PRS - The Preparation Part

By Les Voth - Bix'n Andy USA

Shooters starting out are concerned with having the right guns and gear. Okay, get your gear, and get on with it. By this I mean that there are plenty of places to find out what the guys at the top use. They use it because it works and they can count on it. Watch and learn.

Make sure your rifle can do what it’s supposed to do. At one time the “standard” was 10 shots under half an inch at 100 yards could win any match. You’re there to hit steel while you run yourself ragged carrying and using guns and gear for 90 to 120 seconds at a time.

Once you’re assured that your rifle and ammo are capable of hitting MOA targets out to 1000 yards, with the guy who’s won the most PRS matches in the last three years driving it for you, put rifle concerns aside and get on to the fun part . . .

Get to where you can shoot accurately from your feet, from waist height, on one knee or both, or your belly. Be pretty sure that if you went to the Steel Farm, by yourself, with all the time in the world, you could make first round hits at 535, 779, 889, and 935. Then, mixing them up, you can hit them, too. Yer almost there . . .

You can knock the paint off dang near anything, if the right conditions exist.

You begin learning to create the conditions when you can stand back, watch consistently good shooters prepare at the stage itself, then begin copying what they did in those first minutes after arriving at a new stage. 

A really good shooter told me to range the targets, get your wind calls, and study the placement and order of the targets by landmarks. Once he had those things written and understood, he watched other shooters run through the stage watching through his binos to see what they were doing on target. Everything is data.

When it was his turn, he had collected all the data available. It was easier to execute then, than if he’d just shown up and “took a random stab” at it.

On train-up day at a recent 2 day National Qualifying match I watched a man zero his rifle, then review each individual stage - there were 18 stages to be shot  - twice. He did that in 30 mile per hour winds, gusting to uncomfortable, and sandblasting desert dirt blowing cold through his clothes.

He walked away with two trophies that Sunday afternoon, and I’ll be willing to bet that there were fifty rifles there that were just as accurate as his was that day. He created the conditions, collected the data, and wasn’t distracted.