules outlined by the various organizations....thus, the club match.
 
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