On Apr 26th, 2014, I attended my first official F-Class match at the Plantation range in Bellingham WA. It was a mid-range prone match at 300 yards. Before this, I had attended a practice 600 yard F-Class shoot at the Spokane Rifle Club.
I reached the range at around 7:30 AM and it was drizzling slightly but the air was calm. I registered for the match as an unclassified F-T/R shooter. By that time other participants had started showing up. I was assigned position number 6 on the line. Soon enough, the line was crowded with about 30 shooters and their equipment. Shooters was divided into 3 groups of relays and I fell into relay 1. Other people shooting at my position were David and Beverly. Beverly got the pit duty first and David got to scoring.
There were a lot of high power shooters and I was surprised to see many young boys and girls.
At 9, the first match started. The wind was quite calm although I could see one of the three flags picking up some wind intermittently. Before the first match, everybody was allowed 5 minutes for unlimited sighters. I shot about 7 rounds before I was hitting the X.
Now the X at 300 yards for F-Class is a 1.5 inch diameter ring. That makes it a 1/2 MOA target. Considerably bigger than the Benchrest targets but smaller than the high power targets.
I was shooting a Savage F-T/R rifle in .308 Win with a 30" heavy barrel. I had added a Karsten adjustable cheek rest and a lightweight ski bipod called the 'MPOD'. For a shooting mat, I was using a drag bag with tarp underneath it. I had to put a couple of mats under the bipod to elevate it enough so I get on the target. The reason for this elevation was that I had a high rear bag (Protektor - Deluxe Bumble bee).
For the ammunition, I used Norma brass, Winchester large rifle primers and Hornady A-Max 155 grain bullets with 46.0 grains of powder behind it. The neck tension was approximately .002 and the necks were not turned. This combination gives me a velocity of 3030 fps with my 30" barrel.
I shot the first match with enough X's but also enough 9s and got a score of 193-6X.
After that it was my turn for next 3 strings of fire to do the pit service. By that time, it was raining quite a bit and I ended up being very cold and wet in the pits.
I came back and looked at the scores and my heart sank. Almost everybody had better scores than I. Thats when I realized that this is no ordinary crowd. And this was just the beginning of that realization.
My next 2 strings went 193-7X and 197-8X. Wind had picked up during the fourth string two of my shots landed on the 8 ring and I only managed to shoot a 188-3X ending up with a final score of 771-24X.
Almost everybody including the high power shooters shot considerably better (200-54X !!) than I and it was a very humbling experience.
Later talking to Stefan Issacs and looking up information on the other shooters, I came to realize that most of my competition was either US or Canadian current or former Palma team members. Some hold national records and some are junior national champions.
Who knew AC/DC were so right when they said "It's a long way to the top (if you wanna rock 'n' roll).
I reached the range at around 7:30 AM and it was drizzling slightly but the air was calm. I registered for the match as an unclassified F-T/R shooter. By that time other participants had started showing up. I was assigned position number 6 on the line. Soon enough, the line was crowded with about 30 shooters and their equipment. Shooters was divided into 3 groups of relays and I fell into relay 1. Other people shooting at my position were David and Beverly. Beverly got the pit duty first and David got to scoring.
There were a lot of high power shooters and I was surprised to see many young boys and girls.
At 9, the first match started. The wind was quite calm although I could see one of the three flags picking up some wind intermittently. Before the first match, everybody was allowed 5 minutes for unlimited sighters. I shot about 7 rounds before I was hitting the X.
Now the X at 300 yards for F-Class is a 1.5 inch diameter ring. That makes it a 1/2 MOA target. Considerably bigger than the Benchrest targets but smaller than the high power targets.
I was shooting a Savage F-T/R rifle in .308 Win with a 30" heavy barrel. I had added a Karsten adjustable cheek rest and a lightweight ski bipod called the 'MPOD'. For a shooting mat, I was using a drag bag with tarp underneath it. I had to put a couple of mats under the bipod to elevate it enough so I get on the target. The reason for this elevation was that I had a high rear bag (Protektor - Deluxe Bumble bee).
For the ammunition, I used Norma brass, Winchester large rifle primers and Hornady A-Max 155 grain bullets with 46.0 grains of powder behind it. The neck tension was approximately .002 and the necks were not turned. This combination gives me a velocity of 3030 fps with my 30" barrel.
I shot the first match with enough X's but also enough 9s and got a score of 193-6X.
After that it was my turn for next 3 strings of fire to do the pit service. By that time, it was raining quite a bit and I ended up being very cold and wet in the pits.
I came back and looked at the scores and my heart sank. Almost everybody had better scores than I. Thats when I realized that this is no ordinary crowd. And this was just the beginning of that realization.
My next 2 strings went 193-7X and 197-8X. Wind had picked up during the fourth string two of my shots landed on the 8 ring and I only managed to shoot a 188-3X ending up with a final score of 771-24X.
Almost everybody including the high power shooters shot considerably better (200-54X !!) than I and it was a very humbling experience.
Later talking to Stefan Issacs and looking up information on the other shooters, I came to realize that most of my competition was either US or Canadian current or former Palma team members. Some hold national records and some are junior national champions.
Who knew AC/DC were so right when they said "It's a long way to the top (if you wanna rock 'n' roll).
