I've been participating in local F-Class and informal steel plate matches for a couple of years. I decided to purchase a used benchrest rifle to change things up a bit. Browsing forum topics I noticed a post about the volunteer mentoring program back in December. One of the volunteers lived two hours away so I gave him a call and find out a little more about the program. After a couple of phone calls we scheduled a day at his private range.
We talked about bullets, primers, cases, powders, actions, barrels, rests, reloading equipment and practices, and what my goals were. We discussed a list of things to bring and I pretty much emptied my reloading bench and headed his way.
The day started with cleaning my rifle. I only thought I had cleaned it after the last range trip. After a quick cleaning and borescope inspection, I learned what it meant to clean my rifle like it needed to be cleaned. Next, we went through die set up and bullet seating depth. I learned how to properly set up my rifle on the bench and started shooting groups and tuning. First power charge then bullet seating depth. We cleaned between changes while working on loading and shooting techniques. We finished the day with another thorough cleaning. I left and believe I had learned as much about tuning my rifle and shooting in one day as I have in the past several years.
I consider myself lucky and could not have met a nicer, more patient and knowledgeable person about group shooting than I spent the day with yesterday.
This is an awesome program to promote the sport. I'll be able to enter my first group match way ahead of the game with more confidence in my equipment and my ability than I would have learning on my own.
Thank you NBRSA for the program and thank you Mr. Steve for spending your day teaching someone what it's going to take to be competitive.
Scott
We talked about bullets, primers, cases, powders, actions, barrels, rests, reloading equipment and practices, and what my goals were. We discussed a list of things to bring and I pretty much emptied my reloading bench and headed his way.
The day started with cleaning my rifle. I only thought I had cleaned it after the last range trip. After a quick cleaning and borescope inspection, I learned what it meant to clean my rifle like it needed to be cleaned. Next, we went through die set up and bullet seating depth. I learned how to properly set up my rifle on the bench and started shooting groups and tuning. First power charge then bullet seating depth. We cleaned between changes while working on loading and shooting techniques. We finished the day with another thorough cleaning. I left and believe I had learned as much about tuning my rifle and shooting in one day as I have in the past several years.
I consider myself lucky and could not have met a nicer, more patient and knowledgeable person about group shooting than I spent the day with yesterday.
This is an awesome program to promote the sport. I'll be able to enter my first group match way ahead of the game with more confidence in my equipment and my ability than I would have learning on my own.
Thank you NBRSA for the program and thank you Mr. Steve for spending your day teaching someone what it's going to take to be competitive.
Scott
