Well, Duh

/ Performance Improvements / By

The working title for this article is well, duh

Much of the shooting I have been doing recently has been precision based. Shooting the low and slow stuff has been a good reminder of some things that I think many of us take for granted. Maybe it is just mid-grade shooters like me, but you may recognize yourself in this article. If you do, you are not alone. If you do not here is a hat tip.

Knight’s Armament LPR

Here is the story in case you missed it. After our move last year, I ended up closer to an incredibly good range facility called Port Malabar. They have lots of bays and a local prize of a 600-yard range. The 600-yard range has acoustic target capability that even gives you a rough muzzle velocity at 600 provided you are still supersonic. Cool, I am down. But… Port Malabar is all in with both NRA and Appleseed. They are also very cognizant of the encroaching housing on the facility. Combined, it makes for an interesting combination of good people wanting people to shoot well with full on Safety and gun handling enforcement both of those organizations are famous for.

Anyway, to get the ability to use the 600 range is a process. Part of this process is shooting events on the 600 range, which is where the sudden F Class came from. They run a club level F Class match every month as well as other things my blaster does not meet the rule requirements for. There is absolutely zero effect from saying “I am Ash Hess” by the way. Blank stare and blinking eyes. Oh well, I tried. The goal is to prove my ability to be unsupervised on the 600 range.

So back to F Class. The F Class target is ½ minute X ring, 1 MOA 10 ring, and 2 MOA 9 ring. I do not know any other sizes because it does not matter below 9 is a hard miss. Knowing this, I dropped in behind the LPR and went to work. After all, I am Ash Hess. Guess what, the targets did not care who I was either.

Now to the reason of the article. Lessons relearnt.

  1. Shot process. I cannot scream this loud enough. Have your process industrial level repeatable. Every part. The same. Every time. 60 times over 60 minutes repeatable.
  2. When you apply number 1, you will get to see the failures in other areas.
  3. When you are asking more from the machine than it was designed for, you see the gaps.
  4. Extreme Spread and Deviation matter.
  5. Wind speed matters. 4-6 MPH can be translated into 9-X. Is it 4 or 6?
  6. It takes time for the bullet to accelerate. That is happening during the first recoil impulse.
  7. Even slight disruption of the rifle during the above acceleration can change your impact.
  8. Muzzle brakes and the KAC MAMS do not make friends here. Quite the opposite in fact.

When your targets are 2-3 MOA many of the above get covered up. You can make up speed in other areas provided you can get the hit eventually. Now, if the rifle were printing .5 MOA with uber low SD, it would not be as hard. But since mine is not, execution must be perfect.

Scores for the day

So, what started out as an adventure in getting a place to shoot more than 100 yards has turned into lessons in shooting to high levels. Then, it will morph into applying that back onto Quantified Performance match style. Right now, its mediocre at best. Quantifiable unexceptional.  
But I am Ash Hess

See, nobody cares.

Shoot Fast, Shoot Far.