Sunday GunDay: Match-Winning Palma Rifle of Ray Gross
This Sunday GunDay story celebrates an impressive victory by Raymond (“Ray”) Gross, one of America’s most skilled marksmen and a top team coach. Ray has mastered many disciplines including Service rifle, Palma rifle, and F-Class (both F-TR and F-Open). Recently Ray notched another notable victory at the CMP’s 2026 National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio, winning the Kerr Memorial Match (Palma Rifle division).
Report by Ray Gross
I had a successful trip to Camp Perry this year, winning the Palma Rifle division of the 1000-yard Kerr Memorial Match and winning two Golds and a Silver coaching in the three team events. This is actually my first time back at Camp Perry for Long Range since 2015. I really enjoyed my time there this year.
For the Kerr match, I used my standard Palma rifle. My Barnard action and Master Class / Robertson stock have been with me for 21 years now and have seen numerous barrels and a few upgrades to the stock. The stock has a bedding block and originally I had two Barnard actions that I would swap in and out.
The front sight is a Doug Beach 22mm ladder sight with a Centra 5.0-7.0mm adjustable aperture. For my eyesight (-2.75 x -0.75 in my aiming eye), I will generally run 5.1 to 5.6 on the 1000-yard target. At that size, I am more or less cutting the corners off the 6×6 target. Most of the ranges I shoot at have a large, dark-colored safety berm behind the target.
Camp Perry has a rather unique sight picture at 1000 yards, with the target surrounded on three sides with open sky, but with the dark pit safety berm below. It took a little bit to get used to that. The dark pit berm was prominent inside my aperture, even when turned down to 5.0. Next year, I plan to swap out the from aperture to allow me to get down to about a 4.7-4.8mm size.
The barrel is a Bartlein 5R 300×308 Light Palma taper. Chad Heckler of 5×5 Precision chambered this barrel for me. I recently troll-posted some bore pics on Facebook of this barrel at about 750 rounds. I work at Manson Reamers primarily as a chamber designer and tech support role and get to hear many stories about chambers and barrels. I think a lot of people really misjudge what they are seeing with borescopes causing a lot of worry and anxiety. The real measure of a target rifle is how it performs in competition.
Leaving Camp Perry it has about 1500 rounds down the tube and is shooting plenty good enough to win at the National Championships. By the way, I showed up with about 30 rounds fired since the previous thorough cleaning and did not clean once while there. I am not necessarily recommending that, but this barrel shoots fine dirty.
I am on my 16th firing of the Lapua large primer .308 Win brass. I have a bunch of new small primer brass that I want to use, but the lot I have been using just won’t wear out, so I keep reloading it. My Perry ammo was loaded with Vihtavuori N150 powder, but I started the year with N140 to use up that particular jug of powder. My bullet of choice for long range with the Palma rifle is the Berger 155.5 gr FullBore Target Rifle bullet seated about .035″ off the lands. Editor: The video below provides a comparison of Lapua large primer .308 Win brass vs. Lapua small primer .308 Win brass.
Most of my recent Palma barrels have the Manson 308 Win 2019 Fullbore T30 chamber (that I designed). That is a very widely-used chamber designed to pass Bisley Rule 150 inspection. It is a ‘Bisley Reamer’. Bisley reamers tend to have fairly long throats. I have a collection of various ‘Bisley Reamer’ prints from all over the world. The Manson 2019 Fullbore T30 is not the longest, but it is among the longer throated designs. SEE Diagram below (click to zoom):
CLICK reamer diagram to load full-size, downloadable .PDF file.
Since 2019 I have had a number of competitors request a shorter-throated chamber in hopes of achieving higher velocities with the NRAUK Bisley issued ammo, currently made by GGG*. The issue ammo is essentially old school Palma ammo with a Sierra 2155 seated to 2.80″ COL. The Sierra 2155 is a very accurate bullet, but it does not have the BC of more modern 155gr designs. I love shooting them at 300 and 600 yards. If you want to learn to read the wind, practice with them at long range.
The chamber in this rifle is a ‘prototype’ shorter-throated reamer designed with the help of Brandon Green and measurements of the GGG 2025 issued ammo*. The reamer is the GGG25 reamer. On the print I have a big disclaimer that the chamber probably will eventually fail the rule 150 test as bullets change over the years, but it did pass with the 2026 issued ammo. My recommendation is to stick with the 2019 Fullbore design if you plan to go to Bisley.
Video shows first 2.5-3″ of another one of Ray’s Palma barrels, with an estimated 2800 rounds.
Ray reports that approximately 70 rounds had been shot in this barrel since it was last cleaned.
Ray says his Palma rifles shoot well even with high round count between cleanings.
Ray Gross Marksmanship/Coaching Biography
Ray’s shooting career began early in life hunting with his Dad. He began competing in NRA matches in 1991 as a Service Rifle shooter and earned a place on the Michigan Rifle team in 1993 and 1994. He earned his Distinguished Rifleman’s Badge in 1995 and began competing in the Palma class that year.
Ray has represented the USA as a Shooter or Coach on two Palma teams, two Australia Match Teams, and eight America Match teams. He has been the winning team coach on numerous events in Canada and the USA over the last decade. His international accomplishments include a Silver medal as a shooter on the 2003 U.S. Palma Team, a Silver medal as coach on the 2015 U.S. Palma Team, two Gold medals as a coach on the 2008 and 2014 U.S. America Match Team. The 2014 team set a new record for team aggregate score. He was Captain of the 2016 Gold medal America Match F-Class Team.
In F-Class, he was the F-TR individual Silver medalist at the first F-Class Nationals in 2004 and has coached the F-TR National Championship Team squad in 2004, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2016, the latter five as part of Team Sinclair.
* GGG ammo is high-grade rifle ammunition produced by Giraitės Ginkluotės Gamykla, a state-owned Lithuanian manufacturer established in 2000. It is the largest military and civilian small-caliber ammunition producer in the Baltic states, supplying strict NATO-specification rounds like 5.56x45mm and 7.62x51mm, alongside commercial .223 Rem and .308 Win loads for civilian shooters.
