Gunsite PR7 class; limitations of .308WIN

[GunNutBS]

I am considering making it a goal to go to Gunsite's PR7 class possibly next year. I'm wondering if I need to upgrade my equipment to succeed at that class. Really what I'm wondering is if I need to get a rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor, or if .308 can really handle 1000 yard shooting reliably. I've heard conflicting things. It seems like 6.5 Creedmoor is very popular among PRS shooters who shoot at 1000+ yards. I've heard that 168 grain .308s dip back below subsonic speed before 1000 yards and get wobbly and inaccurate as a result. I've also heard shooting 175s out of it can fix that problem and make a .308 workable at that distance.

I am working with a decidedly "budget" setup. It's Remington 700 SPS Tactical in a Hogue overmold stock, Nikon Prostaff second focal plane scope, 4-12x40 with a mildot reticle. The scope has the unique difficulty of having MOA adjustments but a MIL reticle, which is a little wonky (the holds are in different units than the dialed DOPE). It also has no parallax adjustment knob (only a focus diopter).

Trying to get to Gunsite will be a stretch for me financially. I guess what I'm asking is if I really need to budget for a new rifle and scope to make it worth it before I go. I could buy a Bergara B14 chassis rifle in 6.5 for $1K and a Vortex scope in the $500-600 range, but that right there is more than half the cost of the class I want to attend. But do you think I could do OK and get just as much out of the class with my current setup, maybe using 175 grain bullets that can hold velocity out to 1000? I surprised myself with how well I did at Thunder Ranch 2 weeks ago out to 700, so maybe I really can do just as well with my "little engine that could" setup. Then again, if that class is as demanding as their website makes it seem, I wonder if it might not be worthwhile to just bite the bullet (no pun intended) and get into a little bit better rifle and scope combo in order to get the most out of it. If I can get a decent experience out of the class with my current budget setup, I really strongly want to do that...not only for cost-saving reasons, but because I feel like I've surprised myself with that gun a few times. In addition to getting me through Thunder Ranch Mid-Range Rifle quite competently, I also passed a Sig Academy police sniper course with it a decade ago. I just don't know if it's going to handle the 1000-1200 yard stuff.

 

[Oldloser]

I did PR7 and my partner and I were top of the class with me having a a $600 308 rifle much less capable than yours. I did have a Christmas tree reticle inFFP that was consistent and good ammo. If you can consistently do a one inch group with five rounds with the rifle you will be fine. I would show up with a FFP mil scope with an illuminated hash reticle that is consistent. H59 or mil is best. Don’t take a SFP scope. Take good ammo. Rent a spotting scope when you get there. Almost all of the shooting is within 800 yards and the final exam is as well. The class is about learning to get first round hits at long range on both known and unknown distance targets. And it’s not about rifle fundamentals. Have that down before you get there. I’d also think about warm clothes if it’s fall or winter. . It snowed or rained most every day on us. You can save some money by camping if it’s not too hot in their campground which has showers and laundry and a kitchen. Their ranges are very good and you’ll enjoy it.

 

[GunNutBS]

I did PR7 and my partner and I were top of the class with me having a a $600 308 rifle much less capable than yours. I did have a Christmas tree reticle inFFP that was consistent and good ammo. If you can consistently do a one inch group with five rounds with the rifle you will be fine. I would show up with a FFP mil scope with an illuminated hash reticle that is consistent. H59 or mil is best. Don’t take a SFP scope. Take good ammo. Rent a spotting scope when you get there. Almost all of the shooting is within 800 yards and the final exam is as well. The class is about learning to get first round hits at long range on both known and unknown distance targets. And it’s not about rifle fundamentals. Have that down before you get there. I’d also think about warm clothes if it’s fall or winter. . It snowed or rained most every day on us. You can save some money by camping if it’s not too hot in their campground which has showers and laundry and a kitchen. Their ranges are very good and you’ll enjoy it.

Awesome, thanks for the reply. So, there's a final exam? Like a qual course? I wasn't aware it was like a pass/fail thing. So we're there people who actually failed?

 

[UKDslayer]

Its not about the caliber. If your .308 is accurate enough, you can shoot 1000 yards all day long. Its not an excuse to take the class; you will just have to adjust to making wind calls. Sounds like you have what it takes.

 

[Oldloser]

Awesome, thanks for the reply. So, there's a final exam? Like a qual course? I wasn't aware it was like a pass/fail thing. So we're there people who actually failed?

Any course worth its price will have a final test. If you study and apply yourself you will do well.

 

[wvfarrier]

308 is more than capable. Ive done severel 1000 yard courses using an 18" Factory Rem 700. That being said, I was using handloads, 185 grain Berger VLDs.

 

[st1650]

No issues going to 1000 yards with a 16in DTA with factory FGMM 175.

Sures it’s a pain when it’s windy but it’s not really that hard if you’re able to do 1/2-3/4 moa at 100 and have decent fundamentals. I’d say 0-800 is super easy. It’s the 800-1000 that starts to get tricky with the 308 on a shorter barrel. But it’s by no means a really hard task. FGMM 175 is stable at transonic and so is the new FGMM 185 Berger which is even better

A good scope affordable 6-24/5-25 mil/mil (Athlon Midas, Arken SH4 or Vortex Strike Eagle and a good muzzle break could be a wiser investment than a sexier caliber.

 

[Oldloser]

No issues going to 1000 yards with a 16in DTA with factory FGMM 175.

Sures it’s a pain when it’s windy but it’s not really that hard if you’re able to do 1/2-3/4 moa at 100 and have decent fundamentals. I’d say 0-800 is super easy. It’s the 800-1000 that starts to get tricky with the 308 on a shorter barrel. But it’s by no means a really hard task. FGMM 175 is stable at transonic and so is the new FGMM 185 Berger which is even better

A good scope affordable 6-24/5-25 mil/mil (Athlon Midas, Arken SH4 or Vortex Strike Eagle and a good muzzle break could be a wiser investment than a sexier caliber.

Exactly. Make sure your scope is mil mil and returns to zero every time when you are at the range.

The class will come down to managing your data and knowing how your scope and your partners works scope works. And good team work during and in practice outside class. My partner had an old crappy 12x scope in Moa and mils that was consistent and I had a 300 dollar Ares in mils mil that was good too. and we did a cheat sheet for each other with validated dope. he did exactly what I told him. As did I. Both our rifles were 2 Moa rifles in 308.

Again. Treat this as a professional education and study and practice the material and you will do well. We studied from 6pm to 10 pm every night.

 

[CoryT]

I actually advise clients to come to class with a .308 rather than a 6.5 or similar. The .308 makes you learn to call wind and range find with more precision. The fancy fast calibers cover up errors, which is of course great in competition, but not really good for learning the skills.

The culmination exercise is run as a way to evaluate your skills vs others in class. There is no Pass/Fail.

Ideally, you will have a scope with mill/mil and a spotter with reticle, although they are available to rent. If you have more questions about the class, feel free to ask, I just finished running PR7 last week.

 

[GunNutBS]

I actually advise clients to come to class with a .308 rather than a 6.5 or similar. The .308 makes you learn to call wind and range find with more precision. The fancy fast calibers cover up errors, which is of course great in competition, but not really good for learning the skills.

The culmination exercise is run as a way to evaluate your skills vs others in class. There is no Pass/Fail.

Ideally, you will have a scope with mill/mil and a spotter with reticle, although they are available to rent. If you have more questions about the class, feel free to ask, I just finished running PR7 last week.

Cool, an answer straight from the horse's mouth so-to-speak. Do you have an opinion about 168 grain versus 175 grain for the .308? Since I bought the rifle, I have stuck to using one round for consistency. It's a 168 grain Black Hills BTHP. I have enough of this ammo to take to the class if I were to go. Would it be worthwhile to get some 175 grain ammo for the class? Black Hills also makes a 175, so I could stick with that manufacturer I suppose. Another commenter above mentioned Federal Gold Medal Match. Would a heavier bullet be better for the longer range targets?

Would you say the majority of the wind and elevation corrections during your exercises are done by dialing on the turrets, or by using holds with the reticle, or some combination of both? When I was just at Thunder Ranch, they mixed it up and did both. I find I'm not as handy with holds as I am with dialing corrections.

 

[CoryT]

The 175 will outperform the 168, but we have plenty of people run 168, so if you have it, bring it. Elevation is normally dialed on, but there is a holdover/hold under exercise and the final exercise is often run using holds, but that’s up to you. Winds are basically always holds, you will pretty much never dial wind. it’s too variable and dialing takes too long. We dial sometimes on movers, where you dial the dominant wind and holdoff as required, and when wind exceeds 4-5 Mil, you can dial some on to get closer to the reticle center.

Second shot corrections are all holds as well, both elevation and windage. In short, dial elevation time permitting, hold for wind, hold for both on corrections and multiple target problems.

 

[CoryT]

The upgrade I would most advise given your present setup is a Front Focal Reticle scope with mil/mil configuration. This will make ranging and holding VERY much more pleasant. The rifle and ammo will be just fine, the scope will add a lot of extra work for you and your partner.

 

[308pirate]

Cool, an answer straight from the horse's mouth so-to-speak. Do you have an opinion about 168 grain versus 175 grain for the .308? Since I bought the rifle, I have stuck to using one round for consistency. It's a 168 grain Black Hills BTHP. I have enough of this ammo to take to the class if I were to go. Would it be worthwhile to get some 175 grain ammo for the class? Black Hills also makes a 175, so I could stick with that manufacturer I suppose. Another commenter above mentioned Federal Gold Medal Match. Would a heavier bullet be better for the longer range targets?

The 168 is inferior to 175 thing has been overly simplified to the point of it becoming a useless cliché.

The truth is that the Sierra .308 168 gr Match King bullet has certain design elements that make the bullet prone to significant instability when slowing down from supersonic to subsonic speeds. That instability degrades accuracy at distances where this particular bullet goes subsonic.

No other 168 grain bullet design that I know of suffers from that issue. Sierra's 155 grian and 175 grain .308 Match Kings don't suffer that problem either.

 

[GunNutBS]

The 168 is inferior to 175 thing has been overly simplified to the point of it becoming a useless cliché.

The truth is that the Sierra .308 168 gr Match King bullet has certain design elements that make the bullet prone to significant instability when slowing down from supersonic to subsonic speeds. That instability degrades accuracy at distances where this particular bullet goes subsonic.

No other 168 grain bullet design that I know of suffers from that issue. Sierra's 155 grian and 175 grain .308 Match Kings don't suffer that problem either.

I'm pretty sure the Black Hills ammo I buy uses a Hornady bullet.

 

[308pirate]

I'm pretty sure the Black Hills ammo I buy uses a Hornady bullet.

You should be good to go

 

[GunNutBS]

The upgrade I would most advise given your present setup is a Front Focal Reticle scope with mil/mil configuration. This will make ranging and holding VERY much more pleasant. The rifle and ammo will be just fine, the scope will add a lot of extra work for you and your partner.

Based on that advice, I'm starting to look for value-priced scope upgrades. I'm looking at a few models from Trijicon, NightForce, and Vortex. I also just stumbled upon a brand I've never heard of before, ZeroTech. Apparently they're made in China. Like Vortex, they do seem to have a competent feature set for a sub-$1K price. Have you ever heard of ZeroTech, or do you know much about them? This is the one I'm looking at.

Edit: I guess the ZeroTech don't seem to have illuminated reticles, so I'm leaning away from that. I'm looking more at the Vortex, Athlon, and Arken now.

 

[gigamortis]

Sierra recently came out with a 169gr HPBT projectile that has a better BC than their 175gr Match King. It has a longer boat tail than the 168 MK and a closed meplat. It still retains the jump friendly tangent ogive of the 168 MK. Its shorter bearing surface should help keep peak pressures lower so you can probably load it 50-100 fps faster than a 175 MK.

 

[W54/XM-388]

1000 yards can be done repeatably and reliably with 155gr, 148gr and 175gr .308 (from what I've had direct experience with).
Assuming a decent length barrel, good scope and a shooter that can hold the rifle steady and has correct ballistic information.

I'd suggest you skip the standard 168gr stuff as it's probably not going to work as well for you.

That being said, wind is going to be a bit more challenging, and you'll need to pay good attention to your wind calls.

 

[GunNutBS]

No issues going to 1000 yards with a 16in DTA with factory FGMM 175.

Sures it’s a pain when it’s windy but it’s not really that hard if you’re able to do 1/2-3/4 moa at 100 and have decent fundamentals. I’d say 0-800 is super easy. It’s the 800-1000 that starts to get tricky with the 308 on a shorter barrel. But it’s by no means a really hard task. FGMM 175 is stable at transonic and so is the new FGMM 185 Berger which is even better

A good scope affordable 6-24/5-25 mil/mil (Athlon Midas, Arken SH4 or Vortex Strike Eagle and a good muzzle break could be a wiser investment than a sexier caliber.

Yeah I'm starting to look at the scopes. As I mentioned in the reply above, I became aware of ZeroTech for the first time today. Athlon is also new to me. I had never heard of Arken until you mentioned it.

When I recently learned that Nikon had exited the riflescope market a few years ago, I was surprised and wondered why. After a couple hours of browsing Vortex, Zerotech, Athlon, and Arken, I see the reason. I read something that said Nikon felt they just couldn't be profitable in the low-to-mid range because it was too competitive. I guess that's true.

 

[CoryT]

Never heard of ZeroTech, never had one in class. Vortex is decent, Athlon has been here to do some videos and they seemed fine. No info on Arken.

At out general density altitude the basic 168gr match will be fine in a 20" or longer barrel. By far the majority of shots fired will be between 400 and 850. We've supplied Remington 168gr match in the ammo package for many years, I can't say we've had any real problem or we would have changed long ago. We just recently started to switch to Hornady 178 and some Norma 175, but that's a supply problem rather than a performance problem.

Not really a fan of tree type reticles myself, I'd personally look at the Vortex Viper HST 6-24, but the Strike Eagle is just fine.

 

[st1650]

Athlon has a nice non-tree reticle on their Midas Tac 6-24 with 0.2 mils grads for windage.

I went with the clean tree APRS 3 because I do hold sometimes over past 500 yards with my 22lr and I’ll have to hold wind and elevation but otherwise not a huge tree fan and I dislike the EBR7 reticle and especially the Horus ones.

 

[Oldloser]

You can get an Athlon Ares on the hide for 300-400 dollars. You can also ask around in your local PRS FB group to see if you can get a loaner of some scopes to try or just show up at a comp and look through the optics.

 

[GunNutBS]

Here's a random question. Does anyone use a maximum point blank range calculator to determine ideal zeroing distance? With the classes I've been to, they just use 100 yard zero and go from there. I'm guessing that's most common. Maximum point blank range is an interesting concept though, and it seems like it would be very useful in theory. Does anyone use it?

 

[st1650]

Here's a random question. Does anyone use a maximum point blank range calculator to determine ideal zeroing distance? With the classes I've been to, they just use 100 yard zero and go from there. I'm guessing that's most common. Maximum point blank range is an interesting concept though, and it seems like it would be very useful in theory. Does anyone use it?

You’ll absolutely want to zero at 100 yards in these classes.

Unless you’re hunting deers or yotes with a Bushnell banner 3-9, MPBR has very little value in the long range/tactical world.

 

[CoryT]

We do describe the concept, but in most cases you are best served with a 100 yard zero then dialing on the setting for the problem at hand. PBR depends on the target size, so shooting a 24" tall torso is not the same as shooting a 8" circle.

For example, when moving to an FFP with the rifle at the ready, one might decide to dial up the 300 yard zero so they are prepared to deal with targets as they appear. Once in the FFP, if the near range for an engagement is 400 yards, as defined by say a river you are shooting over, and the far range is 900 as defined by a ridgeline, you might elect to dial up 650 to make maximum use of the reticle for your engagement area.

 

[308pirate]

MPBR has very little value in the long range/tactical world.

As @CoryT mentioned, there are situations where you want to set elevation to match the middle distance of an engagement zone and use the MPBR concept to increase speed of engagement.

 

[st1650]

As @CoryT mentioned, there are situations where you want to set elevation to match the middle distance of an engagement zone and use the MPBR concept to increase speed of engagement.

Sorry, I was thinking in a different context with a fixed zero (ie 250 yards) to be within +\- 3in of elevation.


For sure you can even combine speed drop factor in that equation, ie if you set elevation for 400 yards, then for example on my 6.5 it’ll be +1 mil for 500 and another +1 mil for 600 it’s extremely fast.

 

[308pirate]

Sorry, I was thinking in a different context with a fixed zero (ie 250 yards) to be within +\- 3in of elevation.


For sure you can even combine speed drop factor in that equation, ie if you set elevation for 400 yards, then for example on my 6.5 it’ll be +1 mil for 500 and another +1 mil for 600 it’s extremely fast.

You can combine both methods. Knowing the PBR of your load for a given zero distance can also allow you to place a hit in the vitals without even moving off reticle center as long as the target is within that PBR. Use the reticle stadia for fast hits outside that PBR.

It's good to have multiple tools because when you only have a hammer every problem looks like a nail, but not every problem is a nail.