Back by popular demand: Welcome to What The Pros Use 2018 Edition! I recently surveyed the top ranked precision rifle shooters in the country to learn what gear they’re currently running in long range rifle matches. I’ll be publishing the results over the next several posts. I’ve done this for a few years, although I skipped last year. This year there will be a few new, exciting twists! Results for PRS & NRL First, I surveyed the best shooters in both the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) and the National Rifle League (NRL), so it’s based on an even larger, more widespread ...

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a custom 6XC precision rifle I had built that I used in PRS-style matches. Since that time more precision rifle products have been released than the previous 10 years combined! So last year I started from scratch and built two twin match rifles. I’ve been running this rifle setup for a year now, making small tweaks along the way, and I love how I have it configured. While I don’t believe in any one rifle being the “best” for all shooters and applications, this setup seems completely ideal for my use. I’m ...

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 ...

Earlier this week I traveled to watch the King of 2 Miles rifle competition (Ko2M) at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. It’s one of the few matches where great shooters from across the country gather to push the limits of what is possible with small arms as they engage targets out to 2 miles (3,520 yards). It was interesting to see what the top shooters were using in terms of equipment and gear, and I’ll share a summary of that in this post. In subsequent posts, I’ll go into more detail on some of the issues these ...

I’m sharing a series of posts on ELR shooting, but I didn’t want to jump from the long-range rifles in mid-size 6mm and 6.5mm cartridges that I normally talk about straight into the extreme, super-high-performance 375+ caliber rifles used to engage targets at 2+ miles. Instead of just presenting the extremes, I thought it’d be helpful to first share a rifle setup that is somewhere in between. Then in later posts I’ll get into the more specialized setups used to push the boundaries of what is possible with shoulder-fired rifles. In this post, I’ll share the details of a rifle ...

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 ...

Why don’t more people use gas guns in the precision rifle world? I get asked that question a lot. Many military snipers use semi-automatic rifles for long-range work, but there isn’t a single shooter among the top 100 competitors in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) using a semi-automatic rifle. Why not? Even though speed, maneuverability, and recoil management are huge parts to that game, the best shooters are all running bolt-action rifles. Some believe that is because AR’s can’t achieve the same precision as bolt guns, so the goal of this test was to quantify the precision difference between a couple of high-end ...

Very few rifles have received the hype and fanfare like the Ruger Precision Rifle. With an MSRP of $1399, we all want to believe in a budget precision rifle that is match-ready out of the box… but does it deliver? This post tries to give you an honest and straight-forward review of what we experienced out of the box. Guest Author & the Best Christmas Gift Ever Recently a close friend asked me to help surprise her husband with a rifle for Christmas. She had heard him mention one rifle in particular, and asked if I recognized what kind it ...

Great ammo is a cornerstone of competitive shooting. Once you master the fundamentals of marksmanship, the quality of your ammo can become a differentiator. Want to know what bullets, brass, primers, and powder the best precision rifle shooters in the country are running? That’s what this post is all about. I recently surveyed the top 100 shooters in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS), and this post reviews the reloading components those élite shooters were using in 2015. The PRS tracks how top competitors place in major rifle matches across the country. These are the major leagues of sniper-style competitions, with ...