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June 2nd, 2015
In the just-released June 2015 issue of Shooting Sports USA, you’ll find an excellent profile of SFC Emil Praslick III, a legendary figure in American shooting. As a marksmanship instructor and coach for the USAMU, Praslick has been a mentor for many of America’s greatest marksmen. Praslick has also served as a wind coach for many civilian teams over the years, guiding them to victory in high-level championship events. SFC Praslick plans to retire later this year, when SFC Shane Barnhart will take over as coach of the USAMU Service Rifle Team.
In a wide-ranging Shooting Sports USA interview with writer John Parker, SFC Praslick offers many interesting insights. Here are some highlights (after the jump):
May 31st, 2015
Here’s a true “Blast from the Past”, a video featuring our friend Stuart Elliott of Brisbane, Australia. This 2011 video has now racked up nearly 680,000 views, making it probably the most-watched long-range benchrest video ever uploaded to YouTube. The video shows Stuart shooting a 10-shot Heavy Gun string at the Brisbane range, Queensland, Australia, in July 2011. In this example, Stuart elected to “run a condition” with his big, .300 WM Heavy Gun, shooting fast with slight hold-off adjustments as the wind increased during the string. The cartridge is a .300 Winchester Magnum, loaded with moly-coated 190gr Berger VLDs. Stuart has an unusual bolt configuration. After each shot, Stuart removes the bolt completely with his right hand, and then uses the bolt to “shuck” the fired cartridge while loading the new cartridge with his left hand. That sounds awkward, but Stuart makes it all look easy. Stuart runs BRT Shooters Supply, a leading vendor of precision shooting equipment (including March scopes), in Australia and nearby regions.
May 30th, 2015
Some folks say you haven’t really mastered marksmanship unless you can hit a target when standing tall ‘on your own hind legs’. Of all the shooting positions, standing can be the most challenging because you have no horizontally-solid resting point for your forward arm/elbow. Here 10-time National High Power Champ Carl Bernosky explains how to make the standing shot.
Carl Bernosky is one of the greatest marksmen in history. A multi-time National High Power Champion, Carl has won ten (10) National High Power Championships in his storied shooting career, most recently in 2012. In this article, Carl provides step-by-step strategies to help High Power shooters improve their standing scores. When Carl talks about standing techniques, shooters should listen. Among his peers, Carl is regard as one of the best, if not the best standing shooter in the game today. Carl rarely puts pen to paper, but he was kind enough to share his techniques with AccurateShooter.com’s readers.
If you are position shooter, or aspire to be one some day, read this article word for word, and then read it again. We guarantee you’ll learn some techniques (and strategies) that can improve your shooting and boost your scores. This stuff is gold folks, read and learn…
 How to Shoot Standing
by Carl Bernosky
Shooting consistently good standing stages is a matter of getting rounds down range, with thoughtfully-executed goals. But first, your hold will determine the success you will have.
1. Your hold has to be 10 Ring to shoot 10s. This means that there should be a reasonable amount of time (enough to get a shot off) that your sights are within your best hold. No attention should be paid to the sights when they are not in the middle — that’s wasted energy. My best hold is within 5 seconds after I first look though my sights. I’m ready to shoot the shot at that time. If the gun doesn’t stop, I don’t shoot. I start over.
2. The shot has to be executed with the gun sitting still within your hold. If the gun is moving, it’s most likely moving out, and you’ve missed the best part of your hold.
3. Recognizing that the gun is sitting still and within your hold will initiate you firing the shot. Lots of dry fire or live fire training will help you acquire awareness of the gun sitting still. It’s not subconscious to me, but it’s close.
4. Don’t disturb the gun when you shoot the shot. That being said, I don’t believe in using ball or dummy rounds with the object of being surprised when the shot goes off. I consciously shoot every shot. Sometimes there is a mistake and I over-hold. But the more I train the less of these I get. If I get a dud round my gun will dip.* I don’t believe you can learn to ignore recoil. You must be consistent in your reaction to it.
 5. Know your hold and shoot within it. The best part of my hold is about 4 inches. When I get things rolling, I recognize a still gun within my hold and execute the shot. I train to do this every shot. Close 10s are acceptable. Mid-ring 10s are not. If my hold was 8 inches I would train the same way. Shoot the shot when it is still within the hold, and accept the occasional 9. But don’t accept the shots out of the hold.
6. Practice makes perfect. The number of rounds you put down range matter. I shudder to think the amount of rounds I’ve fired standing in my life, and it still takes a month of shooting standing before Perry to be in my comfort zone. That month before Perry I shoot about 2000 rounds standing, 22 shots at a time. It peaks me at just about the right time.
This summarizes what I believe it takes to shoot good standing stages. I hope it provides some insight, understanding, and a roadmap to your own success shooting standing.
— Good Shooting, Carl
* This is very noticeable to me when shooting pistol. I can shoot bullet holes at 25 yards, but if I’ve miscounted the rounds I’ve fired out of my magazine, my pistol will dip noticeably. So do the pistols of the best pistol shooters I’ve watched and shot with. One might call this a “jerk”, I call it “controlled aggressive execution”, executed consistently.
May 28th, 2015
This 2010 story is reprinted at readers’ request.
In the past few years, tubeguns have really taken over in high power circles. At many matches you’ll see more tubeguns than conventional prone rifles, and a high percentage of those tubeguns will have been built using an Eliseo (Competition Machine) CSS chassis kit.
Step-By-Step Guide to Stock Set-Up
If you are a new tubegun shooter, or if you are planning a tubegun build this winter, our friend “GS Arizona” has prepared a comprehensive set-up guide for Eliseo tubeguns. Eliseo’s CSS chassis system affords a myriad of adjustments. Initially, one can be overwhelmed by all the variables: Length of Pull, Length to Sights, Length to Handstop, Cheekpad Height, Buttstock Offset, Buttstock Cant Angle, Handstop Angle, and Forearm Rotation.
May 26th, 2015
This Texas Rifle Association (TXRA) Long Range Championship was a match to remember. Despite rain threats, organizers decided to hold the match. On Friday, against the advice of the weather forecasters, the team match was held. The weather held out long enough to complete the match but over four inches of rain fell Friday night. This made for an interesting weekend as competitors had to park at the 300-yard line and shooters and gear had to be trailered to the 1,000-yard line.
TSRA LR Championship Photo Gallery | TSRA LR Championship Complete RESULTS
May 24th, 2015
SGT Tyler Payne of the USAMU gets rounds downrange quickly. Check out the spent brass.
The Sniper’s Hide Cup, one of the premier events on the tactical match circuit, has been underway this weekend in Colorado at the 6000-acre T3 Ranch. This year’s match got off to great start despite the bad weather. The 236 shooters completed all eight stages on time, a significant accomplishment in a field-type match of this scale. Here’s a video report from Day 2 of the event:
Day Two Report (CLICK for VIDEO):
May 24th, 2015
Story based on report by Kyle Jillson for NRABlog.com.
Doug Koenig secured his 16th NRA Action Pistol title this week at the 2015 NRA Bianchi Cup in Columbia, Missouri. Koenig’s final score was a perfect 1920 with 180 tie-breaking Xs. Koenig needed all those Xs to win — runner-up Jeremy Newell (1920-166X) also racked up a perfect 1920 score, but with 14 fewer Xs. Carl Bernosky, a ten-time NRA High Power Rifle Champion, placed third overall with 1918-180X. Australian shooter Anita Mackiewicz set a new record for a female shooter with a 1916-166X.
Koenig’s success at the Bianchi Cup is unparalleled. Doug’s 16 titles account for nearly half of the 37 total Bianchi championships held. Bruce Piatt has the next best career Bianchi Cup record, with five Bianchi titles, less than one-third of Koenig’s total.
May 19th, 2015
 1000 yards? Heck, for these KO2M guys, that’s just a warm-up — they plan to shoot out to 2500 yards and beyond. A new ultra-long-range event will be held this summer in New Mexico at the NRA Whittington Center. The King of Two Miles (KO2M) match will be held on July 1-2, 2015, right before the Fifty Caliber Shooters Assocation (FCSA) 1000-yard World Championships. If you like hurling big projectiles at very long ranges, Whittington is the place to be in July. The KO2M event is “wide-open” — any caliber is allowed and rifle size/weight is limited only by the shooter’s ability to lift the gun himself. Rifles will be shot prone with bipod.
Two Miles (Well Not Quite)
The name of the event is a bit of a misnomer, as the max range will be roughly 2500 yards. That’s WAY less than a full two miles (3520 yards). KO2M organizers do plan to go all the way out to two miles in the future, but they say their target and spotting technology isn’t up to that yet. Accordingly, the 2015 course of fire will include steel and electronic targets placed at known distances from 1000 to roughly 2500 yards. Next year, hopefully, the max range will be extended to over two miles, but, for now: “Current optical systems do not allow that.”
May 18th, 2015
Here’s a cleverly-designed convertible F-Class stock that can be used for either F-TR competition (with bipod) or for F-Open shooting (with front sled). Designed by Brian Fox of Fox Fireams UK, this all-new design features a barrel block, allowing a variety of actions to be used. The “Fox Stock” weighs just 5.7 pounds. This allows the F-TR version to easily make weight with competition bipod and a large scope. Our friend Vince Bottomley from the UK offers this report.
Fox F-Class Stock for F-TR and F-Open
by Vince Bottomley
Brian Fox’s new stock can be used for either F-TR with bipod (EVO bipod shown in photos) or for F-Open with front bag-rider attached via the full-length accessory rail on the underside. The bag-rider is machined from high-grade plastic and is three inches wide to suit most front rests.
May 15th, 2015
Sierra Bullets recently profiled Mike Walker, Remington engineer and first president of the National Benchrest Shooters Association (NBRSA). In the vintage photo above, Mike is shown with his Remington-actioned benchrest rifle at the 1994 Super Shoot. Mike had reason to smile — at that 1994 event, Walker set a 100-yard small group record with a phenomenal .046″ five-shot group. Mike was truly one of the “founding fathers” of modern benchrest shooting. As Sierra notes: “The field of rifle accuracy and the sport of benchrest shooting would be very different today, were it not for this man.”
Along with Remington Engineer Jim Stekl, Mike Walker helped develop a wildcat that became the 6mmBR cartridge. The original 6mm Benchrest Remington wildcat was a necked-down .308 x 1.5″ Barnes cartridge. That Barnes cartridge was derived from the .308 Winchester case, as shortened to 1.5 inches. The parent .308 Win case has a large primer pocket (though Remington did make a special run of small primer pocket .308 brass). Remington later made factory small primer pocket 6mm BR Rem brass. Compared to the original 6mm BR Remington case, the modern 6mmBR Norma cartridge has very slightly different dimensions, with a small primer pocket and a small 1.5mm (0.059″) flash-hole.
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