2014 Bushnell Brawl (hosted by Rifles Only)

[TheBelly]

Do you ever feel that you were limited by your stock? I don't know how the shooting positions were, but myself and Not_A_Llama made the decision to run carbine stocks for Rocky Mountain Steel Quest.

The short answer is no, it never got in the way. We were required to shoot from some goofy positions, and most of them from the support side. The consistent cheek weld on either side allowed me to index very easily. By using a carbine stock bare, or with a LaRue RISR, it's just a band-aid for the real problem that I faced: the gun didn't fit me as a carbine.

The added benefit from the deliberate decision to change from the carbine to the rifle length is that it smoothed the rifle out a TON and allowed a softer recoil impulse. Combine that with the fact that I had a birdcage (vs. an actual muzzle brake) and it made sense.

[TheBelly]

Regardless of where you finished, you came away from the competition with valuable experience gained and lessons learned that can improve your performance later on down the road. That in its self is worth the cost and time invested.

At the after-awards-ceremony BBQ, I asked folks what their deliberate training method included. I asked approximately 60-75 shooters. They all said they did three things for this match:

1) Dry fire your butt off.

2) Get off your stomach. Unless you are zeroing, figuring out ammo, or getting dope, you should never be in the prone.

3) Shoot from the support side as often as possible.