Shot my first match this past weekend at Pigg River. As everyone mentioned, everyone there was extremely nice and helpful. I only placed 61/75 shooters but I had a freakin blast and learned a lot. It definitely won't be my last.
Leading up to the match, I took my rifle out to re check zero and shoot at some varying distances. At this point, I had yet to take my rifle with the new scope/mount out past 100yds.
long story short, my Athlon Ares appeared to not be tracking correctly. Every time I cranked up my elevation, my shots were drifting further and further right. And there was literally ZERO wind that evening.
I texted another member on the forum who was also at the match and he pointed me to an article about vertical split rings/mounts sometimes causing tracking issues.
I panicked, my match was in two days and I had already spent 60 rounds and 4 hours trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my gun. I ended up calling out of work friday and swapped my ADM mount out for my PMR rings and sighted it back in. everything worked beautiful this time.
The weather was perfect for the match, a little hot but minimal winds and remained fairly consistent for the most part.
I would say my biggest struggle and was getting into position and just FINDING the targets, I wasted a lot of time because of this. Also, I decided shooting with my suppressor compared to with a brake on my particular gun is way worse for keeping on target for follow up shots. So i will definitely not be shooting suppressed next time. I knew this already just from recreational shooting but I didn't realize how bad it would effect me at the match. I'm sure with a longer, heavier barrel and less recoiling caliber I can perhaps go back to using my suppressor down the road after I rebarrel.
Next thing is getting some more bags. I was fortunate enough to be given a Ghost bag from Jesse at Phantom Precision and this will help tremendously.
Overall, I think I did well with focusing on having fun and learning and not getting too consumed with being super competitive and worked up on missed shots. There are some great shooters out there that were awesome to watch.
My buddy also went with me and he is hooked too. Our next step is to make/gather up some various barricades to throw on a little trailer to bring to the farm with us to practice our positional shooting. I told him I think we need to be 25% prone and 75% positional when we practice.
Thanks to everyone to pushed me over the fence to finally sign up. It was worth it
Leading up to the match, I took my rifle out to re check zero and shoot at some varying distances. At this point, I had yet to take my rifle with the new scope/mount out past 100yds.
long story short, my Athlon Ares appeared to not be tracking correctly. Every time I cranked up my elevation, my shots were drifting further and further right. And there was literally ZERO wind that evening.
I texted another member on the forum who was also at the match and he pointed me to an article about vertical split rings/mounts sometimes causing tracking issues.
I panicked, my match was in two days and I had already spent 60 rounds and 4 hours trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my gun. I ended up calling out of work friday and swapped my ADM mount out for my PMR rings and sighted it back in. everything worked beautiful this time.
The weather was perfect for the match, a little hot but minimal winds and remained fairly consistent for the most part.
I would say my biggest struggle and was getting into position and just FINDING the targets, I wasted a lot of time because of this. Also, I decided shooting with my suppressor compared to with a brake on my particular gun is way worse for keeping on target for follow up shots. So i will definitely not be shooting suppressed next time. I knew this already just from recreational shooting but I didn't realize how bad it would effect me at the match. I'm sure with a longer, heavier barrel and less recoiling caliber I can perhaps go back to using my suppressor down the road after I rebarrel.
Next thing is getting some more bags. I was fortunate enough to be given a Ghost bag from Jesse at Phantom Precision and this will help tremendously.
Overall, I think I did well with focusing on having fun and learning and not getting too consumed with being super competitive and worked up on missed shots. There are some great shooters out there that were awesome to watch.
My buddy also went with me and he is hooked too. Our next step is to make/gather up some various barricades to throw on a little trailer to bring to the farm with us to practice our positional shooting. I told him I think we need to be 25% prone and 75% positional when we practice.
Thanks to everyone to pushed me over the fence to finally sign up. It was worth it
