Well, they’ve given you a decent short short view of things, but there’s really so much more in just about every aspect of precision long range shooting. I’m typing with one finger on a phone, so I cannot write a true summary from my perspective, but I’ll give it a few posts and see if I can slowly throw some light on the subject.
Oh, and I was around since about 2008, but lost my original account during one of the transitions. I think it was the move to Scout but don’t actually care enough to check. I only provide this info since you asked for a certain time perspective.
Here’s my general summary, with individual category summaries to follow if I don’t lose track or fall asleep before then:
IN GENERAL:
There have been huge strides made in just about every category of this discipline that you can imagine in the past ten years. These include optics, actions, barrels, stocks and chassis, cartridges, ballistic applications, bags, bipods, tripods, factory match ammunition, bullet technology and more, including some sub-categories that didn’t even exist before you left. I cannot pretend that I can or will be able touch on all of them, much less remember.
Just know that in general, ‘entry level’ optics and rifle systems, included direct from factory are vastly improved and one can literally buy an off the shelf rifle and mid-grade optic and easily hit 1000+ yard targets using factory ammunition. This assumes familiarity with rifles and shooting in general, a good location to do so and a shooting partner, coach, buddy or instructor that can get you there. That’s assuming you are new to long range shooting.
Today’s $1000 scopes will do everything that all but the most top end scopes did back then and will do it well. There are a number of barrel makers making very consistent barrels now and technology improvements have kept the cost within reason for them. The big action names from then are mostly still around in some form or another, but now there are a tremendous number of other great choices offering all sorts of options and additional things that you may or may not see as needed.
There’s a general trend towards the use of chassis systems instead of classic stock formats, though there are still some great stock builders around. Most stocks, even the more conventional styles are composite, Fiberglas, polymer, carbon fiber or some combination of them and offer everything from the most conventional feel to almost chassis like looks and feel with almost any option you’re willing to pay for.
Along with the advent of chassis systems and the proliferation of cheek risers in almost all formats, even the prone shooting position and scope height over bore have changed, mostly for the better. There is still a big focus on proper shooting fundamentals, but there are also all sorts of crutches out there that allow today’s new shooter to get away with sloppy shooting and poor fundamentals and still slap steel at 1000. That includes vastly improved options for triggers, with many opting for adjustable triggers set for about 8 ounces.
Speaking of steel and the general move to its use, availability and low cost have made it easy for even joe poor to own and hang some good AR500 steel for practice. This is generally a good thing, but since many are just hung up on ringing that steel and sometimes the finer sighting in and focus issues get lost in the sauce. Oh yeah, almost forgot target impact indicating lights have changed the competition scene so that now people can shoot 25+ pound mouse fart rifles in cartridges like 6BR, 22 Dasher and other low energy long distance projectiles and still top the charts.
Most of the newer Gen of shooters, other than the ELR guys, have never shot anything with more recoil than a 6.5 Creedmoor and consider guys shooting Gods cartridges like .308, .30-06, .270, and .260 to be has been dinosaurs. Competition guns are most often set up with full truck axle barrels, shooting a variant of the 6BR, with extra heavy actions, chassis with added weights, Arca plate and rail and an 8 oz. trigger pull. Dinosaurs tend to call that Barricade Benchrest.
Okay, that’s enough for now and I haven’t even gotten into any specifics.