New Shooter

K

Kurtflys

Guest
After a few years of absence I need to get back into shooting. I never was a good shooter but I would like to be. I bought a Remington M24 with a Leopold 10X scope and I have it shooting 1/2 MOA. Or at least once I did at 100 yards. My next gun is going to be a Surgeon 6.5 Creedmoor, and at some point I would like a 300 Win mag. I don't even know what I don't know yet so for now I would like to buy die sets for the 308 and 6.5 and 300 WM. I know that there are guys that use different manufactures with good results but who is considered the best of the best? (if there is such a thing) Is there a benchrest bible that I can read to better understand the sport. How about a shooting bag? It seems like you would need a stiff bottom bag to handle the weight. I have lots of questions and I'm sure you have all heard these questions before so I apologies, But what do you carry to the range in your shooting bag?? I saw one video on Youtub and the guys bag must have weighed 100lbs=(
Thanks
 
There is benchrest, shooting off a bench,
and then there is BENCHREST, shooting in competition.
Some people (snobs) only consider REGISTERED MATCHES as
'REAL' "BENCHREST", but if it were not for the club shoots
there would be no registered shoots. One must start somewhere.

none of your mentioned rifles 'APPEAR' to fit in to what
most consider BENCHREST rifles.

I am just a guest, I am sure other will chime in.
 
I've only been at this for about six years, but here are a couple of thoughts:

Go to a benchrest (or BENCHREST;) )match and see what shooters you might compete against are using. Pay attention to rifles, scopes, front rest and rear bags, etc.etc.....

I'm most familiar with medium to longer range club shoots: 300 and 600 yards. The calibers I see are 6BR, 6 Dasher, 6XC, 6x47, 6.5x47, 6.5 Creedmoor...and some .223's, .260's and .308's. We also have a couple of shooters who compete with wildcats of their own making, e.g. 7-270C and 6 Mojo.

You can shoot 300 yards and up with factory ammo, but you're not likely to be competitive if you're not reloading. JMHO.

I suppose there's a place in the world for 300 winmags (elk hunting?)

Besides Benchrest Central, you might check out the accurate shooter.com forum and their pages of information on various aspects of precision rifle shooting.

For a beginner, it'd be hard to beat a Savage Benchrest or F Class rifle in 6BR....

Good luck.

George
 
Thanks George. All good info.
walker2713 said:
I've only been at this for about six years, but here are a couple of thoughts:

Go to a benchrest (or BENCHREST;) )match and see what shooters you might compete against are using. Pay attention to rifles, scopes, front rest and rear bags, etc.etc.....

I'm most familiar with medium to longer range club shoots: 300 and 600 yards. The calibers I see are 6BR, 6 Dasher, 6XC, 6x47, 6.5x47, 6.5 Creedmoor...and some .223's, .260's and .308's. We also have a couple of shooters who compete with wildcats of their own making, e.g. 7-270C and 6 Mojo.

You can shoot 300 yards and up with factory ammo, but you're not likely to be competitive if you're not reloading. JMHO.

I suppose there's a place in the world for 300 winmags (elk hunting?)

Besides Benchrest Central, you might check out the accurate shooter.com forum and their pages of information on various aspects of precision rifle shooting.

For a beginner, it'd be hard to beat a Savage Benchrest or F Class rifle in 6BR....

Good luck.

George
Click to expand...
 
Don't spend a penny until you know exactly what you're going to shoot. Yes, go to a match of the type you intend to compete in and look around. Your initial post indicates that you are about to make an expensive mistake.
 
No mistakes

The only guns that are mistakes for me are the ones I sold over the years. I collect military guns from 1865 to 1945 so a few more won't hurt.
 
well he is old if he can afford to collect guns..nut he did say collect from, not collected.

none of which means any of the rifles he mentioned will be
useful in most benchrest competition.

BENCHREST rifles and equipment are not cheap, it is best to listen, look, ask questions,
then spend money.

Doug Casner said:
If you collected guns from 1865 to 1945 you must be old.
Click to expand...
 
benchrest

Do you guys shoot Benchrest matches out to 1200 yards?
 
i know but was not sure he did..you notice i caught the two different versions of the word.
 
600 and 1000 are available as registered matches.
There is a major diff in mil targets at 1000 yards( 2 moa 10 ring, 20 inches)
and br targets (with about a 0.7 moa 10 ring, 7 inches).
Not sure what the current 1000 yd record is, it was 1.4xx INCHES
for 5 shots.

Kurtflys said:
Do you guys shoot Benchrest matches out to 1200 yards?
Click to expand...
 
Like they said, there is a difference in shooting off a benchrest and competing shooting off a benchrest. It all depends upon what you want to do. One man's cup of tea isn't another's. I love to shoot what some on this board call "point blank" benchrest. That's shooting for group at 100 and 200 yards in registered competition. I've never shot a 300 yard match as I haven't been to a range when they were having 300 yard competition. Not many clubs shoot 300 yards. Registered not to be snobby, but there is only so much time to shoot and compete and if you shoot registered matches, if you do happen to shoot a record which is hard to do and unlikely, you do get recognized by whichever organization that you shoot it under their auspices. There are no local clubs where I live to shoot club matches. So, I travel anywhere from 180 miles to 300 or 350 miles to 1400 miles for a major match. When you have to travel that far to shoot, the match will be a registered match unless it's the Super Shoot which is a match unto itself. The best thing I can recommend is to look at the NBRSA and IBS web sites and see if there are matches being shot close to you in the discipline that you want to shoot. I build lots of rifles for guys who have no interest in competing. But, love to shoot small holes in paper or shooting prairie dogs or ground hogs at extreme ranges and they are usually doing that off a portable bench. The types of benchrest shooting currently available are shooting for group at 100, 200 and 300 yards with normally 6 PPC chambered rifles. 100, 200 and 300 yard shooting for score (center of target) with predominately .30 BR, .30 PPC or variation. 600 yard and 1000 yard competition shooting for both group and score usually on the same target. 6 Dasher's, 6 x 6.5x47 Lapua, 6.5x47 Lapua, 6.5-284, even .300 Ackley's are fairly common cartridges. Almost all of these rifles will use stocks with 3" wide flat forends and high powered scopes. The heavy class 1000 yard rifles will have an even wider forend such as a 5" wide forend. Common scopes for short range benchrest are the Leupold 36's, Leupold Competition 45X scopes, Nightforce 42X and the Nightforce 15-55 competition scope. Long range scopes tend to go towards the heavier Nightforce NSX series scopes. Whatever discipline you choose its a fun sport. The main person you are shooting against is yourself. That's who puts my bullets out of the group, myself and not paying good enough attention to my flags.
 
Which game is appropriate?

As has been said above, this site is mostly populated with people that shoot either registered or club benchrest matches of the group or score variety. There is also a healthy contingent of F-Class and rimfire shooters. Given your predilections in rifles, you might like F-class, although that game puts you out in the sun for lengthy periods. From my observations, serious rimfire benchrest may be the hardest game to do well in.

You might want to putz around with egg shoots, marble shoots and woodchuck (target) shoots for a while to see just how competitive you feel. You can bring a factory rifle to these and not look too out of place. However, the winners often bring their serious benchrest equipment.

You can shoot the factory class at a benchrest match for a year or two while you observe and ask questions. When you do take the plunge for serious benchrest equipment, there is some very good used stuff out there for reasonable prices. Outdated doesn't always mean outclassed.

Above all, have fun and don't be too hasty to buy anything if you want to eventually be a winner.
 
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