Q/A on Precision Rifle Shooting with Walt Wilkinson - Gunsite Academy

[Centuriator]

Larry Vickers sits down with Walt Wilkinson for a series of Q/A on long range shooting. Interesting stuff. Your thoughts? Thought I put put here in the "basic marksmanship" area, some really interesting observations to consider. Good practical sense stuff. Below the video linked I grabbed a screen shot of the rifle rig Larry is using.

Walt's bio here.

 

[Spblademaker]

Buy a lefty, Larry. New cheek weld after every bolt cycle is not conducive to precision.

 

[Centuriator]

Buy a lefty, Larry. New cheek weld after every bolt cycle is not conducive to precision.

He seems to muddle his way through to consistent hits at 1000 yards.

 

[Mortalpawn]

Just finished the seven day PR7 course in late October at Gunsite. It was truly awesome!!

Shot unknown range camoflaged targets out to 1000 yards for days with frequent first round hits. Milling range, spotting and calling the wind was much more challenging than the actual shooting.

Did not have Walt for this course (he taught last Spring) but I've had him for the Gunsite Carbine course and he is an excellent instructor, and certainly one of the top long range shooters in the world.

 

[Centuriator]

I noticed those camo targets on the video and thought, "Yikes!" I can tell Walt is an excellent instructor and his background and experience speaks for itself. Thanks for posting here. I'd love to get to Gunsight.

 

[Mortalpawn]

Yes the first day we wasted a lot of our time trying to find the hidden targets. We worked each position as a sniper-spotter pair. Some targets were obscured by brush. By the last day we could find most of them within about 5-10 minutes because we had a better idea of what we were looking for, but a few were nearly invisible even when you were looking right at them with a high power scope. All were painted to match the background foliage.

I went in with good glass on the spotting scope and rifle, but only mediocre binoculars. Two of the students had swarovski binoculars which were amazingly clear and an advantage. You really need good glass for the rifle, spotter and also binoculars to do this style of shooting as you first need to find the targets with binoculars, then direct your partner onto the target. Its hard to talk someone onto a hidden target under a tree when your only reference points are other trees!

Little things like the power range on your scopes matter too. The spotters all used Leupold Mark IV 12-40x60mm with the TMR reticle for instance. At low power it was wide enough to orient yourself and find the targets, while at high power you could still mil the tiny targets at 1000 yards. A higher power scope wouldn't work as you'd be trying to find targets through a soda straw. The reticle was key as well since you need it both to mil small targets and also call adjustments on misses and read the mirage to call wind.

Overall a bucket-list type of experience - 7 days of long range heaven.

 

[pmclaine]

Surprised he mentioned electronic levels as an important added piece of technology.

Im not a huge fan of the checking level prior to shot concept.

Probably why I dont teach at Gunsite.

Wish Gunsite was closer. Im near to Sig and have attended classes there which I enjoy, but the congested Northeast limits what can be offered for challenges.

 

[pmclaine]

Yes the first day we wasted a lot of our time trying to find the hidden targets. We worked each position as a sniper-spotter pair. Some targets were obscured by brush. By the last day we could find most of them within about 5-10 minutes because we had a better idea of what we were looking for, but a few were nearly invisible even when you were looking right at them with a high power scope. All were painted to match the background foliage.

I went in with good glass on the spotting scope and rifle, but only mediocre binoculars. Two of the students had swarovski binoculars which were amazingly clear and an advantage. You really need good glass for the rifle, spotter and also binoculars to do this style of shooting as you first need to find the targets with binoculars, then direct your partner onto the target. Its hard to talk someone onto a hidden target under a tree when your only reference points are other trees!

Little things like the power range on your scopes matter too. The spotters all used Leupold Mark IV 12-40x60mm with the TMR reticle for instance. At low power it was wide enough to orient yourself and find the targets, while at high power you could still mil the tiny targets at 1000 yards. A higher power scope wouldn't work as you'd be trying to find targets through a soda straw. The reticle was key as well since you need it both to mil small targets and also call adjustments on misses and read the mirage to call wind.

Overall a bucket-list type of experience - 7 days of long range heaven.

What power were the swarovski binos for that type of target recognition?

What was the range limit on them in which you moved to the spotter?

 

[Mortalpawn]

I was using moderately priced 8x42 binoculars, and they were not ideal, mainly because they were not quite as sharp as the high end glass. Two students had Swarovski's - one a 10x42 and one a 15x56. The 15x56 was best overall for spotting targets, though they are a bit heavy. My personal choice for all-around use binoculars (hunting, etc...) would be the Swarovski 10x42s if you have the bucks.

About half of the targets could not be found with binoculars, and had to be found on the scopes. In some cases we were shooting camoflaged small pepper poppers (12" wide) over 700 yards away and only slightly larger targets out to 1000. We all used the same spotting scope which was the Leupold 12-40x60mm with the TMR reticle. These were mounted on Manfrotto geared heads and good tripods for fine adjustment. At 12x it still had a wide field of view for finding targets, and you could easily zoom in and mil small targets with the reticle. You could also use the rifle scope, but it was not quite as flexible as the spotting scope.

Since we milled every target, we would spot as many as possible with binoculars up front, mark them on a range card (hand drawn map) then switch to the spotting scope and rifle for ranging. Typically both the spotter and shooter milled the same target as accurately as possible to get the range, then the spotter looked up the dope and also made the wind call. The shooter was the "monkey" who dialed and shot what the spotter called. It was much harder to be the spotter than the shooter.

Often once we started shooting, one of the two would find another target and talk the other person into that one until we found them all.

 

[pmclaine]

I was using moderately priced 8x42 binoculars, and they were not ideal, mainly because they were not quite as sharp as the high end glass. Two students had Swarovski's - one a 10x42 and one a 15x56. The 15x56 was best overall for spotting targets, though they are a bit heavy. My personal choice for all-around use binoculars (hunting, etc...) would be the Swarovski 10x42s if you have the bucks.

About half of the targets could not be found with binoculars, and had to be found on the scopes. In some cases we were shooting camoflaged small pepper poppers (12" wide) over 700 yards away and only slightly larger targets out to 1000. We all used the same spotting scope which was the Leupold 12-40x60mm with the TMR reticle. These were mounted on Manfrotto geared heads and good tripods for fine adjustment. At 12x it still had a wide field of view for finding targets, and you could easily zoom in and mil small targets with the reticle. You could also use the rifle scope, but it was not quite as flexible as the spotting scope.

Since we milled every target, we would spot as many as possible with binoculars up front, mark them on a range card (hand drawn map) then switch to the spotting scope and rifle for ranging. Typically both the spotter and shooter milled the same target as accurately as possible to get the range, then the spotter looked up the dope and also made the wind call. The shooter was the "monkey" who dialed and shot what the spotter called. It was much harder to be the spotter than the shooter.

Often once we started shooting, one of the two would find another target and talk the other person into that one until we found them all.

Thank you.

Sounds great.