After a conversation with one of my friends yesterday, who is an accomplished F-Class shooter, I had some thoughts about competition shooting. As many of you know I shoot in our monthly matches at Way Out West and the match is highly competitive.
This led to talking about reloading knowledge and custom guns. Which brought forth questions:
How did you learn to reload?
Custom guns?
Who built it?
Where did their knowledge come from?
Has anyone been recording this information?
Then it dawned on me that this information is handed down word of mouth or between friends. Further thoughts, and I realized much of this science and data can be traced to certain people. Like a genealogy of a shooter, when you begin talking to a competitive shooter they all have a mentor or coach(es) that taught them. Then you talk to the coach / mentor and they had a coach / mentor. And the knowledge is taught down the line with competitors becoming better with each generation.
These links go to one of the best articles written by Dave Scott on benchrest shooting and reloading. The findings from this warehouse have and will continue to shape competitive shooting. Think about the shooters you know and speak to about, reloading, brass prep, powder charge, seating bullets, etc. Where did the knowledge they have come from? I will bet you if you dig deep enough into their knowledge base it will have a link to the Houston warehouse. Shilen, yes that Shilen, from Shilen Barrels, Broughton, yes that Broughton, from Broughton Barrels, and Speedy Gonzales although not mentioned in the article were all able to attend sessions at the Houston warehouse. And guess what, they shared information, and that information was then shared throughout the shooting community and slowly but surely made its way to someone you know.
My point with all of this, is we share information in the shooting community and that information may be right for the time, but only the test of time will prove if that information is ultimately correct.
We will continue to share information and one of the best new sources is Applied Ballistics, and some of the science that they are doing is amazing. The team that Applied has put together is made up of highly scientific minds, and some of the best shooters, and wind callers in shooting today. Using and combining the old and the new together is leading to some very impressive shooting. I am seeing more and more groups under 2 inches at 1000 yards with proper rifle set up, in bags and front rest, and excellent brass prep. The more research done in brass prep the more it becomes apparent that it is the key to good groups. But groups alone don't win longer range matches. I have seen mulitple guns built by the same gunsmith, in the same caliber, using the same reamer, that will even shoot the exact same load with great consistency. Guess what, there is still a shooter attached to one of those rifles and he or she is the difference in winning or losing a match. With that being said, you still have to call wind. Wind calls are extremely important is shooting distance, if you are new to this game I would encourage you to start reading wind, take a spotting scope and your rifle scope and sit at your favorite shooting spot and watch for signs of wind. Watch the grass, trees, dust, mirage, and flags at the range and learn the wind. It takes years to get good at calling wind but it is vitally important to long range shooting. Now don't think this applies to competitive shooting only, because it does not, this translates to hunters as well. If you plan on hunting animals at long range, you need to be able to call wind, even if that Elk has about a 24in square kill zone, in a stiff wind at 500 yards that is a much narrower window, than it is in flat calm conditions. If you have about 2.5 inches of spin drift at 500 when it is flat calm, that will be a much bigger correction with 20 mph of wind. You may be aiming off the Elk completely if you are holding for your wind calls, instead of dialing. By the way, when hunting, I recommend holding for wind and not dialing, meaning you zero your rifle and the only turret you touch is your elevation. I kind of ran off on a tangent here but this is important stuff if you take your hunting seriously, and ever plan on shooting at an animal at longer range.
Back to my original topic, sharing information is how the majority of what we do is passed on from shooter to shooter, even if you are a dedicated you tuber and watch tons of videos on reloading, brass prep, wind calling, etc. remember that person you are watching got the information they are sharing from somewhere, either personal experience, or sharing of information. Is the information they are sharing correct? What is better neck sizing or full length sizing? Depends on what side of the fence you fall on, some say, neck sizing only, leads to better accuracy, others will always full length resize. Which is better? For years benchrest shooters only neck sized, until they had to full length resize and this was what everyone did, but then Speedy Gonzales developed a die that allowed him to set neck tension and full length resize all at the same time. This led to him being almost unbeatable at bench rest matches, until the secret was leaked that he had made a new die. You may know that die as the Type "S" dies that you see today. The "S" is for Speedy die. So yes some of the information may be proven wrong over time, and you may have to make adjustments to your reloading game, but wind calls are still wind calls, and we very rarely shoot in a controlled environment. Use the knowledge that you are able to gather from all your sources, and test it to prove or disprove its usefulness. Then work to be a better wind caller and refine your shooting process. Be repeatable and consistent when setting up to shoot, and watch the wind.
As always to be continued,
Scott
Always Learning......Always Evolving
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