Each year, AO Sword Firearms supports Lance Reeter’s Firearms Charity Course (http://charitycourse.gives/). In addition to material support and donations to benefit the attendees in the charity raffle, David and his family all attend together, enjoying the camaraderie as well as the family-friendly training.
This year, the Chong family decided to forego their typical work on the handgun ranges to try out the newly-introduced 4-day Rifle Marksmanship course. Preparing all five family members for the unique niche of precision shooting in the short- to intermediate-range is an interesting challenge, even for a gunsmith, professional instructor and retail firearms dealer. In the weeks leading up to the Charity Course on March 5th 2021, David is going to share his preparation experience in a blog series here on www.AOSword.com
I naturally act as the concierge for our family whenever we go on a “Gunventure.” The Firearms Charity Course is no different; each year, I set up my wife, daughter and two sons with their own range bags, verify everyone has all their equipment provided and in working order, and set up their firearms for their personalized preferences and experience levels. I also provide preparational training, guidance, and even psychological strategies to set the family up for a good time.
The job is a big one, and takes weeks of frenzied work. Have the preteens outgrown their gun belts? Does everyone have mag pouches that fit this year’s handgun of choice? Is everyone’s handgun fit and customized to suit them? Do we have to order equipment? For those of us running optics; are your batteries working and do you have extras? What do you mean you’ve decided Springfield XD’s suck one week before the class? You were a Distinguished Graduate from the course last year with your XD! For the last time, does EVERYONE HAVE AMMO?
The newly-offered 4-day Rifle Marksmanship course is a change for our family. We are impeccably well kitted for handgun courses, and we practice regularly with our gear. Similarly, tactical carbine is second nature to us, and we have personalized semiauto rifles in practical CQB configurations as far as the eye can see. I enjoy long distance shooting, so I have several .30cal and larger rifles meant for reaching out to 1,000 yards and beyond. The new course, however, concentrates on close to intermediate distance targets, with the longest shots only stretching out to about 375 yards.
Just about any tactical rifle worth its weight in the range bag will drop silhouettes at these intermediate distances. However, for timed- and tested performance on bullseye targets, even a match-grade 5.56 just isn’t going to get you the kind of 400 yard groups that a fast, heavier bullet in the 6mm range or larger will do without breaking a sweat. In a light 10mph cross-breeze, at 400 yards this is the difference between 2 feet of windage (sideways wind drift of the bullet on the way to the target) vs only 1 foot. That’s much less to compensate for in real world conditions.
By this measure, I could opt to put the whole family behind 6.5 Creedmoor or .308Win precision rifles. If energy is everything, we could even bring out the 30-06, 300WinMag, 338 Lapua Magnum, or 416 Barrett. However, it turns out energy is not everything. For example, while my youngest son has shot all of these at least once, he and his 100lbs body would not appreciate 260 rounds of 338LM over 4 days behind our Barrett MRAD. My wife, brave and long-suffering of my shenanigans though she is, would simply opt out after a few evolutions trying to hold the M25 Whitefeather on target, offhand.
I did my best to research the course of fire for the Rifle Marksmanship class at Front Sight. While the actual course of fire is unpublished, a prior attendee mentioned that part of the test involved standing offhand shots at various ranges, as well as from the knee/sitting. Offhand rifle is an important skillset, but not a technique I would employ or enjoy with a typical long range precision rifle setup. I do, in fact, have several high quality and/or collectible competition rifles specifically set up for match competition including offhand shots, but because I am more interested in introducing my family to practical precision rifle skills vice competition skills, those are not the rifles I would choose to equip them with.
The combination of mixed shooting disciplines in the course of fire as well as recoil considerations for my family eventually led me to choose an excellent short action caliber well suited to target work out to 1000 yards and beyond, while offering minimal recoil: the 6.5 Grendel. Better still, the 6.5 Grendel is a great fit in an AR15 platform, giving my tender shooters the additional recoil reduction of a gas-operated gun. Unlike a bolt-action rifle, which transmits all of its recoil energy through the locked bolt into the shoulder of the shooter, a semiautomatic gas-operated rifle uses much of that recoil energy to cycle the action, reducing the perceived recoil impulse.
The good news is, I have plenty of AR15s. The bad news is, I only have two of them chambered in 6.5 Grendel, and only one of those is really a good match for intermediate range work (the other is more of a benchrest gun for 1000 yard precision work). Well… there are 5 of us, and we’re all in this together, so it’s up to Daddy to get five 6.5 Grendel target rifles up and running, plus a backup platform or two so that nobody gets sidelined if something unforseen happens.
I’ll let you know how I’m doing in a few days.
– David