PRS Talk what gear for a PRS newb

[TRPrecision]

I am a benchrest or Fclass guy and have been sponsoring / mentoring a very talented young lady who is bored with my style of shooting. She has asked me to help her get started in PRS. I shot a couple local PRS style matches several years ago, but things have certainly changed alot since then. Her rifle setup is solid. I built her a 26" 6mm creedmoor with a bartlien barrel on a blueprinted 700 action in a custom built chassis with a 5-25 Steiner T5xi. It is set up with a full ARCA rail and area 419 adjustable barricade stop.
I have both Harris and Atlas bipods, but need to convert one to ARCA mount. Is either one of these going to be a better choice than the other?
What kind of support bags do we need?
Is a sling a necessity to aid in certain positions?
What about Tripods, never used one, is it a must have or just a added plus?
We are not on an unlimited budget but I want her to have a decent enough kit that she is not being held back by the gear. I know she has the talent, just want to give her enough quality gear to not be embarrassed or frustrated.
She plans to shoot her 1st match in Open / Junior at Arena in October.
Thanks for any info you pros can offer.

 

[oniak]

Phil Velayo has a nice YouTube video explaining everything he takes to a match.

 

[Dthomas3523]

Atlas is overall a better bipod than Harris. Though the Harris is a bit faster for prs. And the target size eats up what you lose with the Harris vs atlas. I’ve found the tbac bipod to be a happy compromise between speed and quality.

Pick up a Wiebad mini waxed canvas fortune cookie (sand filled) or an Armageddon gear schmedium gamechanger (also sand filled). One of those is all the bag you need for 90% of stages. There will be plenty of people with other bags she can borrow from time to time. Decide later if you want to add any bags. But learning how to shoot most everything with one bag is a huge advantage.

No tripod needed. Will be plenty around to borrow for the very small amount of times you’ll use it. My tripod spends 95% of its time with binos or rangefinder on it.

Get a good ballistic solver app or a kestrel 5700 elite. The gucci solution is a Garmin tactix delta + a terrapin x rangefinder but that’s $$$$. A good phone app is the cheapest and a 5700 elite is an awesome mid price range solution for dope.

Get an arm board with dry/wet erase card and pin for multi target stages. An e-dope card us great alternative to writing, but it’s about $100.

The bare basic for a match:

Rifle/optic/bipod
Ammo
Ballistic app on phone
Fortune cookie bag or gamechanger bag
Data/dope card
Ear pro

Anything else is a creature comfort and plenty of people will have it. Since on a budget, buy extra stuff a piece at a time as she progresses.

Things that are the least beneficial vs cost when on a budget:

Tripod
Rangefinder
Random bags you hardly use
Suppressor
Expensive optics (plenty of people skull dragging matches with razor gen 2’s)

Best upgrades for the money:

Kestrel 5700 elite
Decent binos w/cheap tripod

Being able to stay on good binos while others shoot is a big time good way to learn wind and see what issues others are having while they shoot.

 

[TRPrecision]

Thanks, this is the response I was hoping for. Rifle and optic are GTG, will shoot into the low .2s with hand loads and I am teaching her how to load. Kestrel is on her wish list, possible Christmas gift from parents. We have been getting by pretty good at UKD range practice with my range finder and using Strelok pro app. A good tripod is just too much $$$ to swing right now so it is good to know that it has limited use. She will be shooting with a suppressor, both she and the rifle perform better with than without. I have a decent tripod for a spotting scope, will try and come up with a solution for binos, I can see the benefit to them. Need to order a game changer for next month and we should be GTG then hopefully.

 

[TRPrecision]

For binos is quality glass all that is needed or is a MIL reticle important?

 

[Ruff 364]

For binos is quality glass all that is needed or is a MIL reticle important?

It's nice to have but not a must have. If the binos are not on a tripod a reticle will do you zero good.

I use 15X binos at every match. If I'm spending a day ROing a match. If that's the case I break out my Razor spotter with reticle.

 

[mpk1996]

I disagree with the above on the atlas vs harris. i like the harris much better. I usually have a MDT ckye bipod as well. i don't like it as much in a std prone position, but it has a much wider range of heights which can be handy in certain situations. but i degress

as far as bags go. you really only need one. a gamechanger. you can get the std wax canvas one or the newer shmedium. I have had them all. 90% of the time i use the shmedium. the sand fill is very very stable. the only downside is one some stages when you need a taller bag, the reg gamechanger has the advantage. but that again is for onesies and twosies. not very often.

so, show up with the rifle, bipod, ammo and gamechanger. plus a good ballistics calculator (if you don't have a kestrel, use the phone apps - i recommend the 4dof hornady app if the bullet you shoot is in the library or StrelokPro if not).

spend a lot of time getting good data and a good zero. that is the biggest mistake new shooters do. they show up with the info from the bullet box plugged in, don't know if they have a good zero, and expect to make hits at long range off of unstable barricades. its a recipe for a frustrating day/weekend.

the rest of the gear can be borrowed at a match. everyone will let you look through their bino, use their tripod, and try more/other bags. so don't worry about that stuff

 

[TRPrecision]

We have had a game changer and pump pillow donated to use for the match. She is going to be using my Atlas for the 1st match, but will switch to a Harris when I build her rifle for budget reasons.
We shot this past weekend and got a match load chonographed and loaded into Streloc pro. We confirmed true 100y zero and used data to get 300 and 500 yards (all we had available). She had no problem getting repeat hits on a 1moa plate at 500. She is struggling a bit on the barricades moving around such a long heavy rifle and keeping the muzzle perfectly downrange. A little more practice is needed here. I figured she would struggle on the tank trap, but once she found a position that worked she was very stable and was able to make some very solid and quick hits.
We are going to practice again this weekend to help get her confidence up, but will be doing it with a different barreled action in the chassis. The barrel on my 6mm creed is staring to get tired and has opened up to a .5-.6moa. Need to preserve what it has left for the match. I think the Arena match will be it's last. She has agreed that her 1st rifle will be a 6.5CM so barrel life wont be such an issue and factory ammo will be plentiful as well.

 

[Lilja Riflebarrels]

I think the best thing you could do is go to a local 1 day match, make sure the MD knows you are new shooters and get squadded with some "Pro's" that know what they are doing, and more times than not they will help you and take you two under their wing the whole day. Use there gear, figure out what you like, what you don't like, what works best, what doesn't work best etc. Rather than spend a bunch of money on gear it turns out you don't like, use the gear first before you buy.

That's my two cents.

 

[TRPrecision]

Thanks to all whom offered up good advice. Abbie had a great time at her 1st match, despite struggling quite a bit with some nasty wind all day. She now knows what to expect moving forward and what areas she needs to practice, mainly speed and wind calls. Extra thanks to David @ Wiebad for helping us on gear for her next match.

 

[Nfrantz87]

Just keep borrowing bags and stuff from others at matches and you'll find what you like the best. It helps a lot. Most everyone's willing to share.