Thursday was a Team Competition day at the Berger Southwest Nationals. Conditions were surprisingly calm for most of the day, with flags hanging straight down through most of the morning. But there were still some “ghost winds” that might affect one flag (and cause some unexplained). Mirage was also tricky for some shooters as the day wore on.
Watch Day 2 Match Highlights including Interview With Team Michigan’s Bill Litz and Bryan Litz
Team Michigan won the F-TR competition, followed by The U.S. F-TR Team in second, and Team X-Men in third. Based on the interim results posted, the Sling Division was one by the UK/Scottish Ethnic Fringe Team led by Captain Angus McLeod. It appears that the top F-Open Squad was Team Berger — those senior guys still know their stuff.
USRT Gold Medal Sponsors Kelly McMillan of McMillan Group International and Sean Murphy of Nightforce Optics came out to observe and shoot with the U.S. Rifle Team. Here’s Kelly with his bionic arm.
It was hot, dry, and sunny in Phoenix. You needed lots of water and plenty of sunscreen…
There was plenty of good food on hand for the competitors…
Here’s an interesting rig that combines a spotting scope (on left) with 15×56 binoculars (on right) This allowed the spotter to watch targets as well as mirage elsewhere on the range. Smart…
We met with our friend Erik Cortina at the Berger Southwest Nationals this week. Erik (shown above), had a beautiful new F-Open rifle to show us. This features a new, large-diameter Borden action and a Shurley Brothers fancy maple stock. Erik loves great hardware — whether it comes to actions, stocks, or reloading equipment. One of Erik’s favorite reloading tools is his Forster Co-Ax press.
Cortina has produced a series of YouTube videos about reloading hardware and precision hand-loading. Here is Erik’s video review of the Forster Co-Ax® reloading press. The Co-Ax is unique in both design and operation. It features dual guide rods and a central handle. You don’t screw in dies — you slide the die lock ring into a slot. This allows dies to float during operation.
Erik does a good job of demonstrating the Co-Ax’s unique features. At 1:00 he shows how to slide the dies into the press. It’s slick and easy. At the two-minute mark, Erik shows how sliding jaws clasp the case rim (rather than a conventional shell-holder). The jaws close as the ram is raised, then open as it is lowered. This makes it easy to place and remove your cases.
At the 5:20 mark, Erik shows how spent primers run straight down into a capture cup. This smart system helps keep your press and bench area clean of primer debris and residues.
While many Co-Ax users prime their cases by hand, the Co-Ax can prime cases very reliably. The priming station is on top of the press. Erik demonstrates the priming operation starting at 4:20.
Smart Accessories for the Co-Ax from Inline Fabrications
Lapua’s Kevin Thomas also owns a Co-Ax press, which he has hot-rodded with accessories from Inline Fabrications. Kevin tells us: “Check out the add-ons available from Inline Fabrications for the Co-Ax. I recently picked up a riser mount and a set of linkages for mine and love the results. The linkages are curved. When you replace the original straight links with these, the work area opens up substantially and the the press becomes much easier to feed.” CLICK HERE for Co-Ax Accessories.
Inline Fabrications Forster Co-Ax Accessories
Forster Co-Ax Curved Side Linkage (For Better Access)
Blast from the Past: As we get set up in Phoenix for the 2016 Berger Southwest Nationals, we thought we’d revisit one of our more interesting features from a few years back. At the 2010 SHOT Show, we had the unique opportunity to corner three “superstars” of High Power shooting, and solicit their wind-reading secrets. Carl Bernosky, David Tubb, and John Whidden all shared some championship-caliber wind wisdom in video interviews. If you shoot competitively, you’ll want to watch these videos. David’s video is worth watching twice because some of the key points he makes go by pretty quickly.
In the three videos below (in alphabetical order), Carl Bernosky (10-Time Nat’l High Power Champion), David Tubb (11-time Nat’l High Power Champion and 7-time Nat’l Long-Range Champion), and John Whidden (2-Time Nat’l High Power Long-Range Champion) shared some of the wind-doping strategies that have carried them to victory in the nation’s most competitive shooting matches. This is GOLD folks… no matter what your discipline — be it short-range Benchrest or Long-Range High Power — watch these videos for valuable insights that can help you shoot more accurately, and post higher scores, in all wind conditions.
We were very fortunate to have these three extraordinarily gifted champions reveal their “winning ways”. These guys REALLY know their stuff. I thought to myself: “Wow, this is how a baseball fan might feel if he could assemble Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Ted Williams in the same room, and have them each reveal their hitting secrets.” Editor’s Note: These interviews were conducted before Bernosky and Tubb won their most recent National Championships.
Our nominees for the “Hardest-working Heroes” of SHOT Show 2016 are our friends Ed and Steve, aka the 6.5 Guys. Over the course of four days, this tireless duo completed over FIFTY short videos. They visited dozens of manufacturers, finding the “latest and greatest” rifles, stocks, actions, scopes and other hardware. While in Vegas, the 6.5 Guys managed to visit most of the top-flight optics-makers. Here are videos reviewing products from Nightforce, Vortex, and March. To see 50+ more videos, visit the 6.5 Guys YouTube Channel.
2016 SHOT Show Highlights — OPTICS
Nightforce Optics — New SHV 4-14x50mm (FFP)
The new 4-14x50mm SHV scope from Nightforce is available with either 0.1 Mil or 1/4-MOA clicks, with two reticle choices: MIL-R and MOAR.
Vortex Optics — New Razor 6-24x50mm AMG (FFP)
The new 6-24x50mm Razor HD AMG is a made-in-USA scope with a full 25 MOA of elevation in one turret rotaion. Vortex says this scope rivals anything on the market in its category.
March Optics — 3-24x52mm (FFP)
March’s popular 3-24x52mm scope is offered with either 0.1 Mil or 1/4 MOA clicks. The particular model featured in the video has 0.1 Mil clicks and an illuminated reticle. March Optics USA also offers a remarkable 5-50x56mm scope that can work for everything from short-range practical matches to extreme-long-range shooting. One of our staffers has the 5-50X March and he uses it for both Tac Comps and 1000-yard F-Class matches.
If you like long-range shooting, you’ll love this video…
This well-made HD video showcases the operations of the Leupold Optics Academy. The Academy is a combined classroom and field training program focusing on advanced marksmanship skills for tactical shooters and long-range hunters. The field segment includes technical briefings, practice with mildot ranging, shooting from a variety of positions, and extreme-long-range sessions. At a private, backcountry range contracted by Leupold, Academy participants can engage targets out to 2200 meters. We think you’ll enjoy the video. We’d love to get a chance to shoot at that range.
Video find by EdLongrange. We welcome reader submissions.
This Wednesday (February 3, 2016), Shooting USA TV features the 2015 GAP Grind Pro-Am held at the K&M Shooting Complex in Finger, TN. Conducted in association with the Precision Rifle Series (PRS), the GAP Grind features a Pro/Am format with professional and amateur competitors vying for individual glory and team honors.
Here is Shooting USA Host John Scoutten (in Blue/White shirt)
Lots of Action, with 20+ Stages
The GAP Grind is a notoriously challenging, “high tempo” match with minimal down-time between stages. Over the course of 20+ stages, competitors will fire 200+ shots at a variety of steel, paper, moving, and reactive targets out to 1,200 yards. Targets vary in size/difficulty based on the shooter’s position, distance, and time allotted. Most stages include “stressors” — i.e. time limits or required movement(s).
GAP Grind Hardware Shelley Giddings, a skilled shooter of both firearms and cameras, snapped these images of state-of-the-art tactical rifles at the 2014 GAP Grind. See more firearms images on Shelley’s Facebook Page.
We hear there’s a bit of snow on the ground on the East Coast. Don’t fret — the white stuff doesn’t need to impede your shooting sports fun — if you take some inspiration from a pair of young Canadian lasses. These clever Canucks have managed to combine the quintessential Canadian sport, Ice Hockey, with skeet/trap shooting. This is just the thing to do with a good friend on a sunny winter’s day with snow still on the ground.
Watch Video — See Girl Shoot Clay Flung with Hockey Stick
Here’s how it works. A launcher is set up with a sheet of cardboard on a snow ramp. A clay pigeon is placed at the base of the ramp. Then the “flinger”, armed with a regulation hockey stick, sends the clay pigeon up the snow ramp and into the air. (Follow-through is important.) Then it’s just like regular skeet shooting. The shooter brings scattergun to bear and tries to hit the clay on the fly. With a good hit, it disintegrates in a black puff.
Kudos to Canada’s Danielle Bergen and her sharp-shooting friend for producing a great video. Overhead views were filmed with a camera-equipped flying drone.
Skockey in the Winter Olympics?
We wonder how this combo-sport was invented (large quantities of Molson Beer may have been involved we suppose). This new hybrid sport doesn’t have an official name yet. We suggest “Skockey” (“skeet” + “hockey”). Whatever you call it, we like this new sport. Who knows, maybe we’ll see Skockey in the Winter Olympics some day.
Readers often ask for a good, authoritative resource on doping the wind and reading mirage. Many Forum members recommended M.Sgt. Jim Owens’ Wind-Reading Guide. With 22 sets of wind charts, this is offered for $14.95 as a printed book or $12.95 in CD format. Owens’ Reading the Wind and Coaching Techniques clearly explains how to gauge wind speeds and angles. Owens, a well-known High Power coach and creator of Jarheadtop.com, offers a simple system for ascertaining wind value based on speed and angle. The CD also explains how to read mirage — a vital skill for long-range shooters. In many situations, reading the mirage may be just as important as watching the wind flags. Owens’ $12.95 CD provides wind-reading strategies that can be applied by coaches as well as individual shooters.
As a separate product, Owens offers a Reading the Wind DVD for $29.95. This is different than the $12.95 CD. It is more like an interactive class.
Played straight through, the DVD offers about 75 minutes of instruction. M.Sgt. Owens says “You will learn more in an hour and fifteen minutes than the host learned in fifteen years in the Marine Corps shooting program. This is a wind class you can attend again and again. [It provides] a simple system for judging the speed, direction and value of the wind.” The DVD also covers mirage reading, wind strategies, bullet BC and more.
British Lee-Enfield Model SHT’22/IV Rifle, courtesy www.iCollector.com.
This past week, at SHOT Show, we met up with our friend Dennis Santiago. We chatted about Dennis’s experiences as a technical advisor for History Channel’s Top SHOT TV show. One of the notable Top Shot episodes involved the “Mad Minute”, a marksmanship drill practiced by the British Army in the decades preceding World War I. Dennis observed that the Top Shot competitors didn’t fare too well in their “Mad Minute” attempts, not scoring many hits in the alloted one-minute time period. That prompted Dennis to give it a try himself — seeing how many hits he could score in one minute with an authentic Lee-Enfield rifle. So, a while back, Dennis ran the drill at a range in California.
Dennis Does the Mad Minute:
Dennis, an active high power rifle competitor and instructor, enjoyed his “Mad Minute” exercise, though he assures us that this takes practice to perfect. Dennis tells us: “Here is a ‘Mad Minute’ drill, done using a period correct Lee-Enfield (SMLE) No.1 Mk III rifle and Mk VII ammo. I got to the Queen’s Regulations (15 hits in one minute) on the second run and put a good group on the target at 200 yards. This is ‘jolly good fun’ to do every once in a while. This is ‘living history’ — experiencing a skill from a time when the sun never set on the British Empire.”
“Mad Minute” was a pre-World War I term used by British Army riflemen during training at the Hythe School of Musketry to describe scoring a minimum of 15 hits onto a 12″ round target at 300 yards within one minute using a bolt-action rifle (usually a Lee-Enfield or Lee-Metford rifle). It was not uncommon during the First World War for riflemen to greatly exceed this score. The record, set in 1914 by Sergeant Instructor Alfred Snoxall, was 38 hits. (From WikiPedia.)
History of the Mad Minute Commentary by Laurie Holland
The original military requirement of the “Mad Minute” saw the soldier ready to fire with a round in the chamber, nine in the magazine, safety on. This course of fire is still followed by the GB Historic Breechloading Arms Association and other bodies in their recreated “Mad Minute” competitions.
The first 10 would go quickly, but reloads were critical, this not done by a magazine change as in a modern tactical or semi-auto rifle, but through slick use of ‘chargers’. It is this aspect which fouls so many of my colleagues up as it is very easy to cause a jam and a large part of 60 seconds can go in sorting it out!
Charger clips were selected for those that just held the rounds firmly enough to stop then falling out, were sand-papered and polished with a stove / fireplace polish called ‘Zebrite’ so that the rimmed rounds would slip through the clips like corn through a goose.
If you’re unfamiliar with the cock-on-closing Enfield action, it seems clumsy. With intensive practice it is very smooth and can be operated incredibly quickly. The trick is to whip the bolt back onto its stop and initiate a rebound movement that takes it and the cartridge well into the chamber thereby reducing the effort required to close the bolt and chamber the round.
Our friend, trick-shot ace Kirsten Joy Weiss, will be featured on the NRA All-Access TV show next week. As a performance shooter (and modern-day Annie Oakley) Weiss has focused her efforts to “bring the fun, challenge, and joy of shooting to a mainstream audience” via social media.
Watch Preview of NRA All Access with Kirsten Joy Weiss
Kirsten wants to be a good ambassador for the shooting sports, “spreading the positive reality of shooting”. Kirsten explains: “The fun challenge and joy of shooting is important to me because I really wanted to be a positive example. So when the media says the ‘guns are a bad thing and nobody does anything good with guns’, they can say ‘Well, what about her [Kirsten]’?”
A gifted “natural” shooter, Kirsten started shooting fairly late — at age 16. Despite her relatively late start, she learned very quickly, and managed to earn a place on the University of Nebraska shooting team. That literally opened up a new world for Kirsten: “During the course of my career, I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve gone to World Cups… in Zagreb, Croatia, in Munich, Germany. I’ve won National Championships, and got on to the U.S. Olympic short list, so it’s been a good career.”
In 2012, Kirsten was the top USA athlete-shooter at the Munich World Cup. She won the 2012 NRA Three-Position Women’s Smallbore Championship and also won the Standing Position, while finishing as the National Overall Woman Champion.
Kirsten tells us: “A lot of people don’t think of shooting as a sport, but it absolutely is, and I would even go so far as to say that it is an art form.” We don’t know if this is art, sport, or magic, but very few shooters have the skill or flexibility to make this upside-down shot…
This animated GIF shows Kirsten cutting a card in half with a .22 LR bullet. Impressive!
Readers often ask for a good, authoritative resource on doping the wind and reading mirage. Many Forum members recommended M.Sgt. Jim Owens’ Wind-Reading Guide. With 22 sets of wind charts, this is offered for $14.95 as a printed book or $12.95 in CD format. Owens’ 
As a separate product, Owens offers a 
Lee-Enfield No. 4 Rifle (1943), courtesy 
A gifted “natural” shooter, Kirsten started shooting fairly late — at age 16. Despite her relatively late start, she learned very quickly, and managed to earn a place on the University of Nebraska shooting team. That literally opened up a new world for Kirsten: “During the course of my career, I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve gone to World Cups… in Zagreb, Croatia, in Munich, Germany. I’ve won National Championships, and got on to the U.S. Olympic short list, so it’s been a good career.”
