3rd Annual Fathers Day Shoot

Every year, for the past three years, Brad and I have been holding a shoot in memory of our dad. We had this years shoot on the weekend before father's day due to ease of scheduling. This event is a full day of shooting everything from handguns to shotguns to rifles. We pack a lunch and stay all day at the range, usually shooting up more ammo than some people own altogether. Needless to say it's a ton of fun.

So why is it that I'm blogging about this here on a blog dedicated to long range rifle shooting only? Well a big part of this years fun was shooting at a good distance with a couple of my rifles. Having gotten into the long distance shooting at last years shoot, this years amount of that was highly expanded. I had purchased a spotting scope, which helped out enormously. I have also obtained a new rifle (Savage 10FCP, review coming soon) to shoot with.

Some of our greatest improvements were in communication between the spotter and the shooter. This allowed for us to hit pop cans at 450 yards by the second shot. Brad even spotted for me on the one can I hit with the first shot. That was indeed a great boost of confidence for me, as well as for Brad. In everything I've read the spotter is the one who does most of the work, and the shoot is just the trigger man.(unless the shooter is the only one there, of course) So I must give the majority of the credit to Brad for that shot.

Below: One water filled container hit with my 270 at about 475 yards.


-Steven Kipp

Trigger Pull

I always believed that trigger pull is one of the largest components when shooting with a handgun, but I recently noticed that it is just as important when shooting rifles. It's a little easier to stabilize the firearm with a bipod in the prone position, but a stiff slap on the trigger instead of a smooth squeeze will throw a 500 yd shot off enough to miss a pop can. One major reason I found where a rough trigger pull can come from is flinching. Starting out the day, I always had a flinch at the beginning of every shooting day, but managed to get rid of it after getting use to the recoil and noise of every bullet that came out of the barrel. Rough trigger pulls can come from a lack of confidence in the shot as well; pulling the trigger as fast as you can when the cross hairs are exactly where you want them.

You can have all the best equipment in the world, but if your head isn't in the game, the trigger pull aspect of the shot is going to fall short. Some beginning shooters think anybody should know how to make the trigger move back and forth and that this should not be on the mind at all. When, in fact, I believe is one of the largest conscious efforts that should be made on every shot. If the basics fall short, everything else will snowball down with it.

-Brad Kipp

Sand bags, continued.

The sand bags described in the previous post worked very well. They were filled with about 10 lbs of fine sand. This made them so they were not bursting at the seems, but had enough volume to where they were useful. I especially liked the fabric that was chosen. It was expensive, but well worth it for making the sand bags last.

I gave a set of 3 to Brad when he was up here(He'll blog about it when the our tech savvy catches up to Google's system). I also gave a set to my father-in-law for fathers day today. He also seemed to like them.

-Steven Kipp

Sand bags

It occurs to me that the best place to shoot long distances is from prone resting on sand bags. So I figured I'd make some. I also thought that I might share the experience here.

The fabric is 1000 cordura that was bought for another project. I cut out several rectangles that were 20 1/2 inches by 12 1/2 inches. I then sewed up the sides. I then folded the fabric to form a square that was 10 1/4 by 12 1/2 and sewed up the sides.


I then filled with sand them with sand and sewed up the end to close them.

These should work well and I will be trying with Brad coming up soon. I'll try to post a review to let those of you who just have to know, how they work out

-Steven Kipp