What Is Precision Rifle Shooting? A Beginner's Guide

 Somewhere out there is a guy explaining to his wife why his new scope cost more than his mortgage payment, and it's not going well. That guy is a precision shooter. If you are interested in this shooting sport, you definitely don't have to go down that road…but you will, and you'll have a lot of explain to do.

(That's a customized Wind Isn't Real Sunshirt I'm wearing in the cover photo, if you're wondering.)

The short answer

Precision rifle shooting is the sport of hitting small, often distant, sometimes moving targets consistently, which means doing it on command, shot after shot, while the wind, the light, and your own nerves all try sabotage you.

That word “consistently” is important. Anybody can get lucky and ring steel at 600 yards once. Precision shooting is what happens when you take luck out of the equation and replace it with math, repeatable positions, and a system you trust. When all that comes together, 1,000+ yard shots become very common.

How it's different from hunting or plinking

If you grew up shooting, you probably learned on a hunting rifle, Pawpaw probably handed something that uses a whole bottle of powder per case, launches a garbage can sized projectile at escape-velocity and you were told “here kid, try it out”. You shot it enough to zero it in the fall, maybe check it again the next fall, and take one careful shot when it counts. Precision shooting is wayyy deeper than that.

Precision shooting flips the model:

• Hunting: one shot, an unknown target size, and you get to pick your moment.
• Plinking: no real target, no real consequence, just noise and fun.
• Precision shooting: Precise shots on demand, on the clock, for score and under the ridicule of your closest buddies.

It has some cross over skills, but precision shooting is a completely different world compared to hunting. It's akin to the difference between racing your buddies down an empty street at night vs being a Formula 1 driver. Yes, both drive four-wheeled vehicles, but the similarities run out quickly.

Further Details…

Every shot beyond a few hundred yards is a math problem wearing a rifle, since you're now accounting for gravity, density altitude (I'll explain later), spin drift, aerodynamic jump, transonic effects, multiple crosswinds (they change as you are shooting, btw), updrafts, mirage and downdrafts along the entire flight path of the bullet.

But wait, it gets better!

Depending on the discipline you pick, you also get to do this on-the-clock (which most times isn't much), physical movement, shooting off unstable objects (we call them “props”) and under the careful gaze of your closest buddies and opponents. It get's even more complicated when you add in “Hunter” or “Sniper” style matches where you may also deal with spotter/shooter communications, finding the target (Match Directors can be sneaky), ranging the target without electronics, and anything else the sadistic MD decides to throw at you.

Sound Impossible? It seems that way your first couple matches, but then you'll start to get it.

Good precision shooters aren't more talented than everyone else. They're better at:

1. Evaluating a stage and it's requirements
2. Making a plan and following it
3. Adapting the plan to changing conditions
4. Finding targets
5. Reading conditions: atmospheric conditions, wind, mirage, light
6. Translating all that into a number: a dial or a hold
7. Executing a shot that doesn't add its own error on top
8. Calling the shot: knowing where it went before the target confirms it
9. Adjusting for the next one

The loop (read, dial, execute, call, adjust) is the whole sport, compressed, and everything else, the gear, the positions, the drills, exists to support it.

Where this sport came from (the short version)

Precision rifle competition didn't show up overnight. Benchrest and F-Class shooters spent decades proving how accurate a rifle could be from a stable position, and then a newer wave of matches, the stuff most people picture now, took that accuracy and dragged it out of the prone position into barricades, awkward positions, shot clocks, and courses of fire that look more like an obstacle course than a bench.

I'll break down each of those disciplines later, what a match actually looks like, who it favors, and what it costs to get into, in the next post. For now, just know that “precision shooting” is an umbrella term covering a lot of different disciplines.

Who this is actually for

Precision shooters aren't just prior military or law enforcement, despite what the range parking lot might suggest, since the sport is full of engineers, plumbers, nurses, and retirees who got curious somewhere along the way. The only real prerequisites are patience, a willingness to be bad at something in public for a while, and enough curiosity to ask “why did that miss?” instead of just reloading and hoping.

If you've ever wondered what it would take to hit something at 1,200 yards on purpose, using math, practice, and a system instead of luck, that's this sport. That's what why I'm here to walk you through, one dumb joke and one useful fact at a time.

If I haven't lost you yet

Hang in there! Seriously. Precision shooting is A LOT to take in, especially for people that have never peaked into the world of precision shooting. Just keep in mind that if I can learn, so can you. Take it once piece at a time, and I'll even help you with that.

Next up: every major precision shooting discipline explained, covering PRS, NRL Hunter, ELR, benchrest, F-Class, sniper matches, and the rimfire and airgun little siblings, so you know exactly what you're signing up for.