Adding Essential Equipment

An accomplished shooter buddy of mine is going to Tennessee for a family visit, but with the priorities a guy's gotta have, he's going to stop off at an F-Class match in Indiana on his way there. F/TR is his chosen corner of that discipline.

A Kauger Arms action is the rifle's anchor/foundation, with a 28" Heavy Varmint MullerWorks cut barrel, Richards Microfit self-finished stock, Vortex scope, Leupold rings, Sinclair bipod makes up the equipment. He's running Lapua brass and Berger 185 Juggernaut Target bullets. The powder? VV N150. The charge? None of our business.

What's the point of this story?

What we are encouraged to do as competitive shooters is run what we brung until some part of that is clearly holding us back. But sometimes some don't know if something will, actually, make them better.

Brings us to today.

Anyone who has already won their division in an F-Class match, and consistently scored right up at the top, must know their equipment and what that package brings to the target. My buddy knew, said so, and I believed him. But if there was a way to help even incrementally, I was after that increment.

Pulling out a used Bix'n Andy Remington 700 Competition trigger, I handed it to him and said, "I built this out of the used parts bin. Put it into your gun. Shoot it in Indiana, and give it back to me when you get back home." Buddy put it in his gun and went to the underground range and shot it at 100 yards that night.

This target is the result of the use of the borrowed trigger. In the first group, on the left, the 30 cal hole on the bottom is the cold bore shot, out of a newly cleaned barrel. The group above the cold bore shot is seven rounds. The second group, on the right, is also seven rounds, shot immediately after the first group.

Buddy said, "I've done that before - but it's never been that easy before! It's always taken everything I've had to get those results!"

The conversation went on with him describing his first experience with this trigger:

First word - Effortless. Second - Thoughtless. For him to see the result of his ongoing lack of effort was exciting and exhilarating at the same time. It was easier than it had ever been - Ever! The kicker was that he did not have to concentrate on the trigger - at all. He said he could concentrate on fundamentals more completely, etc., and was not distracted by anything trigger related.

I will not mention the brand of trigger this Comp trigger replaced, but he brought it in the next morning so we could use our measuring device/fixture to compare pull force with the Comp trigger. To his astonishment the trigger force required to "light one off" between the Bix'n Andy Competition trigger and what he had been using was within an ounce and a half.

The difference was in the inner mechanisms of each trigger. One felt effortless. One felt like he had to "overcome" something.

Well . . . I'm real glad he's happy . . . I'll get the used-bin trigger back when he gets home, but he'll own a brand new Bix'n Andy Remington 700 Single Stage Competition trigger as soon as he relinquishes that borrowed piece.