Flatland Precision Steel Challenge
Presented by TAG Firearms
By les voth
PRS again, eh? Yup. Last weekend’s Saturday I unlimbered the Elite FDE colored chassis in 6.5 Creedmoor, and tried again . . . My dear wife, Gayle, patiently accompanied me to this match, so I could show off in front of her. Either that or it was - Be Kind To Dumb Animals Week - and she had enough sympathy to help me drag my gear around the range.
We hadn’t been anywhere special together since we had the boys 26 years ago. In fact, as we sped westward across the North Dakota prairie, we couldn’t remember running away together since 1991, the year we got married. So this was special, even if I fell on my face - metaphorically speaking of course . . . It was fitting that where we went - there was a whole lotta shootin’ goin’ on!
TAG Firearms outdid themselves by providing a course of fire that allowed even those near the rear of the pack to hit targets on a windless day. There were many faces I recognized from work, matches across the country, and that morning’s stop at the Mandan Flying J.
Shooters from our Squad 7 invaded a couple spots in the Top 10, with Luke Albin taking 6th, and the newly minted senior, Shawn Anderson, taking Top Senior, again. I finally figured out how to make my finishes sound a little better - 6th senior sounds better than 59th. Hey, works for me!
I learned how to adjust my magwell, thanks to one of my squadmates. My magazine turned my rifle into a single-shot for a few stages, with the fix a mystery. A mystery no longer, that knowledge will be carried into the next Cartridge Conflict I inflict upon myself.
The 6.5 Creedmoor experiment is turning out quite well. Sierra 142s shoot lights out! One guy a few years ago, when witnessing mag issues with my 6mmBR, said, “If you can get one in the pipe, you can shoot!” Those mag issues were solved back then, and these will be solved, too. This 30” 1.25” straight 6.5 is crazy accurate!
Helping me shoot are three eye surgeries on each eye, and a Vortex Gen III Razor which I acquired this spring. I’ve never been able to see this well in my life and it’s made competition fun again. I said everything was screwed into an ACC Elite from MDT, already. An Impact 737R w/75 degree bolt was the action holding up the scope in a Hawkins one piece TM mount.
Bixn Andy is my trigger of choice. As the Bixn Andy trigger repair/warranty guy for Bullet Central maybe some folks would think it is natural to choose the brand. Not so. I’ve used many other brands of triggers, and could use anything else now, but for this game I think it is the best trigger(Eric
).
Here’s one reason why: It is a very useful/helpful thing to spot your impacts, so that you know what correction to make on that next shot. I’m now shooting a 6.5 Creedmoor at 23 pounds. Yup, some guys run lighter rifles in the same cartridge and do real well. But I’m seeing almost all of my impacts as close as 300 yards. In fact, when I zero @100 yards many times I can see the paper puncher at work.
I give the credit to the follow-through that Bix triggers allow you, so you don’t pull the rifle out of line during the bullet’s flight. I say this because, really, if you measure it, a lot of people use a lot more trigger force to pull their trigger than the 3.5 ounces their trigger is set at - even me, when I’m a little wound up on the clock.
Case in point: On a prone stage on Saturday it was easy to let the crosshairs settle dead still on the plate. So I’m doing that, pulling the trigger and gaining hits. But at one target all I was doing was admiring how steady the crosshairs were, until I realized that steadiness had become the goal - not hitting the object in the objective.
Here I am, silently screaming in my head, “Pull the trigger you MORON!” And the moron applied about 16 pounds of pressure to a 13 ounce trigger. Fortunately the claws of MDT’s CKYE POD Single Pull bipod counteracted that vicious act, and the 142 lost its jacket in a cloud of lead dust on the steel object quartered by the RAZOR’s reticle.
Dawn’s Early Light
A fence? Or an edifice? Definitely a barrier.
Hawkins Precision’s unreleased data card . . .
Shawn “The Old Guy” Anderson and his tripod.
Gayle “The Gear Guardian" about to squeeze her head back into her ear muffs.
(For me) The Dreaded Tank Traps.
It’s all uphill from here.