Reference

Bryan Litz and the team from Applied Ballistics have released another book packed with their latest research projects and findings related to long-range shooting. This new book is the 3rd Volume in the series they call Modern Advancements in Long Range Shooting. It is not just a new edition of an old book. It contains 100% new content/research and stands on its own (i.e. you don’t have to read the other volumes to get value from this one). Bryan mailed me an early draft of the book several weeks ago, and I’ve read it cover-to-cover. It is equally as interesting ...

Have you ever been at a match, and you saw a shooter there you respect – and you wished you could see what was going on in his head? What does he think about before a stage? What is he thinking about as he takes each shot? Why is he running that bag? How does he practice? What helped him make the leap from a mid-pack shooter to the guy who consistently goes home with trophies? Over the past couple of years, a few of the very best precision rifle competitors have started publishing podcasts. It would be extremely rare in any sport for the guys at the absolute pinnacle of the sport to take the time to host a podcast and openly share their knowledge, approach, and mindset with the rest of their community - but, we are fortunate in the precision rifle world for that to be true. Over the past few months, I’ve learned more from these podcasts than anywhere else, so I naturally want to share those with my readers so you can benefit from them, too!

I need your help! I’m excited to share the details of a 100-yard underground range I’ve been building where I’ll be able to experiment in a fully controlled environment. I’ve already completed the structural construction, and I’d love some advice on how to finish it out (i.e., electronics, bullet traps, ventilation, etc.). I know I have readers with expertise in many different fields, so I’ll share what I’ve done so far and what I have planned, and you guys can help me improve it!

Over the past 3 articles, we covered a lot of ground! Before I jump to other topics, I wanted to simply provide a bullet-point recap of key points from the end of each of those articles and publish it here as an executive summary. This might be a good overview or reminder for those that read each article or hits the highlights in case you missed one.

This is the final article in my Statistics for Shooters series, and it focuses on the application of statistics when it comes to quantifying precision and group size. It provides practical answers to some age-old questions: How many shots per group do I need? Should I exclude fliers? Is extreme spread the best way to measure my groups? What is the most effective and accurate way to compare groups between two loads? I spent more time writing this article than any other single post I’ve ever written! It challenges some common beliefs held by some in the shooting community, so I tried to carefully present the reasoning behind that in a way that was approachable to shooters who aren’t math nerds. It also contains a lot of practical tips. I firmly believe these concepts will help a TON of people in the long-range community.

Part 2 in my Statistics for Shooters 3-part series focuses on how to analyze muzzle velocity consistency, which is critical for us as long-range shooters. This article shows how to apply the concepts from Part 1 to get more insight and make better decisions related to muzzle velocity. It provides practical answers to some age-old questions: Should we look at ES or SD? How many shots do we need to fire in a string? How do we get the most value from the shots we fire at the range? I spent an absurd amount of time arduously crafting this article and creating visuals so it was approachable by shooters who aren’t math nerds because I firmly believe these concepts can help a TON of people in the long-range community.

Many shooters have an uncomfortable relationship with math and aren’t impressed with fancy formulas. However, statistics and probability are insanely applicable when it comes to rifles and long-range shooting in particular. I have literally spent months crafting this 3-part series of articles specifically with the math-averse shooter in mind. I invested all that time because I strongly believe that understanding just a few basics can help us gain actionable insight, make better decisions, and put more rounds on target.

There have always been a niche group of shooters pushing the limits when it comes to distance. But over the past few years, advancements in manufacturing combined with better understanding and tools around predictive ballistics have ushered Extreme Long Range (ELR) shooting into the mainstream. A decade ago, the few shooters who could hit targets at a mile or more were considered super-human. Today, distances once considered impossible with shoulder-fired rifles can now be hit on-demand by just about any shooter with the right equipment and desire to learn. I’ve been a long-range addict for several years now, but that ...

Here is the tentative schedule for the upcoming 2017 Precision Rifle Series (PRS) point race events. Some of these details were posted on Facebook a few weeks ago, but the link expired … and the match details haven’t all been uploaded on PrecisionRifleSeries.com yet. So I ask Shawn Wiseman, the PRS Director, for the latest list, because I wanted to pencil in a few dates on my calendar. I’m sure they’ll have all the event details uploaded on this PRS website very soon, but I thought a few of you guys might appreciate having this for reference. The 2017 schedule shows ...

The recent August issue of Outdoor Life featured a Q&A session I had with their gun editor, John Snow. I wanted to share that here with you guys, and OL kindly gave me permission to do that. So here’s what John wrote: Lifelong hunter and gun enthusiast Cal Zant tapped into his engineering background to create PrecisionRifleBlog.com, one of the most informative sources for shooters on the web. OL: How did you get involved in the outdoors? CZ: I grew up in West Texas and have been around guns my whole live. I don’t even know how old I was when I ...