I made it down to the school 11-14th.
Shot at least 200 rounds of Federal ammo at ranges from 85 yards to 1650 with my 6.5.
First day you arrive, you spend 3-4 hours talking about shooting, a ballistic program, spotting, and the equipment you’ll use. You can drink while you’re learning and it’s pretty casual. All equipment, food, and housing is provided. You provide your own alcohol. Food is good and there is plenty of it. Rooms are double hotel style rooms with 2 beds and a bathroom. Ours was a handicap accessible room but I don’t know if all are like that.
If you have your own gear and use a calculator that you already know, I would advise using what you know. If you use milliradian instead of MOA, like me, you’ll be largely on your own. Learn how to convert between the two and you’ll be ok. This class is in MOA and our instructors weren’t good about converting. Luckily, there was another MIL user and we shot together all weekend.
The 2nd morning, you go to the range at 8 AM and begin sighting in your rifle after a range etiquette conversation. You sight in at 100, and then shoot at 200, 300, 400...1000 yards. You will get hits at every distance. After everyone has the dope for each distance, you’ll play some shooting games. This all will take from 8-4 or 5 with a break for lunch. You’ll be tired and ready for a drink and some supper.
Third day is where it gets really fun. They have several stages with typical hunting set ups. Each stage had 3 different scenarios & you rotate through them with your spotter. You’ll shoot prone, resting on a tree trunk, off shooting sticks, off your pack, offhand, etc. Distances will be 85-900+. I think we set up at 4 different stages. We actually got through all of them pretty fast and headed back to the range late afternoon to play some more shooting games. Then wrap up debriefing, supper, drinks and we played poker.
The positional shooting was so much fun, my brother and I are going to build a sporting clays style course on our ranch for long range shooting. All our targets will have vitals flappers for additional scoring chances.
some thoughts after taking the course:
1. If you already shoot long distance, use a ballistics calculator, have a scope with a long range reticle, etc. (have and use the gear) you won’t learn a lot new. You will get lots of experience using it, though.
2. If you have a 6.5 Creedmoor rifle with the proper scope, I would bring your own. If you have an adequate rifle and you’re willing to shoot 200+ rounds in 48 hours, I would bring your own. I would take it to a smith to make sure EVERYTHING is torqued properly if you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself. And I mean everything: action screws, , bolt, EVERYTHING. Completely disassemble your rifle. Clean and lubricate everything and reassemble everything. Take the action out of the stock. Torque everything back down with a torque wrench to proper specs.
Why? Simply put, the instructors do not have time to trouble shoot your rifle during class if it doesn’t shoot well. you’ll shut the whole class down while they try to figure out what is wrong. You’ll be shorting the other attendees and yourself.
3. Be prepared to have some illusions about gear removed. Long distance precision shooting requires precise gear. Consistency and precision cost money. Simply put, they don’t have much confidence in Ruger or Savage rifles. They’re poorly constructed and assembled. Their quality control is not good. The Remington rifles they use are returned at a pretty high % to the manufacturer because they won’t shoot well enough for the class consistently enough. Granted, these rifles take a lot of abuse and fire a lot of rounds in a year. They’re looking for about 1 MOA or smaller of accuracy at 100 yards.
4. My personal shooting form needs lots of work. My rifle shoots lights out. With Hornady 140 ELD’s, my Desert Tech is a .4 MOA rifle @ 100 yards. I am not a 1 MOA shooter at 500 yards.
Last thought: long distance is relative. 22 long rifle is super fun at 250 yards. 6.5 Creedmoor is boring at 250 yards. If you can’t find a range with 1000 yards, buy a nice 22 and set up for 50-150 yards. A word of warning, 22 lr rifle is as expensive to buy for as center fire. Your glass doesn’t need to be as good because you’ll be shooting at much shorter distances, and the ammo is much less expensive.
If you have questions, I’m glad to try to answer them.