Tips & How To’s

This is the final article of my top shooter spotlight with reigning PRS Champ and World Champ, Austin Buschman. This content was my favorite part of our conversations! The article is packed full of topics you just don’t hear about a lot, like how to manage the mental side of the game, stage strategy, and other shooting tips. Austin also gives his best advice for both new shooters and the mid-pack guy hoping to rise to a top-10 finish. We also share Austin’s rifle cleaning regimen and his favorite matches. It’s packed full of great tips!

I interviewed the reigning PRS Champion, Austin Buschman, and he shared every detail of his current match ammo load and entire reloading process. Austin has a very pragmatic approach to reloading that I promise will surprise (and challenge) you! Clearly, his ammo is capable of precision that can win on the biggest stage – so get a behind-the-scenes view of how he makes it and hear about all the reloading steps that are on his long “list of things that don’t matter!”

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!

This quick post is a little different than most of my content, but I wanted to pass along something I personally found exciting. It’s not technical, but it’s helpful! The convenience and speed of Amazon Prime have revolutionized how we all shop. Before my Amazon Prime membership, the cost for expedited shipping to get something to my door in 1 or 2 days was outrageous. Honestly, expedited shipping still costs a fortune for most online retailers – often even more than what you’re buying! Amazon has clearly changed consumer expectations when it comes to shipping speed for online orders. Today, ...

A few months ago, I published an article about the devices and apps the top precision rifle shooters were using to calculate their ballistics. We saw that 76% used a Kestrel Ballistic Weather Meter, and 22% used some kind of phone app (see the data). However, most shooters don’t ever touch a Kestrel or their phone while they’re on the clock shooting a stage at a rifle match. Match directors create stages with tight time constraints and/or barricades to intentionally induce stress. Fumbling with buttons and electronics under stress is not a great plan, and inevitably that’s the kind of ...

This is the last post in a series highlighting the major challenges related to extreme long range (ELR) shooting. Along the way I’ve shared a few tips and products to help you overcome those challenges. I grouped topics into a few categories, and here is what we’ve covered so far: Optics & Mounts – Accounting for an extreme amount of bullet drop Spotting Shots & Ranging – Seeing your bullet impact and getting an accurate range Ballistics & Time of Flight – Advanced/unique things that happen when a bullet stays in the air for a long time In this post, ...

When you extend shots into extreme ranges (like 2000+ yards), you’ll face some new obstacles. A few factors that could be safely ignored inside of 1000 yards become critical to getting rounds on target. You’ll face new equipment challenges that may not be obvious. As your bullet’s time of flight extends up 3 seconds, and possibly even up to 6+ seconds, priorities shift. In this series of posts I’m trying to highlight a few things that make extreme long range (ELR) challenging, and pointing out a few products worth checking out that might help. In the first post in this ...

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 ...

Have you ever wished you could practice with one of the top shooters in the country? Have you ever wondered what was going on in the head of veterans as they’re preparing for a stage? I have. At the 2017 Heatstroke rifle match I was fortunate to be squadded with Matthew Brousseau, Jon Pynch, and a couple other great shooters. For context, Matthew ended up being the 2017 Overall PRS Champion, and Jon is a top shooter who won the Extended Long Range PRS Match at Q Creek and a couple other majors last year. You wouldn’t believe how much ...

I’d never paid for a hunt in my life, at least up until a few months ago. I’ve been a die-hard hunter since I was big enough to carry a firearm, but I’ve only hunted small parcels of land owned by family. Over the past 20 years, I’ve spent countless days in the field and have taken a couple nice mule deer and whitetail that were big for my area, but I’d never hunted outside of West Texas. A friend sold me on the idea of an African safari, and it turned out to be one of the greatest experiences ...