Competitor at His First Match?

H

HuskerP7M8

Member
I want to present you with a hypothetical scenario concerning a shooter who has never attended a Rimfire Benchrest Match and then get your opinions on how you think he might perform.

This shooter decides one day to attend an ARA match and grabs 4 rifles out of his safe and a random brick of Wolf Match Target ammo. Two of the rifles are well built custom BR rigs. Another one is also a well made custom rig but shoots poorly based on some limited testing he’s done. The last rifle is a bone stock unbedded Anschutz 2013BR just as it came from the factory. Well built customs mean popular custom actions and smiths like Meyers, Davis, Gorham, etc.
None of the rifles have tuners installed and haven’t been tested for an ammo preference.

He shoots 4 targets at the match in switchy winds of approximately 10 mph and each target is shot with a different gun.

What would you guess his low score, high score, and 4 target average might be?
If it’s easier, you could give a probable range of values for each based on your experience “or” you could describe your first rifle and first match with the score included.

Just curious and maybe....a way for a new shooter to judge his first performance.

Landy
 
I'll Bite

Being a relative new comer to this game based upon most of the competitors I can only make a very wild guess at this, but I really believe that would be the case for most anyone. I suspect that you may possibly have a idea of what these rifles are capable of and with at least a couple of missing pieces of data, e.g. will you be using wind flags and have you practiced and studied them. What type of rest system would you be using.

But here's a go at it. Low target 1300, High target 1800, agg >1500.

Again this is a very wild guess.

My first outing 4/12/2008 - 6 targets - 9 competitors

Brief History - I stumbled upon this game by somewhat of a accident of net surfing, coming across a 22LR for sale for over $2,000.00 and seeing that the address was within 1/2 mile of where I lived. I had to go see this out of curiosity how someone could be charging such for a 22 rifle. Got invited to a ARA match, liked what I saw, asked where do I get a rifle, one of the gentlemen there sold me a Meyers 40X, I bought a Pappas rest, some windflags, a case of ammo, and within two weeks I went to my first match. I finished 4th with a agg of 1604.17 which in perspective I was happy with for the winning agg was a 1850, and although not really knowing it at that time there were some very good shooters there, but I do know that from now having two years under my belt we were shooting in some tough conditions.

So what does it take in my mind.

You need a good rifle and supporting equipment.
Although some may say that their rifle isn't ammo sensitive mine is at least from what I've been able to derive.
One must learn to read conditions and how their rifle/ammo is going to react to such.
Practice may help, but I don't really practice other than maybe what's permitted before a match, and beside ammo is expensive and in my humble opinion you want to practice with what your shooting at matches and I for one don't won't to be wasting my good ammo just practicing. Besides I don't have anywhere locally to practice.
 
What?

A new shooter, but he has 4 rimfire benchrest rigs in his safe 2 of them full customs. Hypothetical? A shooter that has $10,000 worth of guns (none of them with tuners) in his vehicle but shows up to shoot with Wolf ammo? :rolleyes:
 
Be his own judge

A new shooter should go with an open mind, and use the experience as part of the learning curve. If he has practiced with an ARA target, and properly tested and tuned his rifle, then he should expect good results. If he had practiced with any other target, he won't see the results he thinks he's capable of. Otherwise, it about like Fred K said.
 
Okay guys and CliffA,

Let’s make this more interesting by revealing that the shooter and his attendance at a match is not hypothetical. The shooter stated to his fellow competitors that he decided to shoot on a whim and wanted to see if it was enjoyable enough to try again in the future. This actually happened a while back and I’ll verify it....if there is enough interest and responses in this thread.

A few more bits of true info: The shooter had access to the wind flags present on the range belonging to his fellow competitors, but had none of his own and has never practiced shooting in the wind. He has shot competitively for almost 40 years, but never at a benchrest match nor has he ever practiced shooting at a Benchrest target.....just bullseyes and metallic animals.

Thanks for the comments, and keep them coming if you want to find out the scores he shot and where/when it happened.

Landy
 
Will I think your asking this question because he done better then one mit think. So I'm going to say He Agg a 1865 with low target 1700 high one is a 1950.

Do I win.
 
Sorry, no more hints and the only prize to be awarded is the chance to have your curiosity satisfied.

Wait. I changed my mind about providing another hint and so I’ll tell you not to assume that because I posted this, it means the shooter did well. He wasn’t happy with his performance and didn’t even come close to winning the match.
I’m just trying to get a general consensus for what a new shooter might expect as he starts down the path of rimfire Benchrest and since I’m a keyboard shooter....this seemed like a viable way to gather some data.

Without more participation....this will remain a mystery.

Landy
 
his FIST match he juggled FOUR rifles, no tuners, and shot mid grade ammo !!

i don't know how he could judge anything clearly ?, i shot one rifle , no tuner, no windflags and Lapua Midas .
after the second target i knew i had to start over from scratch, i tossed everthing except the ammo.. i think i might have agg. 1700, so got a new rifle, tuner, rest, windflags,scope and everthing the big boys used.
i hope he did not quit after this first outing, he had way too much going on !!!

i quit a few months later but it had nothing to do with performance or anything rimfire
 
Got to go with Fred K on this one. He may be a litle high on the high target though. ARA aint' as easy as it looks, especially with no flags and mediocre ammo.

Ken
 
You got three rifles from proven smiths and nobody suggested a tuner, or good ammo???
 
My first match.

Ennis TX, month or 2 ago, never fired rimfire outside before. My new tuned competition rifle with all prototype parts. 6 targets, 2000, 1925, 2100, 1925, 2025, 2025. Had fun. Went to ARA nats next, something like 90 out of 115. Maybe 2/3 down pack in PSL in Waco.

Will continue and hope to get much better. Need to get better control of vertical wind components.
 
matches

The only thing that I can tell you is hang on for the ride cause it gets in the blood quick!
Larry
 
Conditions

The hardest thing a new comer to rimfire benchrest has to learn, is how to read and react to the conditions that you can not see. These are the ones that will cause a tiny little pill to fly off into the unknown. Many a first timer has been humbled by this strange event in their life.
 
Back in May of this year I took my 12 year old grandson Devin and let him shoot his first BR match. The format was 3 gun IR5050. He shot a 244 in sporter class, and shot a 250-15X target and won the 10.5 class against top competition-the best. I think the had a 243 or 244 on the 13.5 class target. The onlu instruction I gave him was to watch the flags for a particular condition and just to shoot that. He received no coaching, and he was shooting a rifle I had just rechambered and put together the night before the match, a 40X with a 4 groove Shilen ratchet barrel. I thought he did ok for his first match! The shooter is very important, but equally important is the equipment. Some rifles shoot an array of conditions well and some won't. The best ones will shoot most conditions on the range,headwinds, tailwinds, quartering winds, crosswinds, and do well in comparison to the the ones that won't.
 
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Has something going for him

Kent:
Devin had one thing going for him. He didn't have to unlearn everything he's been taught. Starting fresh is a plus.
 
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