Whos a rifleman?
Along the way, I became a fine group shooter from the bench, but it took actually getting involved in competition to fully understand group shooting from sandbags doesn’t make you a rifleman. Group shooting is just preliminary preparation in assuring you the rifle and ammunition are capable of the chore required. It’s actually hitting a target that counts. This was vividly demonstrated to me in the BPCR silhouette game. My rifles and loads were extremely accurate in bench shooting, yet in my first few of years in competition I couldn’t even shoot myself out of AA Class. It took thousands of rounds and scores of matches learning to shoot both from cross sticks and offhand (25 percent of targets in BPCR Silhouette are fired offhand) before I gained the skill required to pass through AAA Class and then into Master Class. Nowadays, it’s a rare missed shot in a match I can’t tell my spotter in which direction it missed and why. So I feel maybe, just maybe, I’m finally on my way to becoming
