I took this class this weekend and wanted to share my little AAR:
My only 'formal' marksmanship training has been through the Army in Basic and doing door gunnery for our aircraft (those techniques don't carry over to precision shooting too well for some reason). This was my first Shooting Class I had taken so I wasn't really sure what to expect. The class members ranged from the guys who had shot longer ranges and understood basics concepts of precision shooting to guys who hadn't shot more than 100 yards so we had a wide range of different experience! There were mainly .308 Win and 6.5 Creedmoor rifles though a few .223 AR's were mixed in. I shot my .308 AR and it was a great learning experience trying different techniques to 'drive the rifle'. There were a handful of other AR's but mostly bolt guns. We started out doing the basics and I felt a little underwhelmed as I had learned most of it from my own reading (especially here) and watching video's etc but this was Precision Rifle 1 so it had to be covered. We then started going into the data books which I had owned but never used, partially because I wasn't quite sure where to start with it and partially because I wasn't sure how and what data was important to log. The class was great because it was taught by the guy who started and runs Impact Data Books so he could answer all of our silly questions!
We then proceeded to get up on the line to 'confirm' zero... I know I was pretty embarrassed when my rifle I had been shooting quite a bit shot its first group about 1 1/2" high. We spent some time getting zeroed as several people had rifles which hadn't been shot or zeroed or that were working on getting their rifles set up correctly, peoples cheek welds proved to be a often overlooked problem. The drills we shot at 100 really helped me learn some techniques and training to use on my own range to keep my skills sharp, even if a 500+ yard range isn't available to me. We shot the 1/2" dot drill (which are the devil) and it made me really focus on my techniques, though I frequently found myself getting sloppy on it by shot 15 or so. I have already printed off several of the targets we used to train with and will be taking them with me on range trips from now on to practice with all of my precision rifles.
We then moved into getting our 200 and 300 yard dope. I felt pretty confident in this and ran the ballistics for my ammo to make up my preliminary dope chart and then began shooting... both my 200 and 300 were off (by quite a bit) and it puzzled me why. I ended up using the factory dope chart for 168gr AMAX ammo to get me close (I was shooting 178gr BTHP handloads in a 20" AR) and tweaked as needed, I was surprised to find that my drop was .1-.3 mils less than 168 AMAX at 300+ yards but I didn't complain! That basically wrapped up day 1 of class.
Day 2 we started talking more advanced techniques like wind calls and shooter dialog. I was sitting next to Nick and we seem to talk similar and make similar calls so I was ready to start spotting for each other. I ended up spotting for another guy in the class and it was really great to work with someone I was unfamiliar with as I found myself being much more careful and precise about what I told him. We worked as pairs getting dope for each other out to 500 yards and then moved in to 200 and 300 to reconfirm dope from the previous day. I was able to get my 400 and 500 yard dope fairly quickly using the 168gr AMAX dope chart and modifying to my rifle (subtracting a little out to range) We started talking dialing vs hold overs and shooting with hold over and unders (hold unders make my brain hurt) I was really looking to holdovers as I was using the EBR-2C reticle with christmas tree so it was very simple for me to see what I was holding for both elevation and windage. We all missed some shots from either dialing wrong, not dialing, or holding wrong. It was a lot of good training and helped me feel more confident about switching targets on the fly.
We practiced some barrier shooting and I felt pretty confident about that, I learned some techniques and how to tweak positions to give a good solid rest regardless of position (sitting, kneeling, standing) They also talked improvised shooting positions which I found incredibly interesting! We finished out shooting a bunch of multiple target engagements using a variety of techniques (dialing, holdovers, hold unders and a speed shoot) We shot a few competitions at the end (which I failed miserably at) and wrapped up with a cleaning class.
I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. My total round count fired was 168 rounds and my 308 AR made it though with no malfunctions (who knew!) I was fortunate to stay at Michael's Friday and Saturday night (thanks again!) and Nick and I quizzed Rob a lot... I would gladly take this class again and highly recommend it to others. Next time I take it I will most likely shoot a bolt gun because I think there would be more training value in it (practicing rapid bolt manipulations etc...) I had been pretty busy with my business so I was rushing through loading ammo for it at the last minute and wished I would have just bought ammo like I originally said I would.
I would like to thank CCA and Team Blaster for coming out and spending time with us to teach us, they did a great job and I learned a lot! I look forward to the next time Team Blaster comes out to teach a class (either PR1 again or maybe a PR2....?)
