Blog

The conditions at this year’s National Championships seemed more challenging than in the past few years. The final couple of days seemed to be the toughest, with the many competitors changing position in the last two matches. Team day favored fast shooting and the last day of Individuals favored patience in waiting for a couple conditions.

The challenging conditions produced new, first time winners this year. For the team event, Team X-men (Jim Crofts, Phil Kelley, Ian Klemm, Tracy Hogg and Dan Lentz) won with a score of 1530-33X. The Michigan FTR Team (Bryan Litz, Bill Litz, John Pierce, Jim Grissom and Doug Boyer) took second with a score of 1524-29X. All the members of the top three team, save one, are members of the US Rifle Team.

For the Individuals, Bryan Litz won the FTR National Championship with a 1558-55x. There were a half dozen countries represented at the Nationals and Australia’s Mark Fairbairn came in second at 1556-56.

Congratulations to all the winners!

The Ben Avery Range in Phoenix, Arizona has given the competitors at the F-Class Nationals a very challenging competition so far. To date, US Team Members have finished very well in the results. Coach Bryan Litz has won the Individual Mid-Range Championship and the Michigan FTR Team has won the Team National Championship. All of the firing members of that team, Bryan Litz, Jim Grissom, Doug Boyer and John Pierce, are also members of the US Rifle Team.

The team got together last night for a big team dinner. It was half business meeting and half good company. We passed out the new team jerseys collected funds from raffle ticket sales.

The dinner was held at the El Encanto Dos Restaurant. The team has held several functions at El Encanto over the last few years and they have always provided great accommodations for our large group, plus great food and service.

Speaking of the raffle, the team is raffling off a Kelbly’s Arcas Series.338 Lapua Rifle, with a Nightforce ATACR Scope and a Gemtech Arrow suppressor. Contact any team member to purchase tickets.

All shooting sports tend to optimize the equipment to take full advantage of the particular rules of the game, which makes Robby’s accomplishment all the more noteworthy. An FTR Rifle is limited to a .308 Win by our rules, but in 1000 Yard Benchrest, a .308 is not considered an optimal caliber.

Robby tells his story:

*”Jay Cutright built two new guns for me, and in lieu of shipping them he invited me to shoot the 1000 yard benchrest nationals since they were being held only a couple hours drive from my hometown. I figured what the heck, and met him at Hawkes Ridge Gun Club in Wilkesboro, NC. I had never shot benchrest before, so I borrowed a front rest and front plate (that attached to my front rail) from Dave Conrath and shot my F-TR rig in the light gun competition. That competition shoots 5 shot strings and is restricted to 17 pounds, so my McMillan Prone stock, BAT action, 30″ Kreiger barrel, and Nightforce competition scope made weight just barely. Shooting fast, and blind like that is a ton of fun (they use clay pigeons as sighters so you get no feedback on paper before your string.) I had a hard time translating that to high scores, but my 5.119″ group agg placed me 7th out of 100 or so shooters. I also managed to win the group competition in one relay when the wind got squirly, with a 4.125″ group. It was a high finish, especially for an F-TR rig and a cobbled together setup competing against the best rifles in the world. It goes to show that Berger bullets out of a .308 can hang tough with Dashers and the like.*

*One funny side note: I had a few guys sighting for me on my first relay. They probably were expecting to have to guide me in, but i nailed a clay pigeon at 1000 yards with my first shot. I turned around to see several raised eyebrows.”*

Well done Robby!

We had a small but hardy turnout for our last practice of the year.  Sunday morning was spent at Camp Grayling running the shooters through coached practice.  The Michigan Rifle & Pistol Association was kind enough to let us piggyback our morning practice with their Long Range Regional. The weather was quite pleasant, unlike our May practice at Grayling.

In the afternoon we travelled over to the Cadillac Sportsman’s Club  to run a few drills and shoot a few groups.  Coach Bryan Litz of Applied Ballistics, started things off by leading the shooters through his “Tall Target” exercise at 100 yards. 

The exercise serves two purposes: first, to marry all the rifles so that they all had the same no wind zero and second, to align our Holland Levels to our scope reticles.  Levels are an often overlooked item that is critical to long range accuracy.  We chose to use the Holland Level because it is a well thought out design that is well made and is easy to see by both the shooter and the coach.

At first we were a little off.  The group pictured is one shot from each rifle at 100 yards.  Our shooters are spread all over the United States.  On their home ranges, which are at widely varying altitudes, each shooter was probably pretty close to a perfect zero.  When you bring all those rifles to one location their elevation zeroes may not match up, as the target below shows.

After Bryan ran the guys through the drill and each of the shooters’ scope and bubble were properly aligned, he had them shoot a final group. Again each shooter took one shot at the 1” paster below.  I can tell you that it was quite electric watching as the shooters each took a single shot in turn.  Shot after shot hit inside the spotter.  In the end, a group from ten different rifles was smaller than the groups we may typically shoot on our own.

We ran a few other “top secret” drills at Cadillac and then retired to their covered target pit to review targets and have a long question and answer session.

On Monday, we travelled over to the Marksmanship Training Center (MTC) near Lake City Michigan for another full day of team practice. 

After our morning briefing, we spent some time in coached practice.  The winds at MTC can be a bit squirrelly and can cause elevation.  Though the day did not have particularly strong winds, it provided many velocity and direction changes to keep our coaches busy and at times perplexed.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is just wait.

After lunch, we split up into teams and ran a scrimmage.   The tricky winds stayed with us throughout the afternoon.  In the end, the team coached by Steve Hardin, Bryan Litz and Scott Fulmer edged out a victory.

All weekend we tried to get as many of our shooters wired into the coaches’ intercom network as possible. The opportunity to listen in as the coaches discussed wind reading and strategy was an eye opener for some. 

This is our last practice for 2015.  Everyone on the team is back home preparing for FCNC to be held in Phoenix in late October. 

Just got home today and Vince, my UPS driver, pulled in behind me with my
new new team scope from Nightforce Optics. They did a specialized
engraving just for us. And it looks GOOD!

Can’t wait to put this on my new rifle.

I would like to recognize Mr. John Webster for a something that I think
brings into focus his exemplary service to the international shooting
sports.

Mr. Webster, pictured above, traveled to Camp Perry to serve as scorer
during the Palma Team World Championships. He, of course, was not alone in
performing scoring duties and all who helped out are worthy of recognition.

What singles Mr. Webster out is that he is the Chairman of the NRA of the
United Kingdom, he was the past Captain of the British Palma Team and had
been a firing member on several Palma Teams prior to that.

I think it is telling of his character that even though he could have
attended the matches as a VIP, he took it upon himself to volunteer for an
often thankless job.

We can all think of a few people who further the shooting sports by taking
on the less glamorous roles required to host and operate events. Karin
Liebetrau and Beverly Bartholome come immediately to mind. Take the time to
thank them and following John Webster’s example, consider helping to carry
the load.

The US Goodwill Rifle team attended the 2015 Canadian F-Class National
Championships in mass, with 32 members making the trip to Connaught Range
just outside of Ottawa, Canada. The home of the 2017 F-Class World
Championships drew the largest group of shooters in the event’s history,
which also led to one of the strongest field of individual shooters since
the previous World Championships.

Nineteen (19) members of the US Rifle Team and thirteen members of the US
F-Open team banded together to form the Goodwill team that enjoyed this
wonderfully organized event with positive performances. Our US Team
Vice-Captain, James Crofts came away as the 2015 Canadian FTR Champion and
our Team Adjutant, Paul Phillips placed 2nd. Overall, the team placed 11
shooters in the top 20 with John Pierce 5th, Phil Kelley 6th, Sierra Scott 8
th, Robby Burton 10th, Dan Lentz 16th, Doug Boyer 17th, Tracy Hogg 19th and
David Conrath 20th.

The focus of our group for the team matches was on training, as the World
Championships are just two short years away. Weather was unusually warm
with the mirage dominating what is typically a wind reader’s range. 8-man,
4-man and International team events allowed for valuable preparation
experience. Overall performances were positive while highlighting areas of
improvement we are excited to incorporate into our training.

Thanks and congratulations go out to the entire Canadian Team. As usual,
their event coordination and individual and team performances were World
Class. We appreciate all the hospitality and sportsmanship that was
demonstrated during the event. We also thank each of our Team USA sponsors
for helping facilitate the largest group of US participants in event
history. We are in great shape as we look to the future.

The US Army Golden Knights Parachuted in as part of the opening ceremony
for the World Long Range Championships being held at Camp Perry, Ohio.

Three of our sister teams, The US Palma Team, the US Veterans Team and the
US Under25 Team will be competing against teams from around the world.
Several members of our team, Ray Gross, Steve Hardin, Bryan Litz and Lane
Buxton, are part of the US Palma Team.

The format is very similar to our own World Championships. Everyone
entered in the Individuals will shoot 15 shoots for record at 800, 900 and
1000 yards and they will complete that course of fire three times over the
next several days. The team event, fires the same course twice.

The main difference from our style of shooting is that they will compete
using aperture type target sights and will be using an arm sling as support
compared to the scopes and bipods that we use. The rings on our target are
substantially tighter to account for the the greater stability and accuracy
of the type of rifles that we use.

Much of our team is headed up to Canada this week to compete in the
Dominion of Canada Rifle Ass’n National Matches that start Thursday.