Scores

The 2019 Season

The Scores

Date	Location	Standing	Sitting	Rapid Prone	Slow Prone	Aggregate
April 7	Bonfield	98-2	99-4	95-1	195-8	487-15	97.4%
May 5	Bonfield	98-3	100-7	99-4	199-12	496-26	99.2%
May 11	Bonfield	198-6	200-9	178-9	-	576-24	96.0%
May 25	Lodi	95-1	98-4	98-0	196-5	487-10	97.4%
May 26	Lodi	195-5	200-12	197-11	382-11	974-39	97.4%
June 1	Milan	194-4	199-9	197-9	199-12	789-34	98.6%
June 2	Milan	89-0	100-6	99-2	195-10	483-18	96.6%
June 9	Bonfield	98-4	100-4	100-5	197-5	495-18	99.0%
June 22	Milan	197-5	199-11	199-11	198-8	793-35	99.1%
June 23	Milan	193-4	200-12	200-8	198-10	791-34	98.9%
July 4	Bonfield	198-4	199-6	194-4	197-13	788-27	98.5%
July 21	Bonfield	196-9	198-10	197-9	-	591-28	98.5%
July 29	Camp Perry	97-1	-	96-0	92-2	285-3	95.0%
July 30	Camp Perry	93-2	100-7	100-4	195-9	488-22	97.6%
July 31	Camp Perry	91-1	-	100-6	99-6	290-13	96.7%
August 1	Camp Perry	98-5	98-2	100-4	195-5	491-16	98.2%
August 6	Camp Atterbury	100-3	100-10	98-4	196-11	494-28	98.8%
August 7	Camp Atterbury	98-1	100-4	99-5	193-5	490-15	98.0%
August 9	Camp Atterbury	195-5	200-9	200-7	199-11	794-32	99.3%
August 10	Camp Atterbury	196-8	198-14	198-10	196-8	788-40	98.5%
August 11	Camp Atterbury	193-7	199-12	197-9	194-6	783-34	97.9%
August 31	Milan	196-6	198-10	198-7	200-11	792-34	99.0%
September 1	Milan	199-10	199-10	199-8	198-9	795-37	99.4%
September 14	Bonfield	199-8	200-7	200-10	200-12	799-37	99.9%
October 5	Milan	196-7	197-3	199-10	-	592-20	98.7%

2019 Season Average:		Standing	Sitting	Rapid Prone	Slow Prone	Aggregate
2019 Season Average:		97.1%	99.5%	98.4%	98.0%	98.1%

The Stories

I bought another flat-top service rifle upper over the winter so now I have two. I put my 4X service rifle scope on the new upper but I kept the 25X scope that I borrowed at the end of last year on my old upper. While the service rifle configuration will be the primary one for the year, I want to try the higher power scope in a few matches as well. I think this will let me see some things with my technique that isn't as easily seen with a lower power optic.

April 7

The weather keeps changing every day but today was fairly mild although rain was predicted. The start was delayed due to some showers and we also had to pause in the middle of the match as the rain passed through. I felt quite disconnected from my shooting all day. The positions felt foreign and I lacked a comfortable cadence for rapid fire.

I mounted my scope on my new upper and went to the match. My limited experience with bore-sighting has been poor so I came up with a different zeroing strategy. I would just put on my zero from my old upper. What could possibly go wrong? Well, plenty. But that's how I started standing. My hold wasn't very good but I trust my calls. The first shot broke on the left edge of the black. I had to call for a mark but the spotter came up a miss on the left edge of the frame. I corrected with 30 clicks of right and called my next shot another nine on the left. This one came up real close to my call, maybe a little too much to the right. So I came two clicks left and fired a 10 for my first record shot. All of this messing around thinking about which way to correct and how much made me start to feel like time was ticking away. This made me rush some shots that I probably didn't need to.
Sitting was really strange as I knew what I was doing but at the same time, I didn't. My position didn't feel right and I wasn't sure what sling setting I should use. During the string my breathing was inconsistent and my position was causing some wild shots. I'm just telling myself that I just have to shake the rust off.
For a rapid-prone sight setting, I just adjusted from my stand and sit based on past come-ups. This felt just as foreign as sitting did with my timing not being quite right and I felt like I was fighting the rifle. After the string I realized what part of my problem was. I normally move my buttstock one notch further back for prone as compared to standing and sitting. I forgot to do that today and, as a consequence, my face was too close to the scope and I didn't get proper head position.
Slow prone conditions seemed pretty calm. Not a lot of wind and overcast skies. I had my buttstock on the correct setting this time so at least there's that. As I was breaking shots though, the trigger break seemed forced. I also felt like I was doing something or moving as the shot went off. I looked at the video of my shooting frame-by-frame to see if there was any extraneous movement but I couldn't find any.

Standing:	98-2
Sitting:	99-4
Rapid Prone:	95-1
Slow Prone:	195-8
Aggregate:	487-15

May 5

I'm much more comfortable in a rifle match when I'm used to the process and I can anticipate everything that might happen. Today, there were a lot of differences from my normal routine. First, we were going to shoot on electronic targets. This greatly altered my routine of looking at shot locations and the pace of shooting. Second, I was using a 25X scope on my service rifle. This brought out a lot of detail in my shooting but it also brought new challenges.

My routine was altered right at the beginning in standing. Having to get a tablet set up in front of me while trying to guess at my zero made me late for prep and it was almost over as I finally started dry-firing. I got my NPA as close as possible and then started shooting. That NPA must not have been very good because I was on target 20 and I kept bring the gun down on target 22. I could confirm the target number on the number boards but, because of the high scope magnification, the field of view was limited. Consequently I had to drop the rifle down to the safety berm to see the boards. The magnified wobble took a little getting used to but that wasn't too bad because the extra scope power made the 10-ring so easy to see. This helped a lot in making the decision when to shoot.
I calculated a sitting zero (or at least a starting point) from my sight settings in standing. My position felt good and the first sighter was a nine at 4 o'clock. I came up four clicks and left eight clicks and got an X on the right side for the second sighter. I positioned my tablet in front of me and on my right so I could see it during the string. The first two shots were 10's on the right so I put on 2 clicks left and kept shooting. Like standing I couldn't see my number boards so I trusted my NPA to stay on my target. During the string the gun just seemed to fire when the dot was at the top of the X-ring. That seemed to be good enough at the time but my true elevation zero is probably a click higher than what I shot the string with.
After some prone work recently, I wanted to get a more consistent buttplate placement in my shoulder. This puts the placement higher in my shoulder. I tried to do this but it lowered the muzzle and I was constantly trying to level things out. My sighters were good for elevation but the rapid string was taller than I would have liked. I had problems getting a good rhythm in my breathing so the rifle kept going up and down while I was running out of breath.
Because the range didn't have a 300 yard reduced target face for the electronic frames, we shot on the rapid fire target. This doesn't matter to the sensors, but with a 25X scope, the X-ring looked really big and that made it harder to gauge where I should break the shot. I positioned my wobble so that it's lowest point was about the bottom of the X-ring. I would time my shots to coincide with this position. As I was working my way through the string, I noticed that I would be in the middle and then have a high shot. I was skeptical that I had a good vertical NPA when I kept the buttstock in my shoulder so on the back half I would take the rifle out, load, and mount it again. This certainly slowed my pace but I think it gave me better elevation. The field of view through the scope only showed me the top of the number board so my shot process included a slight dip to ensure target number before coming up to the target.

Standing:	98-3
Sitting:	100-7
Rapid Prone:	99-4
Slow Prone:	199-12
Aggregate:	496-26

May 11

Things look a lot different when looking through a 4X scope compared to a 25X one. The target appeared so much smaller today as I'm back to my service rifle optic. We shot again on electronic targets and I was more comfortable in the routine but I still have yet to get fully used to the process. The skies were merely overcast when we started with temperatures in the 40's. The rain started in early afternoon and the last quarter of the match was cancelled.

This week I gave myself enough time to get my stuff ready for standing. My starting sight settings were good enough to get me in the black but I still was adjusting based off my call through the first couple of shots for record. I fired a nine for my first shot which surprised me but then kept it in the 10-ring for the next 15 shots. On shot 17 I lost concentration and was thinking about other stuff around me rather than executing. My calls were alright but not terribly accurate. The hold wasn't great but my trigger control was good. The dot would pass into the 10 and while there would be a slight delay as the shot transpired, there was little movement during this stage. The score doesn't reflect my flawed NPA for most of the string as I kept coming down on the right side of the target.
My sitting position felt more natural after having shot it last week. The sighters were close to call and it was like I remembered how to shoot this stage. My only problem was that my NPA was shifting during the strings and the shots weren't as controlled. This put my early shots in the middle but they got wilder as I went on.
Last week's rapid prone position put the buttplate too high in my shoulder. Keeping this in mind, I found a position that put it high enough but I adjusted my sling to give me better elevation of the muzzle and not put the rifle so low. The first string felt good as far as my position was concerned, but my breathing was off as I only took shallow breaths between shots and didn't take in much air. For the second string, after I emptied the first magazine, the bolt didn't stay back. I instinctively dropped the magazine and then wondered if maybe I loaded three rounds by mistake. I pulled the charging handle back to see if anything would eject but nothing did. I hadn't loaded the second magazine so there was nothing to hold the bolt open at that point. I let go of the charging handle and the bolt closed. My hand pushed the second magazine into the rifle then racked the bolt back and released it. I got back into position feeling like I already lost some time. After lining up with the target my trigger pull only generated the dreaded "click" instead of the satisfying "bang". I thought I lost a primer in the chambered cartridge so I pulled back on the charging handle again. At that point I could tell that I never seated the magazine fully into the rifle so the top round was never stripped off. I pushed the magazine all the way up, chambered the round, and got back on the target. At this point I knew my only chance was to shoot fast and that's what I did. Unfortunately, my magazine gymnastics took up too much time and I saved my last two rounds. The rain that came later only underscored my mood.
Slow prone was rained out.

Standing:	198-6
Sitting:	200-9
Rapid Prone:	178-9
Slow Prone:	DNF
Aggregate:	576-24

May 25

Over this past week I had the flu which really took the wind out of my sails. The feelings were still lingering as I headed into the weekend. My concentration was below par and with all my coughing, congestion and shortness of breath it made me feel like I was really exerting myself although I really wasn't. Unfortunately, this mean that I couldn't give my team mates my best effort in the team match.

We had some breezy conditions for standing which played havoc with my hold. I would have liked to take more time on each shot but we were in a team block time so I already felt like I was taking too long. Helping me with things was my NPA as I found that to be pretty good. On some shots it was a very short distance to the middle after getting to the target. Trigger control screwed things up though as it yanked the sights across the black sometimes. But I was still able to break some shots inside my call. The last shot I gave up on and put an eight out the top.
The wind was also moving me around in sitting. Of course, if I had a more stable position it wouldn't have been so bad. It was hard to find the reticle settling in the middle. On most shots it was dancing around and I wasn't timing my trigger squeeze very well either.
By time I shot rapid prone, the wind had really picked up and we used six clicks of left. I normally hold my breath for a good portion of my rapid prone strings but with my congestion and coughing today, this was not helping. Even poor breathing timing seemed to tax my lung capacity. Most of the string was in the middle until I started to have a need to breathe at a pace that was different from my shooting cadence. At that point I was breaking shots so I could breathe rather than trying to put them in the middle.
At the 600 yard line my firing point had a very high line where I put my elbow and a hole where my torso would go. During prep I got into position and noticed that my body wanted to fall away to the right and I had a hard time to get a relaxed position pointing at the target. This was because my right elbow was in the hole and so my arm and right shoulder (and therefore the rifle) was dropping down and was unsupported. My solution was to twist my hips slightly counter to this and shift the bony part of my left hip more towards the mat. This supported my body better and gave me a more stable rifle platform.

Standing:	95-1
Sitting:	98-4
Rapid Prone:	98-0
Slow Prone:	196-5
Aggregate:	487-10

May 26

This morning I didn't feel as ill as I did yesterday. I was still coughing and there was plenty of congestion, but I was able to concentrate much better. The weather, though, was fantastic. Just slightly cool in the morning so you needed a sweatshirt. Then, what the sun came out a little later, it was nice and warm without a lot of heat. Blue skies above punctuated by some occasional puffy clouds. I wish every highpower match had weather like this.

I had more anxiety this morning for standing than I normally do. I'm not sure why but chatting with friends before the match started helped a bit. As I prepped to begin I just felt really nervous. This gave me a high-frequency wobble where the reticle, instead of rolling around the target, would dart back and forth with unpredictable direction. This range has targets that are higher than the 200 yard firing line so I have always had a problem with a vertical NPA that is too low. Horizontal was pretty good it's that hold that was giving me fits. I just couldn't force myself to calm down. Stopping and restarting my process wasn't helping. After a few good shots, numbers 4 & 5 were both nines. Then I shot an eight and now I really felt like I was behind. On shot 10 I fired another nine and I was so frustrated with myself that I would drop five points in only the first 10 shots. I even felt lucky to be down only five as my performance wasn't even worthy of that. At that point I decided that I can only salvage an acceptable score from this if shoot like I know I can, get my hold under control, and clean the rest of the string. That seemed to calm me down and that's what I did.
It took me a long time in prep to find a good sitting position. I don't know if it was the firing point or something else but I had a hard time getting good placement of my left elbow and support underneath it. There was more pulse moving me around than I cared for which makes it harder to get smooth trigger squeeze because I'm trying to snatch the shot as it's moving past the middle. On the first string I fired my first two shots, changed magazines, and looked at the screen on my tablet. The first shot was a little of the X-ring at 10 o'clock and the second shot was out towards the line in the same direction. I quickly put on two more clicks of right and kept shooting. I was still holding my breath for most of that second magazine and I paused a couple of times to breathe because I knew that I would force the shots if I was running out of breath. On the second string I had a much better cadence with breaths between shots and a reticle that would center itself a lot better.
My vertical NPA was hard to get right in rapid prone. The position of the rifle put the sights below the target and I kept shifting to try to get higher. While my first sighter was slightly higher than my call, the second one was about six clicks higher quite a bit to the right. I didn't want to over correct for a wind condition that wasn't obvious so I only made a slight correction for the first string. That worked out well with 7 X's but I still had a shot out the top. The wind seemed the same for the second string so I left my sights the same. After I changed magazines I looked at the tablet and saw the two shots on the line on the right side. I reached for the windage knob but my mind was thinking in two click increments so I only added two clicks of left. As I got back into position I thought I should have been more aggressive with the correction but it was too late to reach for the knob again. So I just favored for the rest of the string by breaking shots on the left side of the X-ring. The rest of the group was well centered except for two shots that I put out the bottom.
After a somewhat decent day so far, things were really going to go downhill in slow prone. The wind was changing so much that I had a hard time trying to bracket it to determine the high and low correction. My form and fundamentals were good as I broke position after each shot and kept pretty good elevation. On the 4th shot I got a nine just off the line on the right side. I turned the windage knob to put on a three click correction as I was looking through the spotting scope at mirage. But I have been so ingrained with the direction of knobs on iron sights, I put on three clicks of right instead of left. As you might imagine the result was disastrous as the next shot was a 7 straight out the right. I looked at the tablet, then the mirage, then back to the tablet again in disbelief thinking that I got caught in some unforeseen wind change. I put on five clicks of left (the appropriate direction this time) which just corrected for the three in the wrong direction plus only two more. That got me a nine on the right. Another two clicks of left put me back in the 10-ring but the damage was already done.
I was hoping I could redeem myself on the second slow prone but that was asking too much. I put on five clicks of right on the gun and shot an X on the bottom. The second sighter was an 8 on the right. I studied the mirage for a while and then made a two click correction to the left. My first shot for record was clear out the other side for a 7 on the left. After shaking my head, I went five clicks right and fired an X. Then I was back out in the 8-ring on the right. Once again I was holding elevation well but was getting pulled back and forth across the target.

Standing:	195-5
Sitting:	200-12
Rapid Prone:	197-11
Slow Prone:	193-3
Slow Prone:	189-8
Aggregate:	974-39

June 1

It's been raining around here a lot so the grass is long and wet. In addition, the range was infested with gnats that seemed to gravitate to the shooters. There was a chance of rain in the afternoon but we got the whole match in and stayed dry. A hazy sky kept the sun from making the day too hot.

My hold in standing was very disappointing. I tried to get better control of it but that only worked for a few shots. Most times the dot would dance into the middle and then dart around so fast I couldn't really make a good firing decision. NPA was good but the quick wobble and not being able to break clean shots hurt me as I would keep losing points towards 1 or 2 o'clock. I never really got into a rhythm where I could have a string of good shots.
I seem to have a hard time getting a consistently stable sitting position. The strings feel different and there is more wobble than I would like. This seemed manageable and the strings feel good enough that I'm confident while the targets are being scored. It was deflating to hear that I dropped a shot on the first string but that's the way it goes. Even my second string, which was a clean, had a shot on the left side that was out of the group.
As with sitting, I thought my rapid prone group would be good as I was waiting for the targets to come up. The position felt good and I noticed the dot would want to come back to the middle of the target. The fact that I didn't have to force the sights to the target was a good omen. On the first string I would occasionally inhale slightly to keep myself supplied with oxygen but I had a lone 9 just off the line down low. The second string felt good as well and even though I held my breath during the second magazine, the shots seemed to break well. That one was even worse with a shot down low as well as out the left.
I have been shooting slow prone on electronic targets recently so I wasn’t entirely confident of my elevation zero with manual targets. So I put on the elevation I used at this range in April and got an eight up top for my first sighter. I came down and was able to hold good elevation but, although I didn't know it at the time, my windage zero was about three clicks too far to the right. When I thought I had two clicks of left on, that was really a click right. The wind was blowing from behind us with a slight fishtail. It wasn't much so I could shoot through it but my lack of correct windage zero meant I lost a 9 on the right side for my second record shot. As the string went on I was able to get centered and that's when I discovered my true zero.

Standing:	194-4
Sitting:	199-9
Rapid Prone:	197-9
Slow Prone:	199-12
Aggregate:	789-34

June 2

The weather was really nice for the Leg match. Just a little breeze and lots of sunshine. My problem was that my allergies seemed to become active. I was sneezing and coughing and it was hard to concentrate.

As bad as the gnats were yesterday, they were even worse on my firing point for standing. For the entire string I had them flying around my head and crawling on my face and neck. As I started shooting I noticed that my hold was real bad. Also, my left pinkie finger usually covers the ejection port enough to keep the brass from flying out. Today it wasn't doing that. I would be breaking shots on the move and there wasn't any control. My trigger control was always behind my movement on the target. On shot six the rifle shook and I fired as it dropped out the bottom. That gave me a 6. After I was done with the string I noticed that I didn't adjust my buttstock to the shorter setting after shooting yesterday. So I was shooting a rifle with a longer length of pull than I'm comfortable with.
There wasn't much wind in sitting so I shot it straight-away. I don't stand up for rapid-fire very much but it seems like when I do it for sitting, I come down several targets to the right. I quickly adjusted myself to get a better NPA at the target. The group was fairly well centered but taller than I would have liked,
I dropped my rapid prone elevation zero a couple of clicks yesterday so I wanted to see if it held for today. I put on two clicks of left windage and dropped into position. My group was on the left side so it looked like the wind was at our backs. More concerning though was the high shot I put in the middle of the 9-ring.
I'm still working on the timing of breaking position after each shot for slow prone. It still feels very slow like I'm interrupting the flow of shooting but I think I can hold better elevation if I can reposition the buttplate in my shoulder. I would fire, unshoulder, load the next round, check mirage, and get back in position. I missed the wind pickups on a couple of shots and pushed a couple others a bit high but when I was in the middle, I was getting X's. Out of the ten X's I had, eight were on the right side.

Standing:	89-0
Sitting:	100-6
Rapid Prone:	99-2
Slow Prone:	195-10
Aggregate:	483-18

June 9

We spent most of the day under overcast skies. It wasn't until the very end of the match that the sun came out. It was the end of the match but time-wise it was only early afternoon because we were shooting on electronic targets and the day went fairly quickly. The day seemed rather odd as I felt I shot a decent score, and one that would normally be a winning one, but I came in fourth. The competition here is so keen that it's days like this where I see how much I still need to work to be able to climb higher and shoot better scores.

With a poor hold in my recent standing attempts, I am trying to bring my left elbow further across my body as I mount the gun. This has helped me in the past and I think I got away from that recently. The results were mixed as the hold started off well but then got worse as the string wore on. I had to click left from the very beginning to get the shots to match my call and I finished with five clicks left of where I think my zero is. While my NPA wasn't perfect, that couldn't have accounted for this entire error. I think the calibration on the electronic targets had something to do with it. I was clean through shot 6 but everything about my shot process felt like I was just lucky at that point. Like it was only a matter of time before the errors started creeping in.
I got down into sitting to begin prep and my position felt very wrong. I was too elevated and constrained. The collar on my coat was up high and hitting my left ear. My elbows were too close together on my knees. I tried to spread out a bit during prep and sighters with only a little relief. The targets lost one of my shots and only recorded nine. I had the option of taking a shot of lowest value so that's what I did.
This was a rapid prone stage with some poor trigger control. I just wasn't breaking it smoothly and I had a hard time finding that transition between the first stage and the second. The first half of the string went fine. I fired shot 6, came back out of recoil, and was taking up the first stage on the trigger and then pulled right through the second stage. The reticle was somewhere in the black when the shot broke but I couldn't be certain where. It turned out to just break the 10 line on the very bottom and I couldn't believe how lucky I got.
Looking at the targets of some of the shooters on the previous relay showed me that I had to really shoot well to keep up. People were cleaning slow prone and I felt like I could as well. My first sighter was a high 9 and I came down three clicks and then shot a low 9 that was almost an 8. I came back up and was in the 10-ring but could never really get centered up. At other times, even with some early elevation adjustment, I can get in the X-ring and stay away from the edges. Today the shots were scattered enough that I felt like 9's were inevitable. I'm not sure what caused this as I felt like I was breaking good shots with the dot in the middle of the target.

Standing:	98-4
Sitting:	100-4
Rapid Prone:	100-5
Slow Prone:	197-5
Aggregate:	495-18

June 22

When I was at this range a few weeks ago the gnats were out in force. This time they were only annoying. It was overcast when I arrived at the club but then the sun came out for most of the day. Temperatures were mild but the humidity made it seem warmer than it really was. Because of the odd number of shooters, I was on a firing point with only one other person. That meant that I would have to go back and forth to the pits whenever there was a pit change. This made me feel a bit detached from the match. As if I was shooting by myself.

I have recently started to experiment with moving my buttstock one position shorter than I have been shooting it. I have always liked a short length of pull in standing and want to get the rifle closer to me. While I have had success with the length I have used, the shorter position seems to allow the rifle to be supported more naturally by my forward arm. At least that's what it seemed when I have been dry-firing this week. In today's standing match it wasn't as consistent as my hold would sometimes be manageable and sometimes it would be too big. My calls were better early on in the string but then didn't seem to match up. Trigger control was sub-par and I saw too much movement at shot break on too many shots. After shooting an X in the middle of the string, I was lining the sights on the target for the next shot when I just pulled through the first and second stage and the gun went off. I felt pretty sure it was at least in the scoring rings and it came up as another X. Talk about lucky! Still, I want to be in a position where I can control the hold better and center it on the target.
During prep for sitting I really focused on the way my knees were in relation to my elbows and feet. I wanted that stable base that I know I can acquire. The first string actually had minimal wobble but the trigger control was poor. I would snatch at the trigger which just ruined the work I put into my position and hold. For the second string I reminded myself to just squeeze the trigger which led to a much improved 7X group.
There was some mirage for rapid prone that was moving from right to left. It wasn't much so I put on one click for my first sighter and got a 10 on the left side. I decided to make a full correction and put on another two clicks of right. My second sighter was now a 10 on the right. After some thinking I decided to just come back to my original one click since there wasn't as much wind as the first sighter indicated. As I shot the first string the sight picture looked pretty good. I breathed in about the first third of the string but then started to hold my breath as I dressed up the sight picture for each shot. By the end I was moving a bit fast since I thought I might run out of time. The group was similar to so many of my rapid prone groups. Good amount of X's in the middle with the rest of the shots dribbled out the bottom into the 9-ring. So for the second string I just kept telling myself "nothing out the bottom". I shot a little faster and still held my breath but it was much more comfortable that it has been. I had firm cheek pressure on the stock and I was breaking the shots at the top of the X-ring. The resulting group was really good and about the size of the X-ring but slightly high. Right where I was breaking them.
When I fired my first sighter in slow prone, and it came up an X, I started having those thoughts about it being smooth sailing from this point on. Those thoughts were quickly dashed when my second sighter was a mid-ring 9 at about one o'clock. That led to some head scratching about how I could have such an elevation difference between seemingly the same hold. I decided not to mess with my elevation knob and fired my first shot for record. That had good elevation but was a 9 on the right side. When you're trying to sort out your elevation, windage shots just add to the drama. I came left a couple clicks and stayed in the 10-ring but didn't really get centered until the second half. I had one shot that was low but I was building confidence as I went on.

Standing:	197-5
Sitting:	199-11
Rapid Prone:	199-11
Slow Prone:	198-8
Aggregate:	793-35

June 23

The second day of this 2 day aggregate was a bit overcast. The air was humid from all the rain we have had but there was a little breeze that made things tolerable.

My biggest takeaway from this morning's standing is poor trigger control. I had a few shots where they broke clean but so many had extra movement between shot decision and the gun going off. This is not only a problem by itself but it also leads to other things that decrease my chances of shooting a 10. When my trigger control is bad that makes me more hesitant to pull the trigger. I want to be more sure of a 10 than normal. This means I will see the reticle move into the 10-ring multiple times before I fire. With so many approaches into the target it makes it more likely that I hold too long. Even if I stop my process and start over, all those attempts into the target wear me down and it is much more tempting to just let the shot go and not be disciplined.
Sitting had this left-to-center wobble that I couldn't get rid of. If I tried to adjust my NPA to center the wobble I would just have gone too far so I decided to ride it out since it was workable. The first string had good trigger control so I knew the group would be decent. I had 8 X's but then two shots way out on the edge at 4 o'clock. For some reason I started the second string and my thoughts were elsewhere. It wasn't until about shot 4 that I started to focus on the task at hand.
Yesterday's rapid prone encouraged me and I knew I could shoot well as long as I didn't rush the shots and I waited for the right sight picture to present itself. The first string had an NPA problem in that the rifle wanted to drift to the right. My only response was to push the gun to the left to counteract that. The result was not the greatest group and it was on the left side but it was still a clean. The second string felt much better although I had a little right drift early on.
I actually discovered something about my NPA in slow prone today. The 600 yard line at this range is elevated in relation to the targets so I am shooting downhill. But my normal prone position points the rifle horizontally so my vertical NPA is above the target. It isn't much of a difference and normally I would adjust by breathing. But while this seemed adequate, I have been really focusing on trying to get better vertical NPA. My first sighter was a low 9 so I came up a click of elevation. The second sighter was a high 9 and that's the point where I start questioning my zero and worrying that I'm going to spend the entire string playing with my elevation. I came down two clicks and fired an X. But from then on I didn't really get centered. I had another high 9 and a high 10 and I came down another click. But it was at this point, mid-string, that I realized that my vertical NPA was always above the target and I kept having to bring the rifle down to the paper. My solution was to bring the buttplate higher in my shoulder where it was more on my collarbone than below it. While this seems obvious, it wasn't entirely easy to implement because it felt a little foreign. I cleaned the rest of the way with alternating 10's and X's but I think that was because I was too low on my zero after the adjustments earlier.

Standing:	193-4
Sitting:	200-12
Rapid Prone:	200-8
Slow Prone:	198-10
Aggregate:	791-34

July 4

There were two sets of weather conditions today. In the morning, the temperature was warm and tolerable with a little breeze that kept us comfortable. By the time we were back at 300 the air was still, the sun was beating down, and the humid air made the range brutal.

After playing with a shortened buttstock for standing in the last couple of matches, I went back to my established length-of-pull. I think the more natural support position of the shorter setting is offset by less flexible head position options. My hold today was decent in prep but still sub-par for the string. Trigger control was inconsistant between shots and overall less than what I want. NPA was pretty good and the sights tended to either drift towards the middle or I had a wobble that was well centered on the target. Most shots were inside of call. Despite my larger hold, I was able to get myself a few more points by staying disciplined in my shot selection. On a number of shots I heard in my head things like, "you've held too long" and "don't try to force it into the middle". Even though it can be difficult to stop and start over, when I did, I knew I made the right choice.
My sitting wobble never stabilized this morning. The reticle would dance around the black and there wasn't much I could do to change that. I told myself to just squeeze the trigger and let the dot go where it wants. But I was still putting movement in the rifle during the shot break. Both groups were way too big to be satisfactory and I was using every bit of the 10-ring.
The air was really holding a lot of heat and moisture for rapid prone. I noticed my firing point had a bit of a crown just underneath my forward shoulder. This meant that my support elbow was slightly lower and I knew that makes it difficult to get good elevation. Both my sighters were in the middle so I felt like I had a decent chance to score well. My first group felt alright but everything was out on the right. I came three clicks left, fired the second string, and now put everything out on the left. I was out of explanations and lost a chance to have a good aggregate score.
The heat was oppressive when I went to shoot slow prone. I paid special attention to my vertical NPA during the prep period. My first sighter was a high 10 and I came down one click and followed it up with an eight at 2 o'clock for my second sighter. That was a head scratcher and I had to decide whether to correct for it or if it was my fault. I thought that maybe it was the heat that caused me to put the shot up there so I stayed where I was. My first shot for record was right next to the second sighter and I shook my head. I came down two clicks and left three and I was in the X ring for the next four shots. I knew that breaking position for each shot allows me to get a better vertical NPA but in this heat that extended the string and I felt like I was laying in position for a long time. Towards the end my pulse was giving me a center-to-ten o'clock wobble.

Standing:	198-4
Sitting:	199-6
Rapid Prone:	194-4
Slow Prone:	197-13
Aggregate:	788-27

July 21

We had hot weather all week but at least it was dry. As soon as the weekend came, the rain did as well in the form of thunderstorms. Storms were predicted for the afternoon and sure enough, they brought lightning and rain which halted the match after rapid-prone. In the meantime it was very humid and that tended to make the day a little more difficult.

Standing was very inconsistent. One shot would have really good hold where the reticle would gently drift into the middle. On the next shot the dot would do a dance all around the sighting black. To be honest I wasn't as focused on my shooting as I should have been. All that changed about half-way through when the electronic target lost one of my shots. For some reason that woke me up and I paid more attention to what I was doing. It was nice to have most shots come up inside of my call. I would call a 10 somewhere and the shot location would be in the X.
We were running under CMP rules for the rapids so I stood up before sitting. The position wasn't the best and I had a lot of movement in the scope. It was very difficult to confidently fire good shots with the rifle moving around so much. I snatched at the trigger too often and wound up with two 9's on the first string. For the second string I remembered to tell myself to just "squeeze" and I was able to clean that one.
By the time we were shooting rapid prone the skies were pretty dark. That darker image in the scope made my sight picture a little less clear than I am used to. On the first string I came down to the mat and took a little extra time to get started. That got into my head that maybe I took too long. So I started to rush shots and, true to form when I don't pay attention to sight picture, I put three out the bottom.

Standing:	196-9
Sitting:	198-10
Rapid Prone:	197-9
Slow Prone:	-
Aggregate:	591-28

July 29

The President's Rifle Match at Camp Perry and the temperatures were pleasant. Unfortunately the wind wasn't very pleasant as it got stronger as the day went on. This was not the result I was hoping for and I have already started making plans on how I can perform better in these types of conditions in the future.

With the wind coming across the range for standing I wanted to be safe and put on 3 clicks of left. Over the course of the string I found the shots coming up to the right of my calls so I came another 2 clicks left. I tried to shoot quickly and efficiently without giving up on the shots.
My rapid prone wind call was 8 clicks of left. Not a lot of science behind this but I had to pick something. My breathing was all messed up as I fired the last few shots feeling like I was running out of air. The group was low and left. The size would easily clean the target if it was centered. Afterwards I realized that my buttstock was in the shorter position for standing and sitting. A rookie mistake.
When I was going to shoot slow prone, the wind was moving along pretty strong. My initial correction of 23 left was way too much as the first shot came up a 6 straight out the side. I corrected by 10 clicks and shot a 9 out the other side. Three clicks back to the left but the next shot was a seven. I cleaned the rest of it but dropping 8 points in the first three shots was a killer.

Standing:	97-1
Rapid Prone:	96-0
Slow Prone:	92-2
Aggregate:	285-3

July 30

The great weather continued for the National Trophy Individual. This was only my second day here and I already felt tired. It's so easy to get behind on sleep at this place.

My biggest takeaway from standing was that the hold was really poor. I felt like I was too much on the left side of the rifle. The large hold made it so much harder to find the right time to shoot. I let the first shot go too early and got an 8 for my troubles. After that it was just a smattering of 9's that dragged my score down.
My firing point in sitting actually helped me a little. There was a slight forward rise in the surface that elevated my feet slightly. This gave me good contact between my elbows and legs. During the string I just tried to squeeze when the dot was in the middle. My hold somehow got much bigger for the last three shots and on the final one I pulled through the second stage and the bullet was gone before I was ready.
I tried to find a spot on my firing point that had good support for my forward elbow but it wasn't good enough. My elbow was a little lower than my chest and I don't really like that. To alleviate my breathing problems from yesterday, I took a breath after about four shots and that worked pretty well. The group was still bigger than I would like but my 3 clicks of left put it in the middle.
While the wind was coming from the left at 300, for slow prone it had turned around and was now coming from the right. I put on 8 clicks of correction and let the first one go. I got an eight at 11 o'clock and the knob turning began. Not only did I have to add more wind, I had to start cranking down on elevation. I had a few more nines after that but was able to keep it in the middle for almost half the shots.

Standing:	93-2
Sitting:	100-7
Rapid Prone:	100-4
Slow Prone:	195-9
Aggregate:	488-22

July 31

It was heavy overcast in the morning for the Hearst Doubles match. By the end of the day the skies were clear.

We had a 10 MPH wind this morning for standing. I could control the elevation but there was so much side-to-side sway. The opportunities for 10's were fleeting but they were there. Unfortunately my mind always seemed to lag behind and I would decide to fire when I was already out of the 10-ring. I held tight on the pistol grip but I could never get the shot off on the first attempt.
I don't have much comment on my rapid prone except to say that my position felt pretty good, but I don't know what I did to get that. The five clicks of right windage was good enough although another click would have moved some of the 10's on the line inward a bit.
My slow prone position had a very well supported forward elbow. My first shot was an X and I was able to hold elevation really well today.

Standing:	91-1
Rapid Prone:	100-6
Slow Prone:	99-6
Aggregate:	290-13

August 1

The National Trophy Team Match and the match that I focus on when I come to Camp Perry.

There was a little breeze for standing but not nearly as much as yesterday. My NPA was good and the reticle would drift into the middle at some point on my attempts. It was just a matter of finding the right time to squeeze. My first two shots were 9's but after that it went well with my hold improving and calls being real close.
The wobble in sitting was more than I had seen this week. I came down from standing ready to fire my group and saw lots of movement. I forgot to tell myself to just squeeze and I wound up spraying the shots all over the 10-ring with a couple out just across the line at the top.
While on paper my rapid prone score is a clean, the target showed a wide group and a couple of shots that were right in the line.
I had a hard time getting my NPA in slow prone. The way my forward hand was positioned, it would push the handguard to the right. This drift was really interfering with my perception of each shot and when to break it. So I bent my wrist a little so the rifle ran more along my palm instead of getting pushed by the meaty part below my thumb.

Standing:	98-5
Sitting:	98-2
Rapid Prone:	100-4
Slow Prone:	195-5
Aggregate:	491-16

August 6

I start off here at Camp Atterbury with a 2-man team match. The morning weather was great with very calm conditions but then it got windier as the day went on. It was warm with some humidity but certainly not uncomfortable.

Despite the no wind calm, my hold wasn't as good as I would have expected. The reticle was moving around and would come into the 10-ring but wouldn't stay there long. Offsetting that was a good, but not great, NPA. Early on I started thinking that I could certainly clean this with these conditions. It didn't do me any good to not think about it because it was on my mind for each shot. Discipline was what got me to the goal. I didn't hesitate to start my shot process over if I felt I held too long or if other thoughts crept into my mind. A couple of times I would hear other things going on around me or on the next firing point and I would pause my process, breathe, clear my head, and start over.
My wobble in sitting was about the same as I have had recently. In other words, there was definitely movement in the reticle but I could manage it. My natural position had my butt further back and therefore my legs were more extended and my left leg rested better on my right boot. As I was shooting the string, the wobble didn't make things any easier but I would break the shot when it looked acceptable. Afterwards I would have guessed about a 6X clean instead of what it really was.
When I was shooting rapid prone, the wind was certainly stronger than it was this morning. We put on a couple of clicks and that seemed to work for the sighters. During the string I was putting shots on the right side and my coach had me favor left. I didn't help matters by shooting a large group.
We had a challenging wind for slow prone. There were always let-offs and pick-ups. So much so that even with all the clicking we were doing on the windage knob, there was a lot of favoring. It seemed like each shot I was putting the reticle on one side of the X-ring or the other. Early on I had some elevation problems and had to come down some from what I thought my zero was.

Standing:	100-3
Sitting:	100-10
Rapid Prone:	98-4
Slow Prone:	196-11
Aggregate:	494-28

August 7

We had a fog delay this morning before the team match. Not very long but it sure would have been difficult to see the targets. After that the day was warm and sunny.

My hold in standing surprised me as it was pretty good. Movement into the target was controllable even if it wasn't predictable. I had plenty of opportunities for good shots but I didn't have the patience and discipline that I had yesterday. My first nine was on the first shot (after X's for both sighters) and it broke towards the right side. I thought it was close to the line but that was just wishful thinking. I had a 2nd nine because I was too eager and didn't give my process enough time to make sure it was a 10.
More calm conditions for sitting and we shot that with no wind. My sighters were close to my call but the group was a little low. Somehow my wobble got bigger about mid-string and then shrunk down after a few shots.
We now had to deal with some wind for rapid prone. Not much but you could certainly see the mirage moving. Both of my sighters were high despite a zero that seemed to work yesterday. I came down one click for the string and my coach called both shots still high. So I came down another click during the magazine change. I pushed one shot out the bottom to try to keep the group from getting too high.
The wind in slow prone gave us fits. It would start running and then let up into a boil for half a minute and then start running again. The velocity didn't seem to be the same and it was hard to keep up with it when it did change. I had to come down another click on my elevation from yesterday but keeping the spotter at waterline was at least within my skill set today.

Standing:	98-1
Sitting:	100-4
Rapid Prone:	99-5
Slow Prone:	193-5
Aggregate:	490-15

August 8

Is it bad when you hear the match director call your name over a loudspeaker when you are walking on to the range? It was only because I was re-squadded and I didn't do anything wrong. This is what happened on the first day of the individual championship. The forecast called for upper-80's today but I had to put on a sweatshirt in the morning.

My hold in standing started off pretty well. It was good in prep and the sighters, and degraded from there. When I broke the first sighter I could see everything so clearly. It was if everything was magnified many times. I saw the dot of my reticle in the bottom of the X-ring as the gun went off. After X's for the sighters as well the the first shot, I followed that up with two nines in a row. My NPA was quite good and I could rely on the rifle coming back into the middle at some point during my hold. My quest to stay disciplined slowed me down as I had to keep starting my process over again. It was certainly imperfect as I let some shots go that I shouldn't have. The score wasn't great but it would have been even worse if got too eager to break the shot.
I was fighting a little bit with my trigger in sitting today. The conditions were very calm and I could shoot straight-away. But my problem was taking up the first stage and stopping at the second. I could do this most of the time but there were two shots on the first string where I pulled through the second stage. The rifle is pointed somewhere within my wobble zone when this happens but it is unexpected and I don't have the chance to dress up the shot. I want to release the trigger until it resets and then take up the first stage so I can concentrate on aiming. I was fortunate that these didn't cost me any points today.
We were in the pits for what seemed to be a very long time between stages. The wind was going to be a factor for rapid prone. It was coming from 2 o'clock at about 5 MPH. I shot high yesterday so I was adjusting my zero. The first sighter was high on the down-wind side. I came down a click and right a click and got a shot still high on the up-wind side. I came down another click but told myself, "nothing out the bottom". I fired my first two shots and the wind seemed to be lighter than before so I took off a click of windage. The group felt good and I was breaking shots on a good sight picture. The second string didn't have the cleanest of shots and I thought I fired a couple low. There were some low shots but I was also heavy on the wind and the group was on the right side.

Standing:	195-5
Sitting:	200-9
Rapid Prone:	200-7

August 9

I checked the scores last night and saw that my performance put me high on the leader board. So I headed to the range this morning with what I would call relaxed nervousness. I was nervous about making some kind of mistake that would really hurt my standings but at the same time I was strangely relaxed about it. Like I knew I could shoot well and all I had to do was execute.

Standing was where I was most concerned about throwing away points. The conditions were calm but my heartbeat was certainly increasing the size of my hold. The wobble was different for each shot. Sometimes it would have a slow drift but on other shots it would be darting around the black. Regardless, I was telling myself that my shot discipline is what separates a good standing performance from a mediocre one. So I would start over whenever I felt I wasn't focused on the task at hand or that I held too long. Once I decided to shoot though, trigger control wasn't my friend. The rifle was moving towards 2 o'clock and the two 9's that I had were on the edge of the black. On shot 18 the rifle veered off to the right and came up with an 8.
My hold in sitting during the prep period was certainly acceptable enough. During the string it got a lot bigger. My sighters used one click of left wind but I wanted to hedge my bets and put on another click. The wobble on the first string was moving me all over the 10-ring but the target came up with a centered group and two 9's out on the right that I really didn't see. I put a little more pressure on the stock for the second string and cleaned it but losing two points was something I really couldn't afford.
In slow prone the wind was meandering from left to right. Early in the string I had 2-3 clicks of left. I would check mirage between shots and found myself taking this windage off by mid-string. I had a couple of 10's on the left side and thought I would just favor and shoot an X on the right. This wasn't enough and I got a 9 out on the left. As the mirage reversed, I put on more right until I reached a high of 5 clicks. At that point I was a bit nervous as the mirage didn't seem that strong so I was alert to anything shots on the right which would indicate that it was time to start backing off. I did so and finished the string with a single click or right.

Standing:	196-8
Sitting:	198-14
Slow Prone:	199-11

August 10

Another day of calm conditions, sunshine, and warm temperatures. The third day of the championship is supposed to be the easy day where you shouldn't drop many points (if any).

The wind was negligible in sitting and I shot everything at my no-wind zero. I had a really lumpy firing point and I spent a good part of my prep moving my legs around to get a position that worked. I though my hold was about the same as it has been recently. I tried to break good shots in the first string and from seeing them in the scope they seemed to be good. But the target came up with a low 9. I don't know when I shot that one as it would be pretty obvious. The second string felt a little better and I had a good, centered group.
We had some left-to-right wind in rapid prone so I shot both strings with 2 clicks of left. My head position put pressure on the stock from the left side. I think this caused the rifle to angle to the left as the sight picture seemed to drift that way. The first group was arrayed out from the middle to the left side with a 9 just off the line. The second group felt alright when I shot it but it came up almost exactly the same way as the first. Good elevation but a wide group.
For slow prone the mirage was running to the left and was very visible. I put on 5 clicks of right and started shooting. I got into a rhythm of loading, mounting gun, checking mirage in scope for changes, aiming, squeezing. This was working well as I was clean through 17 shots. On shot 17 I looked through the scope and saw that the mirage had let up. The target came up with a 10 on the right edge. The mirage kept on going though and completely reversed and was running to the right now. I could have taken a chance and guessed at the correction but instead I decided to wait and see if my condition would come back. The mirage did let up but it was still running to that right side. After a few minutes I decided to guess at the correction and fire. The shot was a 10. At that point the sun went away and so did the mirage. I fired again without noticing the pick-up in the wind and got an 8 on the right side. I put on three more clicks of left wind and got an 8 on the left side. I felt frustrated as this would really hurt me in the standings.

Sitting:	199-12
Rapid Prone:	198-10
Slow Prone:	196-8

August 11

More calm conditions this morning as we have reached the final day of the Championship.

I was nervous for standing but at the same time, confident. I got a good NPA right from the start and didn't have a problem with bringing the rifle into the black. By making good decisions I avoided bad shots early on but my trigger control wasn't very good. I had two 9's in the first half but then the shots got harder and harder. I could feel my pulse. My hold really opened up and it took more tries to get the rifle into the 10-ring long enough to fire. As each shot took longer, I was worried about running out of time. Now the clock was ticking in my head as I was lining up with the target and this just contributed to the distraction.
While we got sighters in rapid prone, they proved useless as the wind during that phase completely changed once we were ready to shoot our first string. I had between 3-5 clicks of left during the sighters and then had 3 right for the first string. I felt the wind let off during the mag change so I took a click off. That wasn't enough and my group was on the right side with two 9's just off the line. The position felt good again for the second string but this time I was on the left side which I helped as I called a couple shots over there.
I've shot slow prone through some changing winds before but today was quite the experience. I was shooting shots with anything from 7 clicks of left to 4 clicks of right. The magnitudes weren't great, but the frequency of the changes were. The wind was blowing from the left for about a third of my string. Then it would slow down, then speed up, then stop, then boil, then reverse, then boil again, then back in the same direction, etc.

Standing:	193-7
Rapid Prone:	197-9
Slow Prone:	194-6

Championship Aggregate:	2365-107

August 31

We had cool and mostly overcast conditions for our state championship today. There was some sun but most of the time it seemed like there was cloud cover. I was running the match and I had other stuff on my mind so I wasn't the most focused person on the range.

The air was pretty calm for standing and I had a good hold for most shots. The part that sticks out for me was my trigger control. Shots would break very clean. It seemed like I would think about firing the shot and the bullet would already be on its way to the target. I had to re-start my process a few times because I felt like I held too long. But the whole string didn’t seem as much work as standing has been lately. The most frustrating part was shot #10. I was lining things up and the reticle was pointed in the 9-ring on the right and I just pulled the trigger. No reason for it but it just happened.
My zero in sitting, which has worked for months, now isn't working any more. Both sighters were to the right of my call but I didn't want to adjust off them. I was confident in my zeros and the first string felt pretty good. The wobble was workable and I felt like would have a good group. The result was only a mediocre group but it was all on the right side with one 9. I made a correction of two clicks left for the second string. That one felt good as I was shooting it but on the last shot I yanked the gun to the right as I fired. That string had 9 X's and a lone nine on the right side.
I'm struggling to shoot round groups in rapid prone. They always seem to be either too tall or too wide or have wild shots that are out of the group. Both strings today felt good and I had a clear sight picture. But each group was just larger than I really want and they weren't even centered.
The conditions were pretty calm for slow prone. The skies were cloudy so I couldn't really see mirage. The breeze was mostly in our faces but I could tell it had a little left-to-right component. So I put on two clicks of left and fired my first sighter. That was a 10 on the left side. I came back to my no-wind zero and fired the second sighter. That was a 10 on the right. I decided to go with my first instinct and put some left on the gun and start shooting. There were a few shots that came up higher than I wanted but then I would get an X on the next one. Later in the string I started building on the right side and would come left a click at a time. I had as many as 4 clicks of left at one point but it wasn't very long before I was back to only two.

Standing:	196-6
Sitting:	198-10
Rapid Prone:	198-7
Slow Prone:	200-11
Aggregate:	792-34

September 1

Very calm for pretty much the whole of today's team match. We had some humidity but it never got very hot so the day was pretty pleasant.

The targets at this range are a bit lower than my firing position in standing. I'm used to it but today they felt even lower. My vertical NPA seemed lower than it should be. On many shots I felt the rifle rising as the shot broke. It wasn't recoil but I think I was coming up to my NPA during firing. The hold size was decent but nothing great. There were a few situations where I had to start my shot process over again but most times the shots broke pretty easy.
My sitting was a struggle with trigger control. While I told myself to "squeeze", I never felt like I was breaking clean shots. The movement in the sights was more than I wanted but it was that smooth pull of the trigger that I couldn't get. The first string was easy enough but the second string had a shot where I anticipated recoil and put my shoulder into the gun and then fired. That was a nine out the bottom.
Rapid prone was a practice in favoring during the string. I started the first string with a single click of left. After two shots my coach gave me an additional two click correction to the left. After a few shots of that, the wind shifted and now I was on the left side and had to favor to the right. I ended by breaking shots in the 10-ring on right. Even so we still lost one shot on the left. Things were much more straightforward on the second string and we got the clean there.
Having a coach for slow prone is always a help. All I have to do is break clean shots. But today it seemed hard to do just that. I would add more and more weight to the trigger to try to get it to go off and it seemed to never want to. I would see the dot of my reticle in the middle of the black but I had a hard time getting the gun to go off. The dot would drift to the edge of the X-ring and I had to try to center it again before I added more weight. I didn't have the "see the shot, break the shot" type of rhythm. I saw the shot, I kept adding weight to the trigger, the gun went off after a long time.

Standing:	199-10
Sitting:	199-10
Rapid Prone:	199-8
Slow Prone:	198-9
Aggregate:	795-37

September 14

We have these kind of days in September where the temperatures are cool in the morning and warm and pleasant later in the day. Just real nice weather to shoot a match. It's hard to describe how distracted I was today. Not during shooting because I was pretty focused when aiming at the target. But I was running the match and was always thinking about when I was going to be able to enter scores in the computer and if there was some problem going on elsewhere on the line. There was also other personal stuff that I would be thinking about as the day went on. I had a good performance but in some ways I didn't really enjoy it because of the distractions.

There was a slight rise in my firing point which elevated my forward foot relative to my back foot for standing. I moved around the point to find my ideal spot to stand but couldn't. I found the best spot I could but it still had my feet uneven with each other. In addition to this I had some lower back soreness this morning which made it difficult to get as much bend as I normally want. I felt like my position was very straight and elevated. The position of the shot spotter relative to the sun this morning cast an odd shadow across the target. The spotter made a very large shadow across the 10-ring and it was like I saw the aiming black and then a darker black ring (the shadow) inside the aiming black. It actually hid the line of the 10-ring in a way. Regardless, I had X's for both sighters and kept things in the 10. The trigger broke real smooth but because of the shadow it was sometimes hard to call shots. The shots also broke easily and I didn't have to come into the target repeatedly. On shot 16 the reticle was a little low when the gun went off and I had a very close 9 at 5 o'clock. But three of the next four shots were X's. Here's what the target looked like.
Sitting has been a challenge recently and I haven't fired a 200 since the NRA Championship. The last time I shot my zero had wandered two clicks to the left. When my first sighter came up left of call, I went back to my old zero. As I was shooting the first string I was waiting for the bolt to lock back after the last round. Each time it would go forward and chamber another round. The string just didn't seem to end. Both groups were centered and clean but still too big and I need to bring the wide shots away from the edges.
Since rapid prone is usually a crap shoot for me I didn't know what to expect from this stage. I just tell myself to break shots when the sight picture looks good and the dot of the reticle is in the X-ring. I tried doing that today but each shot had a little slop in it as there was always some movement when I was adding pressure on the trigger. Both groups were about X-ring high but just slightly more than X-ring wide. Not bad considering how my 300 has sometimes been.
I hadn't really given much thought to shooting a 799 today until I got to slow prone. Now I realized what I could accomplish but it still seemed like a steep mountain to climb. There wasn't much wind to speak of so that wasn't worrying me. But being able to break good shots was. My biggest problem as I got started was the image in the scope. The afternoon sun reflected off the target faces and made a very bright image. I use a tinted lens in my scope but it has a hole in the middle so I was still seeing a very bright target. I would close my eyes between shots and I would still see that image of a rectangular frame with a circle in the middle. There were some shots that, when they broke, made me think I just shot a 9 but they came up not far off the X.

Standing:	199-8
Sitting:	200-7
Rapid Prone:	200-10
Slow Prone:	200-12
Aggregate:	799-37

October 5

The last match of the year and it's time for a little experimentation. So I did the same thing as last year. I shot a service rifle with a 25 power scope. Unfortunately the weather was about the same as this match last year and we got rained out before we could shoot at 600. But before that the weather was overcast and cool.

We had a little breeze for standing but I could shoot through it. It was hard to tell whether the larger hold that I saw was due to a worse wobble or to the extra magnification. The hold didn't feel that great but it was my trigger control that really showed in the scope. I would get the hold into the middle with the dot getting to the X, I would decide to shoot, and the sights would fly to somewhere else. With the higher magnification I had to have my eye in just the right spot to see the full image. When I fired the image would go black as the rifle recoiled. I had a lot on my mind and wasn't as focused as I normally am. The first nine I fired was the 2nd shot and I saw the reticle was in the 9-ring, I knew it looked like a 9, and yet I fired anyway. That irritated me.
My rough zero in sitting got me close but there were still adjustments to be made. I thought I had it after my second sighter. But I let the rifle cant too much and the group on the first string was angled low and right. Since I couldn't see my number board for each shot, it was hard to trust my NPA to keep my on my target. I was second guessing which target I was on. I adjusted a couple clicks up and left for the second string. Also, I kept some twisting pressure on the pistol grip which pre-loaded the rifle counter-clockwise to keep from canting too much. It was so easy to see where the reticle is and I was breaking shots at the bottom of the X-ring. This group was much better in size but now it was on the left side and didn’t even have any X's.
In rapid-prone it was just as easy to see the X-ring as it was at 200. I was having a problem with my head position. My normal position on the buttstock put my eye too close to the scope. This caused the image to disappear replaced by blackness. I pulled my head back a bit but this was less than ideal. I broke good shots and cleaned the first string. But in the second string I started to lose the image and it got darker and darker as my head kept moving around under recoil. They all seemed good based on the reticle but I lost a shot in there somewhere.

Standing:	196-7
Sitting:	197-3
Rapid Prone:	199-10
Slow Prone:	-
Aggregate:	592-20

Konrad's journal of Highpower Rifle Competition

"Mental Focus. Not Equipment Hocus Pocus."