Benchrest vs F-class and other genres of shooting Comps?

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harrykane140693

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While back I was on Benchrest.com shooting forum and blurted out something like "don't benchrest rifles pretty much shoot by themselves?" WOW! Did I get an eye full from those guys. But after seeing these new coaxial rests and their Edgewood bags it sure looks like those type of rifles are strapped in pretty good, there's no way of the rifle twisting, just a fore and aft movement is all you get, they shoot their 5 rounds in seconds instead of mins. usually not making any adjustments to their rest if the rifle is tracking great, even when I shoot in my Slingshot rest I get done and tell my buddies i didn't that nice group, my rifle did. With other types of shooting there seems to be more shooter input, after all, most BR guys shoot free recoil, where's the shooter input there cept for aligning their rest to get the scope on target, minimal touching if none at all cept for touching off that 1.5oz trigger.
Then there's this guy I shoot along side that puts down F-class shooters because he feels they're all shooting junk, in his words.


Once read on the hide where someone said BR is all about who has the best handloads, is this pretty much the truth?
So what is your take on BR shooting vs F-class, High power or the tactical matches we have out there? And why do the BR guys get so pissed when I tell them their rifles shoot by themselves?
 
First post = poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

I guess if it were so easy and the guns just shoot themselves, then wouldn’t every match end with all shooters tied for first?
 
I do not own any firearm that fires by itself. I have seen some - I generally refer to those as spray and pray type units. When you can put 5 shots inside a .50 dot at 300 yards come speak to us.
 
And they often still do not go through the same hole exactly.

Things like mirage and normal air movement never really go away.
They can be very low but trying to do the 'express spray' before conditions change is rarely all that successful.

Shooting live varmints adds the 'no practice shots' into the mix also.

But a field of crops acts as a wind system better than any finite number of flags.
You can even see the air traveling in 'waves' across the field.
 
harrykane140693 said:
While back I was on Benchrest.com shooting forum and blurted out something like "don't benchrest rifles pretty much shoot by themselves?" WOW! Did I get an eye full from those guys. But after seeing these new coaxial rests and their Edgewood bags it sure looks like those type of rifles are strapped in pretty good, there's no way of the rifle twisting, just a fore and aft movement is all you get, they shoot their 5 rounds in seconds instead of mins. usually not making any adjustments to their rest if the rifle is tracking great, even when I shoot in my Slingshot rest I get done and tell my buddies i didn't that nice group, my rifle did. With other types of shooting there seems to be more shooter input, after all, most BR guys shoot free recoil, where's the shooter input there cept for aligning their rest to get the scope on target, minimal touching if none at all cept for touching off that 1.5oz trigger.
Then there's this guy I shoot along side that puts down F-class shooters because he feels they're all shooting junk, in his words.


Once read on the hide where someone said BR is all about who has the best handloads, is this pretty much the truth?
So what is your take on BR shooting vs F-class, High power or the tactical matches we have out there? And why do the BR guys get so pissed when I tell them their rifles shoot by themselves?
Click to expand...
Obviously there are a lot of people out there who do not understand benchrest at all. This is not a criticism, just an observation. Hopefully we have a teachable moment here. Competitive benchrest rifles ( I am speaking of short range group competition here.) have to be capable of shooting five shot groups that are less than .2 center to center. In order to do that the loads that are shot in them generally have to be adjusted as the ambient conditions change through the day. This is why group shooters load at the range, between matches. Maintaining this state of tune is challenging, and if someone does not, he will not win. Then there is the matter of the wind. When your standards of performance are this tight, being able to read the wind and time one's shots accordingly is an absolute requirement. Even with a line of wind flags in front of you this is not an easy task. Shooters who have not used wind flags are pretty much universally clueless as to the complexity of wind patterns and how rapidly they may change. Many times conditions do not allow rapidly shooting a group, (speaking of short range here) and shooters have to either wait for a condition to return, or use their sighter target to determine the correct hold off for a shot, or shots. In any case, saying that shooting small from the bench and a good rest is easy is like saying that it is easy to drive fast in a race car. Of course it is, but in a race, everyone is driving a race car. Benchrest rifles are like race cars in that they are purpose build for one thing, and their performance depends on having a good driver. People who have never done a thing are not the best source of information. I suggest that you attend a match and then try to recreate what those shooters did on your own if you think that it is so easy. It may be more difficult than you realize.
 
As a fairly old and experienced shooter, who is fairly new to benchrest, I can only say "IT'S A LOT HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!"


Yes the rifle is quite capable, but the shooter must choose the right bullet, the right powder, the right neck thickness and tension, do the proper reloading techniques then aim it properly, and squeeze the trigger at the right time, depending on the wind. That's the easy part.


Now the wind changes and you have to make your second shot. That's the harder part, and I'm learning, but have a long way to go.


Now the temperature and humidity change. And that's the really hard part, which I have to struggle with.


If it were easy, everybody would tie for first place.
 
There's a little bit of truth in what harrykane posted....just a little bit....and none of us can say what it is that's the truth because none of us know.
 
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Here's the difference...

I disagree that group is what benchrest is all about though. BR for Score rifles are virtually the same as group and the man or woman that screws up least, usually will win at either. That's a discussion for another day, though.

Either way, both are similar to Nascar in that while the equipment is very much alike, as much as we can make that truth. The fact is, as much engineering as goes into building two cars that are identical in every aspect, they are not the same. Same goes for rifles...Some are just better than others. More importantly, the drivers are not equal in either sport. There are drivers that will take a car or gun to the top and there are drivers that will take a winning car or rifle backward. Sometimes it just comes down to it being your day or not but mostly, the cream rises to the top in both sports. In BR, you are driving against Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty and Jimmy Johnson. So, when you finish at or near the top in this sport, you definitely should be proud of that accomplishment.



miketarg01.jpg
 
mwezell said:
I disagree that group is what benchrest is all about though. BR for Score rifles are virtually the same as group and the man or woman that screws up least, usually will win at either. That's a discussion for another day, though.

Either way, both are similar to Nascar in that while the equipment is very much alike, as much as we can make that truth. The fact is, as much engineering as goes into building two cars that are identical in every aspect, they are not the same. Same goes for rifles...Some are just better than others. More importantly, the drivers are not equal in either sport. There are drivers that will take a car or gun to the top and there are drivers that will take a winning car or rifle backward. Sometimes it just comes down to it being your day or not but mostly, the cream rises to the top in both sports. In BR, you are driving against Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty and Jimmy Johnson. So, when you finish at or near the top in this sport, you definitely should be proud of that accomplishment.



miketarg01.jpg
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Mike, you know everybody shoots like that. Lay your rifle on the rest, close your eyes and touch off the trigger. All shooting disciplines have their own skills and shooting a rifle is the one common thing, but with different rules. Don't matter who the shooter happens to be, he ain't going to win at all of them even with the best equipment.
These threads prove nothing to a stranger. He needs to shoot a match, but not with the keyboard.
 
Butch Lambert said:
Mike, you know everybody shoots like that. Lay your rifle on the rest, close your eyes and touch off the trigger. All shooting disciplines have their own skills and shooting a rifle is the one common thing, but with different rules. Don't matter who the shooter happens to be, he ain't going to win at all of them even with the best equipment.
These threads prove nothing to a stranger. He needs to shoot a match, but not with the keyboard.
Click to expand...

You're right, Butch. Nuttin' to it cept actually doin it.
 
harrykane140693 said:
While back I was on Benchrest.com shooting forum and blurted out something like "don't benchrest rifles pretty much shoot by themselves?" WOW! Did I get an eye full from those guys...


....And why do the BR guys get so pissed when I tell them their rifles shoot by themselves?
Click to expand...

The fact is because they don't shoot by themselves.

You can take the best benchrest rifle on the line, tuned to do the best that it can and if the shooter squeezes the trigger off in the wrong conditions that bullet will not go into the group. To do well at a match, the rifle has to be capable of winning, the load has to be capable, but most of all the shooter has to be as well. When everything is working and you are watching and seeing your flags, it can be as easy as it can be. In bowling, they call that being in the zone. I think pretty much the same thing applies to benchrest. Everything just seems to work. But, if you aren't seeing the flag pickup that puts that bullet out of the group it can be a very frustrating sport. My targets at Midland this last weekend show just that. 4 shot groups at 200 that would be teen to .3's or .4's with one shot out of the group making them into .4's, 5's, 6's or 7's or larger.

Benchrest shooting is about reading the wind, judging when to shoot and most of all when not to shoot.

All you have to do is get out a ballistics program and run some hypothetical situations. Lets say we are shooting a Berger 65gr BT at 3350 fps and we want see how far a bullet will drift with a 10 mph 45 degree crosswind with a .255 ballistic coefficient and then see the wind drift with a 11 mph and a 12 mph wind. I ran the ballistics for just that and the difference in wind drift for each 1 mph wind change is .3" at 200 yards. The wind picks up another 1 mph and the bullet drifts an additional .3". So, you are shooting your group, you have 3 bullets down range at 200 in a nice little .275" sized group. The wind picks up that 1 mph and you think the flags look the same and you shoot with your original aiming hold. Your group just increased to a .575". It picks up another 1 mph, and again you don't see it, you shoot and that .575" that you had through 4 shots just became a .875". If instead of shooting that last shot in that extra one mph pickup lets say the flags completely reverse 90 degrees just as you pull the trigger which can happen and the wind speed is back at that 10 mph that you were shooting when you had them in that .275". The wind drift for a 10 mph 45 degree crosswind is 2.8" of wind drift from a dead calm wind speed. The flags reverse from left to right at 45 degrees to going right to left at 45 degrees at the same 10 mph wind speed. You take that .575" group that you had going and you add on not only that first 2.8" that the bullet was drifting to the right from your original aiming point, but you add another 2.8" and your group just went from being a .575" to being a 6.175" group. Thankfully, that's pretty much an extreme and very rare to see someone shoot that sized group. Then again you don't shoot when the flags reverse, you see the change happen and you don't squeeze the trigger for that fifth shot. You wait until your flags come back to the conditions you were originally shooting, you squeeze the trigger and the fifth shot goes into that original .275" portion of the group and you wind up with a group that still measures the .575" that the fourth shot made it measure. You waited out that reverse that would have killed your agg and wound up with a group size that didn't hurt you too badly.

That is what shooting benchrest is. And another thing to remember is that there is a 7 minute time limit to get your 5 shots on the record target. I imagine you've heard the term shooting in match conditions. When you hear that it sounds at first that it's going out in shooting in a dead calm or something like that in almost laboratory conditions. Match conditions are whatever the wind, rain, mirage, heat, cold or whatever weather conditions you have from the time that the first commence fire is sounded at usually 8 am until the final cease fire around 4 or 5 pm.

If that sounds like something you'd like to try, then by all means give it a go. You are welcome to come out and see just how well these rifles shoot themselves. You'll find its a lot harder than what you might think. It's very challenging, a lot of fun, at times rewarding when you shoot that little dot and frustrating at times when it goes out an inch and you meet a great bunch of crusty old codgers who can shoot a benchrest rifle with the best of them.
 
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Every Shooting Discipline has a particular "quirk" that makes winning difficult.

The quirk in Benchrest is you are no better than the Rifle sitting in the bags. If that Rifle is locked into a .300 agging capability, there is nothing this side of divine intervention that is going to allow you to be competitive.

The OP needs to attend a Benchrest Match, (either Score or Group), and see first hand why his assumptions are incorrect.

If he wants to see the kind of accuracy it takes to win in the Score Game, this target is a good example.

http://benchrest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=21198&stc=1&d=1531183109

By the way. Getting advice from "Sniper Hide" concerning 100-200-300 yard Benchrest is like taking advice on how to handle large blue crabs from a guy who's missing some fingers.
 

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5 Wipeouts!!!

jackie schmidt said:
Every Shooting Discipline has a particular "quirk" that makes winning difficult.

The quirk in Benchrest is you are no better than the Rifle sitting in the bags. If that Rifle is locked into a .300 agging capability, there is nothing this side of divine intervention that is going to allow you to be competitive.

The OP needs to attend a Benchrest Match, (either Score or Group), and see first hand why his assumptions are incorrect.

If he wants to see the kind of accuracy it takes to win in the Score Game, this target is a good example.

http://benchrest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=21198&stc=1&d=1531183109

By the way. Getting advice from "Sniper Hide" concerning 100-200-300 yard Benchrest is like taking advice on how to handle large blue crabs from a guy who's missing some fingers.
Click to expand...

If you look close at Jackie's target please notice that that there's no holes in the sighter!!! That's having confidence in your equipment and the skill to score 5 WO's!!!! :cool:
 
I'm surprised nobody has said the width of a crosshair is all the difference in poa/poi
Being able to get on target and aim that well after recoil is a learned art. Imo.
The sand in the bags change after each shot.adding to learning the equipment.
Every aspect has to be micro managed as much as building the perfect bullet.
Only a few get into the top10 ....not a revolving door.

I'm constantly doing an inventory on me and my equipment. More of this, less of that. So many variables ..... Whew....
 
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