AAR
Got back from this weekend’s class and man was it fun. My class followed the Basic PR Class with some small differences. First, the whole weekend was sponsored by Swarovski/Kahles and Bergara Rifles. I cannot give them enough thanks for inviting me to this event and treating us like royalty while we were there. The people from Swaro were as humble and professional as you will see in this industry. The guys from Bergara were just as great and cool as hell to hang out with. We were all equipped with Bergara rifles and Kahles 624i scopes with the exception of a few MOA guys that used Swaro X5s. Every scope worked flawless and I only heard of one rifle having a pin drift out of the mag release the entire weekend. The optics was a known quality but I had not had any experience with Bergara’s products prior to this. I will say I was quite impressed for factory rifles. Quality, accuracy, and reliability were all exceptional. All were 6.5 CM and were a joy to shoot. My assigned rifle was a BMP model.
Ok enough about us being pampered, what about K&M right? Well the entire crew was top notch. A few “type A” personalities but they were polite and professional the entire weekend. Even when someone, who will remain unnamed
, shot the wrong target they were still respectful in scolding you and helped you to correct your mistake. Yes it was still a “Hit”
and they were able to have a little fun with everyone in these situations.
Shannon Kay, Brian and Christine Allen, Bradley Allen, Mike Rogan, and Jason Redding all were involved in our training as we had a class of 25 shooters. Each of them was great to learn from and still made sure you had fun while doing it.
The first day we set up equipment to each shooter and zeroed each rifle. After some classroom time, we were shooting out to 1000 yards with consistency, and recording our DOPE for each rifle. Previous to this I have only ever had the opportunity to shoot to 700 yards with no formal instruction. At the end of our drills they gave us the option to head in to relax or keep shooting on our own for fun. I opted for the latter and asked Shannon if I could shoot at 1200 yards. He had me dial 12 mils and hold 1.2mils for my first shot which was just barely a miss on a 100% IPSC. He had me correct to 11.5 mils and hold 1.6 mils for wind and my second shot was a hit. I then spent the next half hour shooting from 1000 to 1200 with only a few misses. Needless to say it was great.
Day 2 started with some more classroom time and then it was off to shoot movers at 500 yards/300 yards and the UKD range. I was a little intimidated with the thought shooting movers as I have never done that before. With a little instruction I was connecting on 75%-90% of the shots taken. I did have a bad habit to overcome with staying disciplined on when to shoot and Shannon was not shy in letting me know it. At the same time he calmed me down, reminded me of the fundamentals and I was hitting targets again.
The UKD range was also a lot of fun. We had 4 targets that ranged from roughly 500-800 yards. We had to range each target with our reticle and show the yardages to the instructor which was Jason. At this time he would either tell you that you need to go back and try again or you could engage each one of your targets. I was able to range them all on the first try and engage each target with a first round hit without touching the scope. This course of fire had to be done using just the holds on the reticle.
That afternoon we all participated in a small competition with five different stages to culminate what we had learned. I didn’t do as well as I would have liked after completely dropping one of the stages by hitting a couple “hostages” lol. Head shots are not easy. The rest of the weekend I was pretty happy with how I shot. I will also say it is an awesome feeling having top ranked PRS shooters tell you “Nice job” after you shoot a stage clean.
There was a lot of information presented in the classroom but they did not expect you to retain everything. They did however want you to have a grasp of each concept before shooting and it would later come together on the range.
Overall it was a great experience and I learned a lot. I will definitely follow up one day with a more advanced course and I also know where I will take that course when I’m ready.