The Benchrest Shooting Primer

[D Coots]

Here's a true PS shooting story from the 90's. I had just received my new PS right before my friend and I went to Newcastle on a PD hunt. One morning after breakfast we left the restaurant and outside was parked a jeep with a big bull barreled rifle setting up front between the seats. We went back inside to see if we could determine who the owner was. No problem, he stuck out like a sore thumb. Come to find out it was the guy who had just wrote an article in the PS new edition, Longshot AKA Wayne Ash. Anyone remember him? In the article he talked about how he could see antelope from his porch and shot them from a mile away. One afternoon we went out to his range with him. It was actually on private property...2 properties actually. His target frame was blown down and looked like it had been for quite some time. He said the distance was 6 yards short of a mile because that is all the elevation his unertl scope had. He shot off the hood of his jeep for a bench...........We took pizza to his house one night....I bet it was hard to see and shoot those goats from inside the city limits where he lived!!!!!!!!!! He lived in quite the bachelor pad. Lot's of strings going to light switches from his easy chair ect. The up stairs was pretty well lived in if you get my drift. The bathtub hadn't been used for years. We went down in the basement to his loading room and that was a completely different story. White walls and clean enough to eat off of. Neat setup. He was quite the whiskey drinker and said he'd fill up a pint when he went to bed, grab a book, and when the pint was gone it was time to go to sleep. I think that pint was kind of his dessert for the day.

True story and I can't believe I remembered it all. After that I really took the PS articles with a grain of salt. I had only started reloading a few years before this trip.

Later
Dave

 

[pertnear]

Great story D Coots! Wish I'd of been there....

I'm waking up this old thread to add my own comments. With the unexpected winter storm & electrical outages here in my part of Texas there was no TV or internet. So I headed to my book shelf. The first thing I read was chapter 10 of Jack O'Conner's "Complete Book of Shooting". The chapter is titled "Shooting at Long Range". As a kid, my hunting was very much influenced by Jack's columns in Outdoor Life every month. I still follow his "mid-range" sighting-in advice on my hunting rifles even though I have adjustable scopes & a range-finder these days.

Then I picked up "The Benchrest Shooting Primer". What a great book to read under intermittent house isolation! For those unaware, the book is a collective of articles from Precision Shooting Magazine 1982 thru 1996. Some articles are a paragraph or two long & some articles are 3 or 4 pages long. I compare it to an anthology of short stories. Read one or two & skip all around to whatever perks your fancy. Fascinating stuff for the slightly OCD'd shooter like myself! One article that struck me was an interview with Mike Walker of Remington in 1982. The question to him was what cartridge design would he make to compete & overthrow the .222. He said that it would need to be something like the .30 Remington case necked to 6mm but it would have to have a small-rifle primer. He acknowledged that the 6mm PPC was very close to perfect & gaining a significant following. Hmmmm...

 

[jackieschmidt]

In 1995 I shot my first Benchrest Match when I think the (sort of) modern era began. Mainly when shooters were starting to look past many of the pronouncements that were garnered from exercises such as the Houston Warehouse episodes and concentrate more on what actually was the best agging combinations over an entire Two Gun Event.

I attribute the achievements in Benchrest over those decades to be the direct result of the Lapua 220 Russian case and how we use it to our benefit.

Shooters (the Euber brothers come to mind), began experimenting in what has been called “the upper load window”. They found another extremely accurate node up there. A node that seemed to stay in tune, and produce extremely consistent gags over the entire week end of shooting.

Of course, the drawback was high pressures. Really high pressures. I really do not know at what pressure a 6PPC is reaching in order to push a typical 68 grn match bullet to 3450 fps, but suffice to say your not going to find the data in any loading manual.

The days of neck sizing and wearing out a barrel with 15 cases was over. More efficient ways to prep cases, mainly in the realm of neck turning, were developed to allow shooters to make 6PPC cases more efficiently. Many top shooters dedicated 15 cases to one Grand Agg.

This has bled into other disciplines to some extent, but suffice to say, very few chamberings that are used in the other shooting Disciplines dabble in the pressures encountered in the world of the 6PPC derived from the Lapua 220 Russian case.

 

[Old Navy]

In 1995 I shot my first Benchrest Match when I think the (sort of) modern era began. Mainly when shooters were starting to look past many of the pronouncements that were garnered from exercises such as the Houston Warehouse episodes and concentrate more on what actually was the best agging combinations over an entire Two Gun Event.

I attribute the achievements in Benchrest over those decades to be the direct result of the Lapua 220 Russian case and how we use it to our benefit.

Shooters (the Euber brothers come to mind), began experimenting in what has been called “the upper load window”. They found another extremely accurate node up there. A node that seemed to stay in tune, and produce extremely consistent gags over the entire week end of shooting.

Of course, the drawback was high pressures. Really high pressures. I really do not know at what pressure a 6PPC is reaching in order to push a typical 68 grn match bullet to 3450 fps, but suffice to say your not going to find the data in any loading manual.

The days of neck sizing and wearing out a barrel with 15 cases was over. More efficient ways to prep cases, mainly in the realm of neck turning, were developed to allow shooters to make 6PPC cases more efficiently. Many top shooters dedicated 15 cases to one Grand Agg.

This has bled into other disciplines to some extent, but suffice to say, very few chamberings that are used in the other shooting Disciplines dabble in the pressures encountered in the world of the 6PPC derived from the Lapua 220 Russian case.

Was that speed just to beat the wind?

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Was that speed just to beat the wind?

Its to make a more consistent burn that in turn makes better aggs. Speed is rarely considered and until the ease of the labradar i bet 9 out of 10br shooters couldnt tell you their speed. The target is all that matters

 

[jackieschmidt]

Wh

Was that speed just to beat the wind?

What Dusty said.
Any experienced Benchrest Shooter an tell you that bullet velocity is really a non factor in short range group and score. Agging capability trumps everything. Shooters find a a combo that works, and tend to stick with it.

There are some very well established shooters who shoot what are considered light loads in our game. By light I mean shooting in the lower node at around 3200 FPS.

I never could make that work. The only drawback to shooting in the upper window is brass life.

I can live with that.

 

[AlNyhus]

Was that speed just to beat the wind?

There isn't any velocity that beats the wind. Accuracy and the ability to keep an accurate gun in tune during the changing temp/humidity as the day goes on is what's important.

In the hyper competitive world of real Benchrest shooting (that's with a capital B ), press the trigger at the wrong time and it's going to hurt......

 

[FNSafari]

Someone wouldn't come into the computer age could have been part of the problem.

Friggin stubborn Irishman!!! God rest his soul.

 

[FNSafari]

The real problem with PS Magazine was content. Typically, you got a on-your-discipline article 4-6 times per year. Then you had to get past the “filler” articles (very often some old guy’s ego stroking remembrances) that had had nothing of any substance. Awfully hard to keep buying it.

Or crock hunting in Africa

 

[FNSafari]

The BIG problem, for Dave Brennan was stuff to publish - actually, lack thereof. He had a comparative mountain of willy-nilly stuff - high-power, me&joe, etc. - and only a very few precision/bench-rest shooting related papers. In the middle of the time-frame Dave published some of my submissions, I proffered a tome (complete with photos) regarding how varmint shooting and the quest for precision led me to BR competition - the transcript was returned with a BIG RED, "REJECTED" . . . "you can & have done better"! I still think that was my best submission . . . but Dave was THE Editor. The best attribute of PS was the [relative] lack of marketing hype, sharing of DATA/info, and the personality that came through the text. RG

"The Last Post", I'm a sucker for history especially if it's about a rifleman.

 

[FNSafari]

I probably would have learned more reading your “rejected” article than anything Rychetnik wrote.

Rychetnik did turn me on to Omegang Brewery in Cooperstown!! Wonderful stuff. You never know how you are going to profit until you read the article.

 

[Link]

The BIG problem, for Dave Brennan was stuff to publish - actually, lack thereof. He had a comparative mountain of willy-nilly stuff - high-power, me&joe, etc. - and only a very few precision/bench-rest shooting related papers. In the middle of the time-frame Dave published some of my submissions, I proffered a tome (complete with photos) regarding how varmint shooting and the quest for precision led me to BR competition - the transcript was returned with a BIG RED, "REJECTED" . . . "you can & have done better"! I still think that was my best submission . . . but Dave was THE Editor. The best attribute of PS was the [relative] lack of marketing hype, sharing of DATA/info, and the personality that came through the text. RG

RG.
I'm sure that if you posted your articles here everyone would enjoy it, so why not? Maybe there should be a special page for the great such as you to post ?
I don't enjoy reading much, I don't even read the directions on a bottle of Advil. lol However when a post like this comes along I find it fascinating and try to read every word. THANK YOU Guys

Don

 

[max1120]

I also have the book and is a great read

 

[RGRobinett]

RG.
I'm sure that if you posted your articles here everyone would enjoy it, so why not? Maybe there should be a special page for the great such as you to post ?
I don't enjoy reading much, I don't even read the directions on a bottle of Advil. lol However when a post like this comes along I find it fascinating and try to read every word. THANK YOU Guys

Don

I dug my copy out and read several articles, which were great! However, there was one, which was terribly edited! I recall having submitted it to Dave, but in the cut & paste at the printers, things got even more messy than my normal muddying of the waters! I'm stunned that the article made THE PRIMER without having been re-edited. RG

 

[AlNyhus]

Randy, that article of yours is what clarified Hunter cartridges enough for me to begin my journey.

Good shootin'. -Al

 

[epc308]

Once you get a copy NEVER loan it out! I have two copies that are MIA What I get for being a nice guy I guess.

Once you get a copy NEVER loan it out! I have two copies that are MIA What I get for being a nice guy I guess.

Once you get a copy NEVER loan it out! I have two copies that are MIA What I get for being a nice guy I guess.

Once you get a copy NEVER loan it out! I have two copies that are MIA What I get for being a nice guy I guess.

Once you get a copy NEVER loan it out! I have two copies that are MIA What I get for being a nice guy I guess.

Does my son Steve have one of them?

 

[epc308]

Does my son Steve have one of them?

No idea why it copied your text 5x.

 

[GTyner]

I loved precision Shooting mag . One of my favorite was the article of using construction rebar to make a barrel (bored and rifled) March 2012 Vol .59 page 81