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September 30th, 2009
Speaking of Camp Butner (NC)… the 2009 F-Class National Championships commence today, Sept. 30th, at that range. America’s top F-Class shooters, and many competitors from overseas, will compete for honors in the nation’s fastest-growing long-range discipline. Competitors will be divided in two classes: Open and F-TR. Open Class allows any chambering under .40 caliber with a total weight of about 22 pounds, and a front pedestal rest may be used. F-TR class is limited to .223 Rem or .308 Winchester chamberings, with a max weight of 18.15 pounds. In most F-Class matches, F-TR shooters are limited to bipods — no pedestal front rests allowed.
Hosted by the North State Shooting Club, the Nationals kick off today (Sept. 30th) with open and team practice sessions. Thursday (Oct. 1) is the 600-yard phase of the event, followed by 1000-yard phases on both Friday and Saturday. Sunday is reserved as a make-up day in case of rain. On both Thursday and Friday, a 4-person team match follows the individual events. Barring rain delays, the National Champion will be crowned on Saturday after three final individual 1000-yard matches.
For more information, visit the North State Shooting Club website, or CLICK HERE to download the complete 2009 F-Class Nationals Program.
September 24th, 2009
North Carolina-based gunsmith Nat Lambeth is one of the gurus of the Savage world. He has built many highly competitive match rifles using Savage actions, employing his special accurizing methods. Nat recently built up a 6 BRX prone rifle using Gary Eliseo’s new S1 Savage Chassis. The 6 BRX, a 6BR improved with 30° shoulder, can be a very accurate cartridge, as demonstrated by Nat’s new rifle. Right out of the gate, this gun shot an 0.290 five-shot group during barrel break-in.
The rifle features a Savage Target action, factory Accutrigger, and a very accurate 32.5″, 8-twist Broughton 5C™ barrel. The load was Lapua 6BR brass hydraulically formed to 6 BRX, 32.5 grains of Hodgdon Varget, Wolf (Russian) SRM primers, and a Berger 105gr VLD bullet.
Nat really likes the 6 BRX chambering in a long-range prone rifle: “The 6mm BRX is like a 6mmBR on steroids. The whole purpose of the 6mm BRX and 6mm Dasher is to make the 6mmBR a better round for 600-1000 yard shooting. The have the advantages of the 6mmBR with a little more velocity. Most folks who shoot a 6mm BRX fire-form their 6mmBR brass by seating the bullets in the rifling and loading the 6mmBR case with a 90% load. The case expands into the larger chamber making a 6mmBR case now a 6mm BRX. [For this gun] I used my new Hornady Hydraulic Forming Die. [Editor: the hydraulic die will form the cases to about 95% of final shape using just the die, a water-filled case, and a mallet.] As you can see, the hydraulic die allowed me to start off with a standard 6mm BRX load from the get go. For optimum accuracy, barrel life, and case life the 6mm BRX seems to have an accuracy node between 3000 fps and 3080 fps.
Another factor is that the Broughton barrels seem to give about 100-150 fps more velocity. Almost every Broughton barrel that I have chambered seem to gain a little velocity after the first 200 rounds. I have chambered the 6mm BRX with most other barrel manufacturers and they all have shot well. This is a very sweet round.”
If you want to check out this rifle, head to the 2009 F-Class Nationals at Camp Butner, Sept. 30 – October 4. Nat explains: “This rifle will be at Butner for the F-Class Nationals and future matches and practices. I will have it and ammo available for those who would like to shoot it during the practice sessions both as a 6mm BRX and .308 Win.” For more info, call Nat Lambeth at (919) 556-0554 (Home/shop — evenings and weekends), (919) 662-6848 (cell), or email NLambeth [at] embarqmail.com.
September 6th, 2009
The 2009 F-Class National Championships will be held September 30 through October 4 at Camp Butner, North Carolina. This year the host North State Shooting Club has amassed a treasure trove of prize awards, worth over $15,000.00. If you’ve been debating whether to attend the Nationals, the lure of big money prizes should motivate you to load up and head to Butner.
 Rifles, Actions, Stocks, Scopes and More Will Be Awarded
2008 F-Class National Champion (and North State Club member) Charles Ballard reports that: “This years prize table is huge, with over $15,000 worth of prizes donated by our sponsors. Kelbly’s is donating an F-Class action to the top junior, and Precision Rifle & Tool is donating an F-Class stock. Remington Arms will give the top F-TR shooter a new Model 700™ XCR™ .308 Tactical Long Range rifle. All F-TR shooters will be entered in a drawing to win a new Savage F-TR Rifle. Nightforce Optics “will make two shooters very happy.”
F-Class Nationals Sponsor List
Bartlein Barrels
Berger Bullets
Broughton Barrels
Brux Barrels
D&B Supply
Ear East
Kelbly’s Inc.
King Canopy
Manson Precision Reamers
Nightforce Optics
Pacific Tool & Gauge
Precision Rifle and Tool
Pro-Shot
Redding Reloading Equipment
Remington Arms
Savage Arms
Sierra Bullets
CLICK HERE for a complete list of F-Class Nationals Prizes
CLICK HERE for F-Class Nationals Program, Schedule, and Application Form
Note: The entry application (page 4 of program above) must be filled out and mailed to: Jane Green, 6147 Hebron Road, Oxford, NC 27565
The Nationals commence with a Practice Day on September 30. On Thursday, October 1, the match begins with the 600-yard Stage (both individual and 4-man team match). The first 1000-yard Stage will be held on October 2 (individual and team), while the final 1000-yard stage is set for October 3. October 4 is reserved as a make-up day in case of bad weather.
August 29th, 2009
 The Spirit of America National Fullbore Rifle Prone Championship is now underway at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, NM. Sponsored by the Bald Eagle Rifle Club, the Spirit of America (SOA) is a major match that draws many of the top prone shooters in the country. The match is for Target Rifles as well as for F-Class Rifles. “Target Rifle” is defined as “a rifle chambered for use with the unmodified 7.62×51 commercial or .308 Winchester cartridge [or] a rifle chambered for use with the unmodified 5.56mm commercial or .223 Remington cartridge.” In practical terms, “Target Rifle” is a class for .308 or .223 Palma rifles.
Fullbore rifle competition originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s as an offshoot of Service Rifle shooting and has gained popularity in the United States. Both team and individual matches are featured in the championship, in which competitors shoot from distances of 300 yards up to a maximum of 1000. The match is governed by the Fullbore Rifle Rulebook. Different sets of targets will be used by the two classes:
Target Rifle: 300 yds – MR63; 500 yds – MR65; 600 yds – MR1; 800, 900, 1000 yds – NRA LR
F-Class: MR63FC, MR-65FC, MR-1FC, and LRFC
Running for a full week, the SOA consists of a series of daily matches, each with their own awards and rankings. At the end of the week Aggregate awards are determined for Grand Aggregate (Target Rifle and F-Class), Short Range Aggregate (Target Rifle), Long Range Aggregate (Target Rifle), and SOA Team Match Aggregate.
Aug 28 — Cunico Automotive Team Match
Aug 29 — Folsom Shooting Club Team Match
Aug 30 — McGee Stocks Individual Match
Aug 31 — U.S. Armed Forces Indiv. Match
Sep 1 — Sierra Bullets Team Match
Sep 1 — Galaxy Glass Long Range Team Match
Sep 2 — Sinclair International Indiv. Match
Sep 3 — Sierra Bullets Indiv. Match
CLICK HERE for a seven-page Guide to the Match that includes rules, match information, and complete schedule.
August 3rd, 2009
The August issue of Target Shooter, the excellent UK-based webzine, is now available FREE online. As usual, this edition is chock full of interesting feature articles written “by shooters, for shooters”. You can either read the monthly e-magazine online, OR you can now download the entire August issue to your computer. This lets you peruse multiple articles at your leisure. (For readers with a slow web connection, reading offline may be more convenient, once you’ve downloaded the file.)
 Among the featured articles this month are an authoritative section on rifle maintenance and scope-mounting by Vince Bottomley (p. 13), a user’s guide to the Redding T7 press by Laurie Holland (p. 55), and an excellent guide to Rimfire Ammo selection and sorting by Carl Boswell (p. 40). If you follow Carl’s procedures (including the visual inspections shown at right), you’ll experience fewer unexplained “flyers” — we can guarantee that.
Complete F-Class Worlds Report
Amazingly, Target Shooter’s August issue contains a detailed, 4-page report on the 2009 F-Class World Championships which concluded just a few days ago in England. You’ll enjoy the reports from the field and interviews with top F-Classers from around the world. In addition to the match report, the August Target Shooter profiles Britain’s Gary Costello, the winner of the Individual World F-Class Championship.
Gary’s rifle was built by American gunsmith Alan Warner and is chambered as a 7mm-270 WSM. (The 270 case is used because it has a slightly longer neck and slightly less capacity). The action is an aluminium Stolle Panda with RBLP configuration. The scope is a March 10-60X mounted in Kelbly rings. The stock is an Alex Sitman Master Class laminated long-range thumbhole model. Sadly, the handsome gray/blue stock broke at the thumb-hole during shipping from the USA. However, Pet Walker of Walker Customer Rifles in West Yorkshire restored the stock to better than new condition, providing Gary with a beautiful rig that carried him to victory.
July 31st, 2009
 This year’s 2009 World F-Class Championship was held at the historic Bisley Range in England, and UK Shooters served their country proud, winning the prestigious F-Open Team Competition and dominating the individual matches in both F-Open and F-TR classes. Great Britain’s F-Open shooters proved their mastery of the challenging Bisley course, posting a 3436-230V score to top the second-place American Team by 59 points (Team USA score was 3377-234V). The South African Team, defending Champions, finished third with a 3337-188V score.
UK Shooters truely dominated the Individual F-Open Championship, capturing ALL of the top ten places, lead by Gary Costello (1st Place) with 458-44V, followed close behind by fellow Brit Des Parr with 456-36V. That’s nine Brits and a Scot in the Top Ten. In the Individual Competition, F-TR division, Britain finished one/two at the top of the podium, with Russell Simmons (437-23V) winning the Gold, and countryman George Barnard (432-23V) winning Silver. American Stan Pate took third with a 420-25V score.
American F-Open Team Vice-Captain Shiraz Balolia, writing in his Bisley Blog, suggested that the windy conditions favored the 7mm caliber used by the home team Brits: “The individual World F-Class Championship is over. We essentially got overpowered by the 7mm guns. Bisley is not a range that you can win using 6.5mm guns, which is what the whole US Team is using. Of the top 10 positions, all but one were Brits with 7mm guns. The odd one was a Scot also with a 7mm gun.”
After the Team Match concluded, Shiraz wrote: “The British team won the World F-Class Open Championship. USA took second and South Africa third. The Brits beat us by 59 points and they were very surprised that we came that close to them. I believe that there were two main factors that worked very well for them. First and foremost was that they had full knowledge of their range and have been practicing on that range fairly regularly as a team for quite some time. Secondly, their 7mm guns were a good wind-bucking caliber that, when combined with good coaches (who have coached at that range for many years), gave them the results they were after. Someone made the comment to me that the Americans were improving by the day. Unfortunately, we ran out of days and it was game over. Our coaches did an outstanding job under very trying conditions. We beat the previous champs, South Africa, by 40 points.”
EDITOR’s NOTE: In the previous F-Open World Championships in South Africa, Team USA was defeated by the home team South Africans who were shooting 7mms. At Bisley in 2009, the same thing happened, with the Brits winning on their home turf, again using 7mms. Do we see the writing on the wall?
CLICK HERE for Complete F-Class Championships Results.
CLICK HERE for 2009 F-Class World Championship Photo Archive.
Americans Win F-TR Class
In the F-TR class the American Team powered to victory, haulting the British juggernaut. Under the leadership of Captain Darrel Buell, and coach Gary Rassmussen, shooters Brad Sauve, Dale Carpenter, Warren Dean, Monte Milanuk, Paul Phillips, Stan Pate, Jeff Rorer, and John Weil won the F-Class Restricted Teams Match with a 1581-76V score. The USA Rutland Cup Open Team of David Bailey, Mike Downey, David Gosnell, and Larry Taite, coached by Nancy Tompkins, also finished first, besting a strong Great Britain Red squad (second place), and Don Nagel’s third-place Connecticut Yankees.
All photos © 2009 by 762_AK, used by permission.
July 23rd, 2009
 F-Class competition at the Bisley Range in the UK is well under way. Currently, shooters from many countries are competing in the F-Class segments of the annual U.K. Imperial Meeting tournament. This will be followed by the actual F-Class World Championships, an event held every four years. The F-Class Worlds officially start with the individual championships next Monday and Tuesday (July 27-28) with the “main event”, the Team Championship, on Wednesday and Thursday (July 29-30). USA F-Class Open Team Vice-Captain Shiraz Bololia is providing regular written updates in his Bisley Blog. Here’s part of his latest report: “Today there was only one 300-yard match …. For me it was an early morning shoot at 8:00 am. The wind was dead. The weather was cool and overcast. Reminded me of the Plantation 300 yard range in Bellingham, WA where I shoot a lot of matches. First time since I got here the wind was less than 2 MPH. Less than ½ MOA change on my gun. It was a 15-shot match and I shot a perfect 75 with 15 Vs. As Coach Mead later said, even a blind Hog could have done that! Anyway that guarantees me a spot in the finals. Lot of US shooters in the St George’s finals.”
AK’s Great Bisley Photo Collections
In addition, British shooter “762AK” has posted fantastic collections of images from the World F-Class Championship, as well as the Imperial Meeting, which is being held concurrently. 762AK, a very talented photographer, is updating his Bisley photo collection daily. You should definitely check out these collections on Flickr. Click the links below to see hundreds of quality photos.
2009 F-Class Worlds | F-Class Worlds Slideshow
Imperial Meeting 2009 | Imperial Meeting Slideshow
July 14th, 2009
The U.S. F-Class Open Rifle team takes off for the UK on July 15th to participate in the 3rd World F-Class Championship, hosted in Bisley, England for 2009. This prestigious match is held every four years. The American Team won the inaugural event held in Canada, while the second World Championship was won by the South African squad on their home turf. To view profiles of U.S. Team members and learn more about the 2009 Championships, click the link below:
Daily Bisley Blogs from Shiraz Balolia
 This year Shiraz Balolia, U.S. Team Vice Captain, plans to provide Daily Updates on the World Championships via a Web Blog. In his first Blog entry, Balolia writes: “On July 17th [there are] three matches, the Century 500 and 600 yards and the Admiral Hutton 900 yards. There are a number of different matches just about every single day until Saturday the 25th of July. Then, the World Championships start on Monday July 27, 2009.
The whole U.S. F-Class Open team will be shooting the proven 6.5-284 caliber. Several of the other teams are shooting the ballistically superior 7mm calibers, but we expect to outwit them with our calculated wind calls. The English have a ‘home court’ advantage and are utilizing their best wind readers who know the nuances of their ranges inside out.”
CLICK HERE for F-Class Blog by Shiraz Balolia
F-Class News for Twitter Fans
The U.S. F-Class team has also created a Twitter account, so you can follow events via this popular social networking site. CLICK HERE for the latest F-Class “Tweets”.
July 1st, 2009
Kudos to Forum Member John Dunbar (aka JD12)! Just this past weekend John won the Wisconsin State F-Class championship shooting a “home-built” .284 Winchester with a Savage target action. John designed and fabricated the aluminum stock himself. It features a central barrel block clamping a 32″ Brux barrel. Get this — John completed the rifle only 5 days before the match: “I finished machining/assembly on Monday night, did load workup Wednesday and Thursday nights, loaded rounds Friday night, and headed to Lodi at 4:30 on Saturday morning.” John also made his own co-axial front rest. He reports: “The rest worked really well this past weekend but as always there’s some small tweeking to do.”
John tells us: “I want to thank Jim See from Center Shot Rifles. He did the barrel chambering and installation and action work — he does excellent work. I also want to thank Ken and Norm from Brux Barrels. Their barrels shoot — no questions asked.”
The rifle is chambered as a straight (non-improved) .284 Winchester, with 32″ barrel. At the match, John shot 180gr Bergers pushed by a stout load of Hodgdon 4831sc. John notes: “Most of the experienced shooters at Lodi, WI told me when barrel gets a few hundred rounds through it, I may have to drop the powder back as they found the barrel might speed up. The gun only had about 80 rounds of development loads through it before [the Championship match at Lodi]. I have some RE17 sitting here to try but now i’m thinking why screw with something that’s working!”
John’s rig features a Savage target action (with factory Accutrigger) trued up by Jim at Center Shot Rifles. On top is a Sightron SIII 8×32-56 scope (Hey we told you they were good). Take a look at the rear bag in the above photo. Notice that the ears are set off-axis? John explains: “The rear bag is a SEB from Ernie in Gillette, WY. It has the twisted ears on it so you can rest your hand right along side of stock. I really like it this way — it’s very comfortable.”
May 12th, 2009
Forum Member Jim (Falconpilot) recently completed “Yeller”, a stunning new F-Class rig, chambered as a 6mm Dasher. Built with a BAT RBLP right-eject action, the gun features a Robertson Composites F-Class stock and Krieger 28″ barrel. With Berger 108gr VLDs, Reloder 15 and Wolf primers, “Yeller” has shot in the ones and low twos at 100 yards.
Jim’s new Dasher has already proven itself in competition. This past weekend, Jim took “Yeller” to Camp Robinson. In the very demanding 1000-yard F-class division, Jim shot 197/6X, 197/0x, and a 199/10X. Yeller’s proud owner tells us: “On the final 199/10X relay the one shot that drifted to the 9 rings was about 1″ out — I called the shot, so the gun performed beautifully! Still learning the right ‘hold’ for this stick, but I can tell you that…having a gun that you have complete confidence in makes a huge difference.”
We asked Falconpilot about his bright yellow color choice. “The stock came in a basic dark gray and I wanted something that I couldn’t lose on the firing line! The color turned out better than I hoped. The paint is PPG Lemon Ice Yellow, with PPG Clear. I shot a base coat of white, then the Lemon Ice, then clear. Special thanks to Howard Pitts at Pitts Precision for chambering another perfect chamber. A huge thanks to my shooting buddy and friend, Matt Owens of ARKCO Customs for helping me pillar bed the stock, and the use of his equipment. His gun is next, mine was the test subject for us, as neither one of us had ever pillar-bedded a rifle before. The result shown on the target (below) show that we got it right!”
 “Yeller” Dasher Gun Specs:
6mm Dasher, .269″ neck, .104 freebore
BAT MB Right Bolt, Left Port, Right Eject
Kreiger 28″, 1.250″ straight, 1:8″ twist
Robertson SG&Y F-Class Stock
Jewell Trigger, Bat Trigger Guard
Nightforce NXS 12-42×56, CH-3, Bat Rings
Loading Tips for the 6mm Dasher
Jim reports: “I’ve found that using Varget while fire-forming forms the cases a little more evenly, but Reloder 15 is my ‘go to’ powder once fire-formed. I resize the brass and bump the shoulders back .0015-.002″ after every firing. Then I’ll tumble-clean the brass. I then use a .265″ bushing in my Redding neck die to resize the necks about 3/4 way down, clean the primer pockets, and reload from there.” As for bullets, Jim adds: “Every Krieger 6mm .237 barrel that I’ve had has shot the 108 especially well.”
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