In June, I had the opportunity to attend the Basic Long Range Precision Rifle course at K&M Precision near Crestview, FL. Let me start by saying that this place is amazing. It is Disney World for rifle shooters. It has been laid out by shooters… for shooters. I showed up with my Tikka T3, in a Manners T5A and a Nightforce 5.5-22 scope. I’m glad I had matching reticule and turrets, unfortunately my scope is a 2nd focal plane… that led to some limited field of view issues throughout the weekend, but it was nothing that I couldn’t work through.
We started out the morning in the classroom. The initial topics covered were basic fundamentals of marksmanship and mil/moa adjustments. After this we went to the 100 yard line for our initial zeroing and adjustments. We shot several 5-shot groups and then analyzed them to make the appropriate adjustments. I started out doing pretty good. My shots were all within the desired 1-inch at 100 yards. Then we did a simple dot drill. Instead of shooting 5-shot groups, we took 1 shot at each of 7 remaining dots. I’ve done this drill before and it is truly a test of patience. If you shoot several shots at each dot (like we had initially) you can fool yourself into thinking you did better than you had. Once you look at each shot individually… you every inconsistency, instead of hiding the inconsistency in the group. Oh… and did I mention that we had to get up and walk away from our rifle in between every shot. Every time we got up and walked away, we had to get set back up on the rifle. This really showed how inconsistent I was at getting in position. My weaknesses were beginning to be exposed.
After this we went back to the classroom and went over ballistics. This was helpful in understanding what happens to the bullet during flight, especially at distance. Next we went out to the firing line to verify our elevation adjustments at distance. We shot at 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 and 800. Since I had shot out to the distances before I already had mine, but it was good to double check that my adjustments for Knoxville/Oak Ridge were good in Crestview. This was also were I began to have an issue with my shooting. For some reason, I was pulling everything to the right. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It wasn’t the wind and I was doing it too consistently to be jerking the trigger. I tried a couple things to fix the problem, but none of them worked. I knew that it had to be something simple that I was overlooking but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
We ate a quick bite of lunch and got right back to the classroom. This time we went over holdovers and range estimation. After this session we went down to another range for exercises. Shannon would give us a target, we would have to estimate the range, dial our adjustment, make our wind call and take the shot. I was doing great with the range estimation, but I was still jerking everything to the right. At one point, I got up and was pretty pissed. Shannon looked at me and asked me what was going on. I told him that I wasn’t sure and I was trying to figure it out. His response was basically, “You need to pull it together. You’re better than this. Get back behind the rifle and focus.” I did and I center punched my next three shots. But, I needed to be called out. He didn’t do it in a way that was embarrassing or anything. It was simply, “you’re better than this… pull it together.” Unfortunately, later in the day I went back to pulling shots to the right.
I went back to my hotel room that night and was completely bum-fuzzled (that’s redneck for confused). I sat and replayed every shot I had taken all day, in my head, at least 5 times. Then it finally dawned on me what I had been doing wrong. I pulled out my rifle and sure enough… there it was. I had tightened by bipod down pretty tight. During the course of firing multiple shots it would begin to cant to the right. In my haste to keep going, I hadn’t been making sure that I was holding the rifle perfectly straight up and down. As I was making my elevation adjustments up, I was also adjusting to the right… since my gun was canted to the right. Boy did I feel like an idiot. It just goes to show that when you don’t go through that mental checklist of fundamentals, you will screw something up every time.
The next morning we started the day with a consistency check at 100 yards… I was back on my game. It’s funny how that happens when you pay attention to the fundamentals. We then proceeded to move back to the 300 yard line for some positional work. Let me state that I’m not the most bendable of people and positional shooting is not my cup of tea. However, it is a part of the sport and we all need to learn how to do it effectively. I did pretty well in the seated position, but kneeling was a whole different story. They said my form was perfect in the kneeling; unfortunately my function was not so perfect. But they explained several ways to go about practicing these positions on our own.
Once we had finished this portion we went back to the classroom to cover moving targets. If anyone had told me that I would be hitting a 10-inch plate, moving, at 300 and 500 yards… I would have told them they were nuts. But with the right instruction and the proper coaching on the line, we were all pounding them with a high level of consistency. This may have been one of the best things we did all weekend. Fun!
After our time on the movers we grabbed a quick bite to eat and the instructors laid out the practical exercises we would be doing to conclude the course. This was basically a mini competition, covering everything that we had learned over the last 2 days. We split up into groups and rotated through the stages, just like in a match. This spiced things up a bit since we had been silently competing with one another all weekend.
Overall this was one of the best training weekends I have ever had. The attention to detail and level of customer service was amazing. The instructors: Shannon Kay, Bryan Morgan, Mike Rogan and Don Albares… were all amazing. I can’t say enough about how much they helped us all throughout the weekend. Their willingness to build relationships beyond the classroom and into the future was also impressive. I have a small business of my own, doing pistol training and I was inspired by how Shannon and Bryan run K&M. I highly recommend K&M to anyone looking to improve their rifle shooting – they exposed my weak points and gave me the knowledge I need to continue improving when I returned home. I will be making return trips for further training and hopefully some competitions in the coming months.
We started out the morning in the classroom. The initial topics covered were basic fundamentals of marksmanship and mil/moa adjustments. After this we went to the 100 yard line for our initial zeroing and adjustments. We shot several 5-shot groups and then analyzed them to make the appropriate adjustments. I started out doing pretty good. My shots were all within the desired 1-inch at 100 yards. Then we did a simple dot drill. Instead of shooting 5-shot groups, we took 1 shot at each of 7 remaining dots. I’ve done this drill before and it is truly a test of patience. If you shoot several shots at each dot (like we had initially) you can fool yourself into thinking you did better than you had. Once you look at each shot individually… you every inconsistency, instead of hiding the inconsistency in the group. Oh… and did I mention that we had to get up and walk away from our rifle in between every shot. Every time we got up and walked away, we had to get set back up on the rifle. This really showed how inconsistent I was at getting in position. My weaknesses were beginning to be exposed.
After this we went back to the classroom and went over ballistics. This was helpful in understanding what happens to the bullet during flight, especially at distance. Next we went out to the firing line to verify our elevation adjustments at distance. We shot at 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 and 800. Since I had shot out to the distances before I already had mine, but it was good to double check that my adjustments for Knoxville/Oak Ridge were good in Crestview. This was also were I began to have an issue with my shooting. For some reason, I was pulling everything to the right. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It wasn’t the wind and I was doing it too consistently to be jerking the trigger. I tried a couple things to fix the problem, but none of them worked. I knew that it had to be something simple that I was overlooking but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
We ate a quick bite of lunch and got right back to the classroom. This time we went over holdovers and range estimation. After this session we went down to another range for exercises. Shannon would give us a target, we would have to estimate the range, dial our adjustment, make our wind call and take the shot. I was doing great with the range estimation, but I was still jerking everything to the right. At one point, I got up and was pretty pissed. Shannon looked at me and asked me what was going on. I told him that I wasn’t sure and I was trying to figure it out. His response was basically, “You need to pull it together. You’re better than this. Get back behind the rifle and focus.” I did and I center punched my next three shots. But, I needed to be called out. He didn’t do it in a way that was embarrassing or anything. It was simply, “you’re better than this… pull it together.” Unfortunately, later in the day I went back to pulling shots to the right.
I went back to my hotel room that night and was completely bum-fuzzled (that’s redneck for confused). I sat and replayed every shot I had taken all day, in my head, at least 5 times. Then it finally dawned on me what I had been doing wrong. I pulled out my rifle and sure enough… there it was. I had tightened by bipod down pretty tight. During the course of firing multiple shots it would begin to cant to the right. In my haste to keep going, I hadn’t been making sure that I was holding the rifle perfectly straight up and down. As I was making my elevation adjustments up, I was also adjusting to the right… since my gun was canted to the right. Boy did I feel like an idiot. It just goes to show that when you don’t go through that mental checklist of fundamentals, you will screw something up every time.
The next morning we started the day with a consistency check at 100 yards… I was back on my game. It’s funny how that happens when you pay attention to the fundamentals. We then proceeded to move back to the 300 yard line for some positional work. Let me state that I’m not the most bendable of people and positional shooting is not my cup of tea. However, it is a part of the sport and we all need to learn how to do it effectively. I did pretty well in the seated position, but kneeling was a whole different story. They said my form was perfect in the kneeling; unfortunately my function was not so perfect. But they explained several ways to go about practicing these positions on our own.
Once we had finished this portion we went back to the classroom to cover moving targets. If anyone had told me that I would be hitting a 10-inch plate, moving, at 300 and 500 yards… I would have told them they were nuts. But with the right instruction and the proper coaching on the line, we were all pounding them with a high level of consistency. This may have been one of the best things we did all weekend. Fun!
After our time on the movers we grabbed a quick bite to eat and the instructors laid out the practical exercises we would be doing to conclude the course. This was basically a mini competition, covering everything that we had learned over the last 2 days. We split up into groups and rotated through the stages, just like in a match. This spiced things up a bit since we had been silently competing with one another all weekend.
Overall this was one of the best training weekends I have ever had. The attention to detail and level of customer service was amazing. The instructors: Shannon Kay, Bryan Morgan, Mike Rogan and Don Albares… were all amazing. I can’t say enough about how much they helped us all throughout the weekend. Their willingness to build relationships beyond the classroom and into the future was also impressive. I have a small business of my own, doing pistol training and I was inspired by how Shannon and Bryan run K&M. I highly recommend K&M to anyone looking to improve their rifle shooting – they exposed my weak points and gave me the knowledge I need to continue improving when I returned home. I will be making return trips for further training and hopefully some competitions in the coming months.
