Fly Shoot Experience
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 10:43 am
I shot the fly for the first time last week and I thought I would post my observations and thoughts about the shoot and the event in general.
Like many of you I have observed the event from a distance and admittedly tended to put it in the same class as I did most benchrest shooting, lot’s of shiny equipment and wind flags and that the sport is all a bit tedious with little practical application for filed shooting or hunting.
After having been well and truly humbled by a number of factors on the day of the Fly shoot I have readjusted my views considerably.
To give you some background on the type of long range shooting I do, I shoot at the range and on a couple of private spots around Canberra “competing” with mates in what I would loosely term “field shooting”, Utilising a Bipod, Rear Bag, Rangefinder, Ballistic cards/Smartphone. Once I’ve completed load development all of my shooting is done from the prone position with a bipod, using my fist or a rear bag for support. I thought I would quickly be able to setup comfortably on the bench, I was wrong, if you are planning on shooting a benchrest match it’s probably a fairly good idea to shoot off the bench in preparation!
While obvious to those who compete in benchrest it was brought home to me on the day just how unique a form of shooting it is. From the make up of the guns and optics to the elaborate precision rests and meticulously prepared ammunition to what seemed like hundreds of wind flags littering the range the sport is specialized in every sense of the word. In the past I’ve regarded a lot of this gear as superficial “fluff” that only has a very narrow utility, I’ve never really seen the point or the appeal of a rifle that can’t be fired comfortably from the off hand position. I think I now understand the purpose of this equipment a lot better having seen it in use. Yes the equipment has a very narrow application but that is exactly the point, it’s meant to, to steal a principle associated with modern architecture "Form Follows Function".
Yes the gear is important, very important actually but as I understand it now it is only half of the equation. There is a lot more skill involved in Benchrest shooting than I had previously attributed the sport, Some lessons learned, in no particular order:
Reading the wind is the primary challenge of the sport, I had zero idea how the wind was affecting my bullet shot to shot, the splash plate helps but you really need to know what to look for in terms of wind sign and you have to understand the effects of many particular wind conditions. To illustrate this I shot my first sighter on the plate, it landed with perfect elevation but on the very left hand edge, I read the adjustment through the scope and dialled the correction, next shot was on the same vertical plane but on the extreme right of the plate, I halved my adjustment and 3rd sighter fell in the middle of the plate, all good I’m thinking, lets get nice and comfortable and send the scorers down range, well by the time I started shooting for paper the conditions had shifted again and I was all out to sighters. What I should have been doing was noting what the conditions were doing and how they effected my sighters, that way I would have had more than guesswork on my side for the scoring shots. As it turned out my target returned with a nice cluster about 10 cm off the entire target!
If you don't have a spotting scope, a spotter or a very high mag rifle scope you are in trouble if there is any wind, big trouble! From the unfamiliar position on the bench I struggled with recoil and had to rebuild my position each time, I struggled to get comfortable and would have loved nothing better than to lie on the ground and shoot prone with my familiar setup, I guess they don’t call it benchrest for nothing
The first three details I had no idea where my shots were landing so any corrections were guesswork at best. Guesswork and shooting should not be mentioned in the same breath.
Spending the time to get properly setup on the bench is well worth it to ensure you don’t have to fight your rifle back into position shot to shot, after the wind/spotting issue this was probably my biggest take away lesson from the day.
Have a strategy, especially if you don’t have any experience shooting in windy conditions, I tried something different on each detail as much out of curiosity as anything else, needless to say it’s not something I would recommend unless you are simply experimenting and trying to learn.
I’ve long known that whilst a .308 whilst a great multi purpose round it gets hammered by the wind compared to the high BC, 6, 6.5 and 7mm projectiles, it’s one thing to note the wind drift numbers on a page but it was interesting to see the marked difference in real time.
To give you some perspective my rifle sends a 155 scenar at 2920 fps, this means that in a crosswind of 3 m/s my bullet will get deflected 33cm from the point of aim at 500m, the guy on the bench next to me was sending 180gr Bergers at 3000fps meaning his wind deflection would be 21cm under the same conditions. Food for thought.
All up I'm glad I attended the shoot and will be having a crack again in the future. I would encourage all those who have regarded the Fly with a combination of curiosity and perhaps even a little contempt to attend the event and shoot it before forming any definitive conclusions. My eyes were certainly opened in a big way.
Hopefully some of the more experienced Bench shooters on this forum will chime in.
Cheers,
Rath
Like many of you I have observed the event from a distance and admittedly tended to put it in the same class as I did most benchrest shooting, lot’s of shiny equipment and wind flags and that the sport is all a bit tedious with little practical application for filed shooting or hunting.
After having been well and truly humbled by a number of factors on the day of the Fly shoot I have readjusted my views considerably.
To give you some background on the type of long range shooting I do, I shoot at the range and on a couple of private spots around Canberra “competing” with mates in what I would loosely term “field shooting”, Utilising a Bipod, Rear Bag, Rangefinder, Ballistic cards/Smartphone. Once I’ve completed load development all of my shooting is done from the prone position with a bipod, using my fist or a rear bag for support. I thought I would quickly be able to setup comfortably on the bench, I was wrong, if you are planning on shooting a benchrest match it’s probably a fairly good idea to shoot off the bench in preparation!
While obvious to those who compete in benchrest it was brought home to me on the day just how unique a form of shooting it is. From the make up of the guns and optics to the elaborate precision rests and meticulously prepared ammunition to what seemed like hundreds of wind flags littering the range the sport is specialized in every sense of the word. In the past I’ve regarded a lot of this gear as superficial “fluff” that only has a very narrow utility, I’ve never really seen the point or the appeal of a rifle that can’t be fired comfortably from the off hand position. I think I now understand the purpose of this equipment a lot better having seen it in use. Yes the equipment has a very narrow application but that is exactly the point, it’s meant to, to steal a principle associated with modern architecture "Form Follows Function".
Yes the gear is important, very important actually but as I understand it now it is only half of the equation. There is a lot more skill involved in Benchrest shooting than I had previously attributed the sport, Some lessons learned, in no particular order:
Reading the wind is the primary challenge of the sport, I had zero idea how the wind was affecting my bullet shot to shot, the splash plate helps but you really need to know what to look for in terms of wind sign and you have to understand the effects of many particular wind conditions. To illustrate this I shot my first sighter on the plate, it landed with perfect elevation but on the very left hand edge, I read the adjustment through the scope and dialled the correction, next shot was on the same vertical plane but on the extreme right of the plate, I halved my adjustment and 3rd sighter fell in the middle of the plate, all good I’m thinking, lets get nice and comfortable and send the scorers down range, well by the time I started shooting for paper the conditions had shifted again and I was all out to sighters. What I should have been doing was noting what the conditions were doing and how they effected my sighters, that way I would have had more than guesswork on my side for the scoring shots. As it turned out my target returned with a nice cluster about 10 cm off the entire target!
If you don't have a spotting scope, a spotter or a very high mag rifle scope you are in trouble if there is any wind, big trouble! From the unfamiliar position on the bench I struggled with recoil and had to rebuild my position each time, I struggled to get comfortable and would have loved nothing better than to lie on the ground and shoot prone with my familiar setup, I guess they don’t call it benchrest for nothing
The first three details I had no idea where my shots were landing so any corrections were guesswork at best. Guesswork and shooting should not be mentioned in the same breath. Spending the time to get properly setup on the bench is well worth it to ensure you don’t have to fight your rifle back into position shot to shot, after the wind/spotting issue this was probably my biggest take away lesson from the day.
Have a strategy, especially if you don’t have any experience shooting in windy conditions, I tried something different on each detail as much out of curiosity as anything else, needless to say it’s not something I would recommend unless you are simply experimenting and trying to learn.
I’ve long known that whilst a .308 whilst a great multi purpose round it gets hammered by the wind compared to the high BC, 6, 6.5 and 7mm projectiles, it’s one thing to note the wind drift numbers on a page but it was interesting to see the marked difference in real time.
To give you some perspective my rifle sends a 155 scenar at 2920 fps, this means that in a crosswind of 3 m/s my bullet will get deflected 33cm from the point of aim at 500m, the guy on the bench next to me was sending 180gr Bergers at 3000fps meaning his wind deflection would be 21cm under the same conditions. Food for thought.
All up I'm glad I attended the shoot and will be having a crack again in the future. I would encourage all those who have regarded the Fly with a combination of curiosity and perhaps even a little contempt to attend the event and shoot it before forming any definitive conclusions. My eyes were certainly opened in a big way.
Hopefully some of the more experienced Bench shooters on this forum will chime in.
Cheers,
Rath