Tips & How To’s

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 ...

Earlier this year, I asked the highest ranked shooters in the Precision Rifle Series a simple question: If you could just give one piece of advice to a new shooter wanting to get into this sport, what would that be? Their answers are packed with hard-earned wisdom. I personally learned a lot, and this advice has changed my approach and how I practice. I’ve shared a few of these quotes in previous posts, but I just wanted to share the full list with all my readers, because it is so helpful. Although these guys each completed the survey individually, it’s ...

New precision rifle matches seem to be popping up everywhere. Several years ago, there were only a handful of major precision rifle competitions in a given year, and now we have options in every corner of the country a couple of times a month. Each match is unique, with varying courses of fire, distances, format, etc. With the number of matches growing so quickly, I wanted to ask a large group who shoot lots of matches to see what their favorite was. So earlier this year, I surveyed the top 100 shooters in the Precision Rifle Series and asked them. ...

I’ve learned I simply can’t watch most TV shows involving rifles. Ignorant commentary and reckless misinformation grinds my soul, and usually culminates in someone yelling at the TV. My wife can attest. It can get ugly. Long Range Pursuit, a TV show on the Sportsman Channel, is one of the few outdoor shows that make it to my DVR. It’s hosted by Aaron Davidson and the crew from his company, Gunwerks, which specializes in custom long-range rifles and gear for hunters. Those guys seem to know what they’re talking about. They’re able to take ethical long range shots on trophy ...

Last year, I decided my focus in 2016 would be on training. I wanted to be strategic with the time I spend on this hobby, and thought training could help me more long-term than scattering my focus in a few directions, shooting random matches, and learning things the hard way. By training, I meant that I wanted to not only fire more rounds at the range practicing, but I also wanted to get professional instruction on long-range shooting. “There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them ...

I’ve surveyed the top 100 shooters in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) for the past 4 years, and published what gear they’re running in my annual “What The Pros Use” series of posts. This year, I also asked a few questions about their ammo loading practices and how much they practice. When handloading there are a thousand operations and details you can spend time trying to perfect. It’s easy to get caught up trying to do them all, or spending a ton of time focusing intently on a couple of aspects and completely miss other important steps. But I was ...

How would you go about testing if a scope really did provide 25x magnification, or finding the exact point where 18x was on a variable powered scope? That turns out to be a much harder problem to solve that it might seem. In an Outdoor Life article, they said “It turns out to be tricky to measure apparent magnification of an optic, for reasons too mathematical and abstract to mention here.” I concur. In fact, I spent more time talking with optics engineers and industry experts about this question than any other topic. The vision engineers at Edmund Optics offered ...

By understanding how rangefinders work, you’ll be able to employ them more skillfully in the field. This article should equip you with the fundamental principles. Laser rangefinders (LRF) all work using the same basic concept. The rangefinder emits laser beams at the push of a button. Those beams bounce off distant objects and the rangefinder’s high-speed clock measures the total time it took from when the beams left the unit until they returned. Since we know how fast the beam was traveling (speed of light) the unit can simply use that time measurement to calculate the distance it traveled, and ...

There are two types of adjustments you can make on the McMillan A5 stocks: Adjust Length of Pull (LOP) Adjust Comb (i.e. cheek piece) Both of these adjustments are designed to provide better site acquisition, comfort, and control of your weapon.  These same adjustments are common on most of McMillan tactical style stocks (A3, A4, A3-5, etc), as well as some competition and other models of stocks. How To Adjust Length of Pull (LOP) On McMillan Stocks If you don’t know what your length of pull should be, it’s easy to measure.  Check out this article on how to measure your ...