This is a very overdue AAR for the Mammoth Sniper Challenge II that took place at Fort Chaffee in April of 2024. It's very late because life got very busy, but you get what you pay for. I'm posting here to encourage others to get out and shoot cool matches, and to try to provide some useful tips for the first timers.
Going in somewhat blind is a major part of what makes Mammoth special, so I will be intentionally vague about certain things like stage design.
Just so you know what my perspective is, I have a background in USPSA and 3-gun, but I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to precision shooting. I shot my first ever PRS match in preparation for Mammoth, which highlighted how totally different the two are. I shot Mammoth twice before this, but 6 and 7 years ago respectively so the match had evolved a bit since then. My teammate and I have finished in the top 10 all three times that we've done it.
We'll start off with gear. There are plenty of good gear lists out there so I won't be exhaustive, but more hit on what I feel are the most important parts (besides wet wipes and socks).
Guns:
Primary shooter (me): 6mm Creedmoor
-Terminus Zeus
-Bartlein 22" barrel
-Manners LRH stock
-Nightforce ATACR 5-25, Mil-XT
-Norma 107gr BTHP
-Sidearm: Glock 19 with RMR and PMM comp, in a Safariland ALS. Federal Syntech PCC ammo
Secondary shooter used a PRS-style .223 bolt action. MDT ACC chassis, Razor gen III 6-36, and used 80gr handloads. This thing sucked to carry but was a dream to shoot.
This was my first time as primary shooter, in the past I had used a AR-10 in .308 and a .223 bolt gun as a secondary shooter. Upgrading to the 6mm was a welcome change, it performed great out to the 1150 yard maximum in the match. My rifle is kind of an awkward middle ground, in that it's too heavy to be proper hunting gun and too light to be a proper match gun. But it performed great for this match, carried well and shot even better. The Terminus action is fantastic and performed extremely well under some rough conditions. The ATACR 5-25 is my favorite scope I've ever owned, it's big and heavy but I will happily bear it for the performance. I wish this stock folded and came with a longer ARCA rail, but other than that it performed well. Pistol shooting is overlooked by some people at this match, but the pistol shots required are very challenging. Get comfortable with long shots on small targets, and practice your strong hand only/ weak hand only. IIRC all of the pistol shooting was Virginia count, so you gotta make every single one count. Lots of teams did great with their rifles but placed poorly due to dropping tons of pistol points.
Target detection and identification is a major part of this match, so good observation tools are just as important as a good rifle. You see a lot of the more professional teams (taxpayer-funded) using full-house spotting scope setups, with slaved LRFs and such. My team was a bit low budget for that, so for observation we ended up using:
-Sig Kilo10K RF binoculars (old gen)
-Sig Zulu 6 18x stabilized binos
-Vortex Razor HD 4000 LRF (as a backup)
I was skeptical of bringing the Zulu binos due to the aded weight, but they ended up being extremely useful for both target detection and spotting. There is always only one team member shooting at a time, so spotting for your teammate is pretty much mandatory. Targets are typically setup at the top of berms or in front of dense greenery so seeing any splash in the event of a miss is a rare luxury, and some targets are setup in difficult loophole type situations that are hard to see with just a riflescope. The stabilized Zulus gave us tripod-like stability and enough magnification to locate targets and see trace, but were much faster/ more flexible than a tripod/ spotting scope setup would have been. You're often forced to shoot from awkward and cramped positions, so being able to just raise a pair of binos was way faster than jockeying a tripod setup would have been. You can also just hand or toss the binos to each other when trading roles, which saved a good deal of time.
One thing that had changed a lot since I had last shot Mammoth was the difficulty of ranging targets. The match was sponsored by Vortex and heavily featured their new weapon mounted rangefinder, so this may have been done intentionally as part of that marketing campaign. Targets were often staged with foreground obstacles or through loopholes so that only a LRF with very narrow beam divergence would give you the correct range. For an example, think of a loopholed wall at 600m, and a target visible through the wall at 725m. Many LRFs would repeatedly return a range of 600m, since the beam divergence is bigger than the loophole. Trying to get a range through thick brush or grass in the foreground was also common. The Vortex LRF performs great under normal circumstances, but struggled with loopholes and with small targets. The Kilo10k sucks as binoculars, but is a fantastic rangefinder. The narrow beam divergence and fine reticle were great at picking out small and dull-colored targets, and did great at ignoring foreground distractions. The only gripe I have about the Kilo is that if it goes to sleep and you have to wake it back up/ turn it on during the stage, the startup is painfully slow. It is only like 3 seconds in reality, but when you're trying to get a range on the clock, it feels like you're staring at that damned Sig logo for ages waiting for it to boot up. We figured out to have the Kilo in your hand and be fingering the buttons to keep it awake when about to start a stage.
A rifle-mounted LRF would definitely be the cleanest way of doing things for a match like this, but for my team that just wasn't financially in the cards this year. It's worth noting that all of the teams who beat us this year all used Wilcox WMLRFs. I gotta get my hands on one of those...
Other important shooting gear:
-Armageddon gear Sticky pint-sized game changer with spexlite:
This bag can't compete with a genuine heavy bag if you're doing PRS or whatever, but it was perfect for this match. The grippy surfaces made it great for sloped metal props that would have been tough with a normal bag, and it was great as a rear bag for the rare times that I got to use a bipod. Also made a fantastic pillow at night, like better than my actual pillow at home.
-Leofoto SA-324C tripod w/ MA-30 head:
Yeah yeah I know, Chyna. But I needed a tripod on short notice for this match and RRS wasn't in stock (thank god). I've actually been very surprised by how nice this thing is, it's rock solid for the weight and has held up great. My partner has the actual RRS setup that this tripod is copying, and we used them interchangeably at the match. If you look closely you can see the difference in fit and finish, but on the clock you really couldn't notice a difference in functionality. A lot of guys forego tripods for Mammoth to save weight and bulk, but in my opinion they are worth the weight. I only actually used it as intended on two stages, as in actually locked my rifle into the ball head. But on those stages nothing else would have really sufficed, and the tripods were useful in some other unconventional ways. I used it as a rear support a couple of times which is rock steady. One stage involved shooting from the backseat of an army MRZR, with nothing to support the rifle and no room to setup a tripod. Most guys threw their ruck on the seat and tried to use that as a support, with mixed results. We ended up half-extending our tripods and laying them horizontally from seat back to seat back and using that as a rifle rest, which I think contributed greatly to us doing very well on that stage. Tripods were also useful for rigging up shade in exposed waiting areas during hot weather.
-Arbor arms nut ruck:
Lots of guys used chest rigs or mounted mag pouches to their ruck waistbelts, but I just threw on this nut ruck before each stage to hold my rifle mags and LRF. It wasn't the most high-speed solution, but worked very nicely and folded up small in the ruck when not being used.
-Safariland ALS holster:
Losing control of a gun is grounds for a DQ, so it's worth the weight and bulk to bring a good active-retention holster. Over the course of 3 Mammoths I've seen at least as many teams get sent home due to a pistol falling out of a holster, so it ain't no joke.
A note on food: a lot of guys try to save weight on food and this is a terrible idea. My first time shooting Mammoth I brought something like 2400 calories a day, and it wasn't nearly enough. This time I brought at least 4500 calories per day and I still lost 8lbs over the course of the match. Temps fluctuated between 45 and 85F so I brought plenty of electrolytes, (liquid IV, Dripdrop, Tailwind), but I wish I had brought more. Several teams had to drop out due to cramps and heat-related injuries, and it was not uncommon to see guys throwing up in the ditch after the rucks. I packed Peak Nutrition freeze-dried meals, they're my favorite brand due to flavor and man-sized portions. Each day also had its own little "extras" bag, with snack bars, electrolyte packets, instant coffee, energy gummies, etc.
Finally, and possibly most importantly, put a pair of foamy earplugs in your camp kit. The campsite can get a little loud at night.
I'd be happy to answer any questions, and shout out to anybody who was there. Mammoth attracts some of the best men in this whole country, I've never walked away from one without some badass new friends.
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