The Hunter Marksman Challenge! Practice with your hunting rifle.

[Brobee]

Hi Folks!

So I am in the final semester of a graduate degree right now, and I managed to set up one of my courses as a project involving my super-awesome-hobby that is gun enthusiasm! For part of the project, I want to get a bunch of folks to try "The Hunter Rifle Challenge" as per this YouTube video I put together:


http://youtu.be/jmP_MYlTtSo


The initial challenge is modelled after the awesome Cabin Fever Challenge put together by RifleChair; I've tweaked the format so it is more conducive to being done with a run-of-the-mill hunting rifle. The concept is pretty simple:

• 8 inch diameter circle target (click here to download)
• 100 meter range (100 yards works just fine too!), either formal or informal - anyplace that's legal and safe
• Any hunting rifle - optics/irons all good, any caliber, any action
• 2 rounds standing
• 2 rounds kneeling
• 2 rounds sitting supported
• 2 rounds sitting unsupported
• 2 rounds prone
• Time measured from first shot to last shot (easily accomplished if you video yourself)
• Score = (hits x 100) / time in seconds
• Submit your results in this thread!

If you post your results, it would also be AWESOME to read a bit about what type of rifle you use (type, caliber) and why it's the rifle you chose. Even more awesome would be a photograph of you, your rifle, your target, all in the setting where you shot the exercise.

If I can get enough folks to participate and share their results from their first couple attempts, I'll compile some statistics and share them here in this thread, including results I get from other folks on other forums. In my fantasy world, by the end of February I'd like to get a couple of hundred results to stick into my statistical model.

After we get the baseline data on our collective level of skill right now, I'll post up additional challenges that use reduced-scale targets we'll shoot from the 5 field positions (listed above) at 25 meters to see how much we can improve our positional shooting before next fall. Here's a couple of examples of the targets we'll use for phase II:


Bull Elk
Bull Moose


Sincerely hope folks find it interesting enough to try, and would DEEPLY APPRECIATE folks posting their results here. If you are uncomfortable posting your results in a public forum, I'd also be thrilled to get them via PM and rest assured I would ensure your confidentiality.

Can't wait to see what you come back with!

Cheers,

Brobee

[SoCalPI]

You should post in the Hunting section too.

[NapalmCheese]

I like it! I missed an kneeling head shot at a doe antelope this year and figured I need some more practice, this sounds like a fun way to do so.

[as_rocketman]

Sounds like fun...

Doubt I'll have time to do it again anytime soon, but my best-ever score on the Appleseed AQT was with one of my hunting rifles, a Browning BAR in .270 Win, 3-9x40 Bushnell, with factory PMC 130 gr ammunition. 243 out of 250. I had the most trouble in standing. Slow-fire and from a bipod, I once shot a 0.8" center-to-center ten-shot group with this rifle at 100 meters. This is of no use for your experiment, but I predict that some would perform very well indeed with mere "hunting" rifles.

Your course of fire is a little unclear, though. I'd be tempted to do the following:

1. Start with four loaded
2. Shoot two standing
3. Transition to kneeling and shoot two
4. Reload four, and shoot four from kneeling (kneeling is a sitting position)
5. Transition to prone and shoot two, single loading

I'd get better shots doing a second transition to cross-legged, but it wouldn't be enough to be worth the extra six seconds to do it and find my NPOA again -- and to be frank I'm not concerned about missing a stationary 8 MOA target, even under time pressure.

Also, you've designed the scoring method to reward firing as rapidly as possible, which tilts the advantage to AR's and things. To "win" this contest, I'd shoot a controlled pair, hammer six shots in kneeling in a single breath, and then another controlled pair from prone. There's no way I'd shoot like this in any hunting situation.

So, are you trying to show that "huntin' rifles" can hang in tactical shooting situations? They can, for the most part. Otherwise I'd change the scoring method. Just a suggestion.

[Brobee]

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

Sounds like fun...

Doubt I'll have time to do it again anytime soon, but my best-ever score on the Appleseed AQT was with one of my hunting rifles, a Browning BAR in .270 Win, 3-9x40 Bushnell, with factory PMC 130 gr ammunition. 243 out of 250. I had the most trouble in standing. Slow-fire and from a bipod, I once shot a 0.8" center-to-center ten-shot group with this rifle at 100 meters. This is of no use for your experiment, but I predict that some would perform very well indeed with mere "hunting" rifles.

Your course of fire is a little unclear, though. I'd be tempted to do the following:

1. Start with four loaded
2. Shoot two standing
3. Transition to kneeling and shoot two
4. Reload four, and shoot four from kneeling (kneeling is a sitting position)
5. Transition to prone and shoot two, single loading

I'd get better shots doing a second transition to cross-legged, but it wouldn't be enough to be worth the extra six seconds to do it and find my NPOA again -- and to be frank I'm not concerned about missing a stationary 8 MOA target, even under time pressure.

Also, you've designed the scoring method to reward firing as rapidly as possible, which tilts the advantage to AR's and things. To "win" this contest, I'd shoot a controlled pair, hammer six shots in kneeling in a single breath, and then another controlled pair from prone. There's no way I'd shoot like this in any hunting situation.

So, are you trying to show that "huntin' rifles" can hang in tactical shooting situations? They can, for the most part. Otherwise I'd change the scoring method. Just a suggestion.

A super interesting post!

The course of fire is intentionally a bit vague, as I want it to be as inclusive as possible. Allowing for some variation also encourages feedback like what you've posted, which is lateral thinking different from my own and valuable because of how it exposes new ideas I hadn't thought of.

Re 'contest' - I'd like to think of it more of a contest against yourself...the idea being to measure your personal baseline with your rifle and whatever method you choose, then to participate in some of the practice exercises I'll post over the next few months (and am totally open to suggestions from participants on what these should be!), then re-run the exercise later and see how much your "score" improves. Self improvement is the goal.

Re the time constraint. You have a valid point here and I agonized over this one a bit when conceptualizing the format of the exercise. I agree that I would never shoot this course of fire when hunting, but while hunting I have had to run/setup in a different position while manipulating my rifle and wanted to capture a taste of this in the challenge. I also wanted to try and capture at least one reload, and I wanted there to be some form of time pressure. If I can get enough baseline data from folks with different types of rifles, it will be tempting to break the performance data into distinct sets based on "class" of rifle and publish statistics that way.

Great feedback, thank you!

Hope you can find the time to hit the range for an afternoon/evening to hammer out a mind-blowing score with your AR, again with your .270 BAR (I almost bought one of those instead of my Ruger No.1), and a third time if you have a bolt gun. Maybe you can also recruit a bunch of appleseeders to weigh in and show us all what the 90th percentile on the performance distribution curve will look like?

Cheers, and thanks again!

Brobee

[mif_slim]

I mite try this this friday. Sounds fun.

[as_rocketman]

Originally Posted by Brobee

Re the time constraint. You have a valid point here and I agonized over this one a bit when conceptualizing the format of the exercise. I agree that I would never shoot this course of fire when hunting, but while hunting I have had to run/setup in a different position while manipulating my rifle and wanted to capture a taste of this in the challenge. I also wanted to try and capture at least one reload, and I wanted there to be some form of time pressure. If I can get enough baseline data from folks with different types of rifles, it will be tempting to break the performance data into distinct sets based on "class" of rifle and publish statistics that way.

Well, the thing is, the nature of this drill appears to reward speed, even when it borders on reckless. Here's some typical numbers.

At Appleseed we shoot a timed four-stage target reminiscent of a CMP match, at reduced targets set at 25 meters. The closest parallel to your suggested course of fire is our Stage 2: From standing, shooters transition to the seated position of their choice (including kneeling), load, and engage two "D" targets with a total of ten rounds, with a forced magazine change, within a 55 second time limit. The target bulls are 10 MOA across (scoring 4 points) with an inner 6 MOA five-point ring. So somewhat like your challenge in complexity: There is a forced position change and a forced reload, and we add to that a target NPOA shift. There is time pressure but time does not factor into the score.

With many rifles Stage 2 is my best stage. It is very rare for me to not cut black with all ten shots. Typically I finish in about 45 seconds, and about the first 15 seconds of that is transitioning, making ready, and establishing NPOA. So -- using a shot timer, call it 30 seconds.

A similar performance against your target, suppose I clean it in 30 seconds, the resulting score is going to be 10 hits x 100 / 30 seconds = 33.3.

But I'm not hurrying. Also my "D" targets are about half the size of your round bulls.

Shooting responsibly but milking the clock, I can pretty much skip my NPOA checks since they'll be close enough (and I get the first one for free, as we won't start the clock until my first shot), and simply shoot in a fast cadence. That will get me down to the 20 second range. I may miss a shot here and there, but I'll be able to get a clean run in a few tries. So my reported score is now 10 x 100 / 20 = 50.

And then, just for fun, I bring out the AR and we clear the range. Screw NPOA, forget about rifleman's cadence, I'm burning ammo. Mag change is staged in my hand before I begin. Let's say I only hit half my shots -- but I can now plausibly shoot this in, oh, say eight seconds. I'm not super fast.

Score is now 5 hits x 100 / 8 = 62.5 Yet, somehow I leave the line feeling less like a winner.

ETA: Let's take this to the extreme. I then whip out my BHP 9mm. I take all day sighting in that first shot, and then dump the rest of the magazine, which of course are minute-of-berm. 1 hit x 100 / 1.25 seconds = 80 points. Huzzah! Why aren't the RSO's celebrating with me?

I'm not going to turn in any monster scores against this course of fire. Some younger and more adrenalin-soaked 3-gunner is going to put together a lucky run in the five second range that I'll never touch, and would be foolish to try.

Originally Posted by Brobee

Hope you can find the time to hit the range for an afternoon/evening to hammer out a mind-blowing score with your AR, again with your .270 BAR (I almost bought one of those instead of my Ruger No.1), and a third time if you have a bolt gun. Maybe you can also recruit a bunch of appleseeders to weigh in and show us all what the 90th percentile on the performance distribution curve will look like?

My other "huntin' rifle" is a Ruger No. 1. That's going to be quite a bit slower. I do like it, though.

I've also shot our targets with bolt actions. Using an as-issued M1917 against non-reduced targets at 200 meters, I've cleaned our Stage 2 (well, got some 4's, but all cutting black) in about 50 seconds, call it 35 seconds first to last shot.

This COF won't work at Appleseed. We don't do loaded transitions for safety reasons, and trying to work around that will really mess up the clock. However, my abilities are not exceptional -- a good fraction of my students can put together standing and seated stages comparable to my own, if inconsistently, and speed is no problem. I usually have to fight to slow them down! Where they tend to fall apart is in the slow-fire prone stage, against much smaller targets.

[Brobee]

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

Well, the thing is, the nature of this drill appears to reward speed, even when it borders on reckless.

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

A similar performance against your target, suppose I clean it in 30 seconds, the resulting score is going to be 10 hits x 100 / 30 seconds = 33.3.

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

Shooting responsibly but milking the clock, I can pretty much skip my NPOA checks since they'll be close enough (and I get the first one for free, as we won't start the clock until my first shot), and simply shoot in a fast cadence. That will get me down to the 20 second range. I may miss a shot here and there, but I'll be able to get a clean run in a few tries. So my reported score is now 10 x 100 / 20 = 50.

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

And then, just for fun, I bring out the AR and we clear the range. Screw NPOA, forget about rifleman's cadence, I'm burning ammo. Mag change is staged in my hand before I begin. Let's say I only hit half my shots -- but I can now plausibly shoot this in, oh, say eight seconds. I'm not super fast.

Score is now 5 hits x 100 / 8 = 62.5 Yet, somehow I leave the line feeling less like a winner.

Agree that a dedicated competitive shooter who approaches the challenge with the mindset to "win" by turning in a monster score is going accomplish this. I think you intuitively also get that my "challenge" is poorly constructed to discourage this. I like your suggesting for using a time limit and will ponder that for future challenges, however this is the one I've got organized for the short period of time I've got for the remainder of my masters degree, so it's the one I'm going to have to run with.

I think you also get that the spirit of what I'm going for is somewhat different - I'm trying to get as many guys as possible out with as many different rifles out, and hoping that the vast majority of them show up with their beloved deer hunting gun to explore their limitations, experience a bunch of different shooting positions, feel some pressure of time, manipulate their guns a lot, have some fun with their friends and hunting rifles, and tell me a bit about their experience.

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

My other "huntin' rifle" is a Ruger No. 1. That's going to be quite a bit slower. I do like it, though.

Being an enthusiast of the Ruger No.1, I would LOVE to see that!

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

I've also shot our targets with bolt actions. Using an as-issued M1917 against non-reduced targets at 200 meters, I've cleaned our Stage 2 (well, got some 4's, but all cutting black) in about 50 seconds, call it 35 seconds first to last shot.

Would be great to see an expert bolt gun driver at work. Hope it would inspire folks to get out with their hunting rifles, try the challenge, and work to get better.

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

This COF won't work at Appleseed. We don't do loaded transitions for safety reasons, and trying to work around that will really mess up the clock. However, my abilities are not exceptional -- a good fraction of my students can put together standing and seated stages comparable to my own, if inconsistently, and speed is no problem. I usually have to fight to slow them down! Where they tend to fall apart is in the slow-fire prone stage, against much smaller targets.

Sorry to read it won't work with your mass crowd, excited to read that your students achieve good success with developing proficiency, and hope you can still convince a couple others to participate, hopefully those who need practice the most!

Cheers, and thanks for the gift of sharing your experience.

Brobee

[Brobee]

One other thought - to address the safety concern of changing positions with a loaded gun - while this won't work for folks using semis, folks running bolt guns could fire their last round from each position, change positions, then cycle their bolts.

Brobee

[as_rocketman]

Originally Posted by Brobee

I like your suggesting for using a time limit and will ponder that for future challenges, however this is the one I've got organized for the short period of time I've got for the remainder of my masters degree, so it's the one I'm going to have to run with.

I think you also get that the spirit of what I'm going for is somewhat different - I'm trying to get as many guys as possible out with as many different rifles out, and hoping that the vast majority of them show up with their beloved deer hunting gun to explore their limitations, experience a bunch of different shooting positions, feel some pressure of time, manipulate their guns a lot, have some fun with their friends and hunting rifles, and tell me a bit about their experience.

Oh, of course I understand. Depending on what you're degreeing in, you might want to treat score vs. time as independent variables... clustering on different groups might reveal something sociologically interesting. Of course, how you'll correct for selection bias I don't know. I'd guess most participants won't respond unless they record all hits.

We go for a similar feel in Appleseed. Yes, if you're new to the fundamentals you will learn fastest with a semi-auto rimfire with a loop sling, but folks are encouraged to bring whatever they shoot best with. Over the years we've had a fair number of R700's and Howa's and Savages on the line. They get punished on the fast stages of the AQT, but overall they do very well. Levers and pumps in the dirt are tough, though.

[Brobee]

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

Oh, of course I understand. Depending on what you're degreeing in, you might want to treat score vs. time as independent variables... clustering on different groups might reveal something sociologically interesting. Of course, how you'll correct for selection bias I don't know. I'd guess most participants won't respond unless they record all hits.

Re scores, I don't really need them for the academic part of my project (will reveal more as project unfolds), but I have a deep personal interest as well as in sharing them and soliciting feedback.

Re selection bias - I was worried about this when I ran an online league more than 10 years ago. What surprised me was how (apparently) honest folks were with their targets. I had lots of guys submit targets with 2/10, 1/10 scores on them. Lots of folks shot in groups, we had a pretty good social fabric for calling out BS on the odd person who was just there to beat everyone (who would then typically de-select themselves from further participation), and I did a big bunch of pre-conditioning with the message that if you participated just to stroke your ego you were missing out on any real training value the exercise might bring to the table in the self-improvement department, and robbing themselves from the phenomenon that is how you feel when you get genuine recognition for genuine improvement, regardless on how small it is. It was kinda a cool group of guys/gals, and I was sad when I shut it down for time reasons.

Anyway, one cool thing I've got going for me is a bunch of folks who are going to do the challenge in groups, many of them with me in attendance. This group is pretty inclusive of hardcore 3gunners, tactical precision rifle folks, joe schmo hunters, and folks who are just starting out their firearm journey. Over then next few months I should be able to put together a sample distribution of at least 100 distinct data points of scores I've actually witnessed. Will be curious to see how it differs from the distribution of scores I collect off the internet...

[JackEllis]

What's your time frame for getting targets back? I can't video myself so the times will be somewhat approximate, the best place for me to do this is probably going to be covered in snow over the next two weeks and I have never attempted to shoot my hunting rifle without some kind of support but I'm willing to try this for the sake of science (I'm an engineer by training).

[Brobee]

Originally Posted by JackEllis

What's your time frame for getting targets back? I can't video myself so the times will be somewhat approximate, the best place for me to do this is probably going to be covered in snow over the next two weeks and I have never attempted to shoot my hunting rifle without some kind of support but I'm willing to try this for the sake of science (I'm an engineer by training).

Would be great to have you try it out! Ideally I'd like to have collected the first round of info by the end of February, but I am going to leave the challenge open indefinitely. If you are constrained by snow/weather I would not sweat it as I'd still love to get your results in May/June.

Cheers, and thank you.

Brobee

[Religious Shooter]

Canadian?

[Religious Shooter]

Paper is cheap. I'd have a target for each position.

That way you would know what position you are weak at.

If the shots are all stacked on one target you don't know at which position you missed or had poor accuracy on.

[Brobee]

Originally Posted by Religious Shooter

Paper is cheap. I'd have a target for each position.

That way you would know what position you are weak at.

If the shots are all stacked on one target you don't know at which position you missed or had poor accuracy on.

Canadian = you bet! Calgary Alberta.

Multiple Targets = AWESOME suggestion! Hope to see a pic from your entry with 5 targets....

Cheers,

Brobee

[Brobee]

My buddy DM texted me up this afternoon to see if I wanted to do an impromptu shoot...woohoo!

He came and picked me up so we could chat on the drive out, and we had a blast as we both ran the HMC Baseline and then test-drove the next exercise I'm going to post in a week or two. He shot his Norinco M305 Scout built as well as his Ruger Scout Rifle, both in .308, and I had another go with my 30-06 Ruger No.1.

He had a bit of trouble with the magazine in his Ruger Scout (plastic) that ate his time for that run, and I think the zero for his M305 was a bit to much to the right with the factory ammo we bought on the way out of town. For my run...I think I was feeling some performance anxiety as I really wanted my single-shot to beat out his bolt gun for time, and as I was concentrating on hurrying I threw two...D'OH!

He expressed some anxiety for not ever having shot standing before, and was dreading the walk up to the targets after his first bout. When we got there and started counting hits, that anxiety lifted quite a bit as he did better than he thought he did and is now all keen to do dry-fire positional practice in the basement with his M305 so I set him up with an M1A dry fire device I had made many moons ago. He also expressed interest that he'd never run his bolt gun under stress before and was surprised at how much grief his magazine had given him. He's going to try some metal magazines for our next outing.

Felt like we both learned some things about how we shoot our guns, and overall had a total blast. Can't wait to get out with him again soon. He's a bit shy, so the only way I could convince him to let me post his pics was with a promise to go wild with redaction...







Cheers,

Brobee

[as_rocketman]

Cool, but... what's that white stuff on the ground?

Watch your support elbow, both targets. That's the dominant source of inaccuracy.

[BillyGoatCrawler]

I like this challenge idea. I will have to do it next time I am out shooting.

Originally Posted by as_rocketman

Well, the thing is, the nature of this drill appears to reward speed, even when it borders on reckless. Here's some typical numbers.

A similar performance against your target, suppose I clean it in 30 seconds, the resulting score is going to be 10 hits x 100 / 30 seconds = 33.3.

But I'm not hurrying. Also my "D" targets are about half the size of your round bulls.

Shooting responsibly but milking the clock, I can pretty much skip my NPOA checks since they'll be close enough (and I get the first one for free, as we won't start the clock until my first shot), and simply shoot in a fast cadence. That will get me down to the 20 second range. I may miss a shot here and there, but I'll be able to get a clean run in a few tries. So my reported score is now 10 x 100 / 20 = 50.

And then, just for fun, I bring out the AR and we clear the range. Screw NPOA, forget about rifleman's cadence, I'm burning ammo. Mag change is staged in my hand before I begin. Let's say I only hit half my shots -- but I can now plausibly shoot this in, oh, say eight seconds. I'm not super fast.

Score is now 5 hits x 100 / 8 = 62.5 Yet, somehow I leave the line feeling less like a winner.


I'm not going to turn in any monster scores against this course of fire. Some younger and more adrenalin-soaked 3-gunner is going to put together a lucky run in the five second range that I'll never touch, and would be foolish to try.

I am still reading through the thread, so maybe a solution has been proposed. If not, I have an idea that might help to make the spreads not so dramatic and rewarding of sheer speed. Take the square root of the time.

examples with the numbers above that obviously reward reckless speed.
10 hits x 100 / 30 seconds = 33.3
10 x 100 / 20 = 50
7 x 100 / 16 = 43.8
5 x 100 / 8 = 62.5
1 x 100 / 1.25 = 80

Examples adjusted with the square root:
10 x 100 / sqrt(30) = 182.6
10 x 100 / sqrt(20) = 223.6

7 x 100/ sqrt(14) = 187.1
7 x 100 / sqrt(16) = 175

5 x 100 / squrt(5) = 223.6
5 x 100 / sqrt(8) = 176.7

1 x 100 / sqrt(1.25) = 89.44


OK OK, I know a lot of numbers, but let me show that it works with the OPs example photos from this weekend. Basically this rewards hits more than time.

4 x 100 / sqrt(103seconds) = 39.4
6 x 100 / sqrt(147seconds) = 49.5
8 x 100 / sqrt(93seconds) = 83.0

[Brobee]

Originally Posted by Standish

I like this challenge idea. I will have to do it next time I am out shooting.

I am still reading through the thread, so maybe a solution has been proposed. If not, I have an idea that might help to make the spreads not so dramatic and rewarding of sheer speed. Take the square root of the time.

That is a fantastic idea, thank you! I think it's awesome that folks 2000km apart can contribute not only by participating, but also by examining the parameters of of what's asked and with super-constructive suggestions to make things better.

I love your idea of using the sqrt of the time, and I think the format of the challenge should be changed to reflect this. I'll have to make a follow up video (eventually a new one to replace the original), but recalculating scores should be no problem if folks submit their time and number of hits.

Cheers, and thanks again! I can't wait to see what you come back with from your next shooting session.

Brobee

[Brobee]

If anyone's interested, here's what the distribution of scores I've received in the past two weeks looks like (note the different scoring formula I'm using if you want to calculate your own score):



For those lurking....where do you fit in now? How much could you improve if you practiced all summer?

I'd love to see some more data from the Calguns.net crowd! Maybe those who have tried (and liked) the challenge could do me a huge solid and recruit one or two of your friends?

Cheers,

Brobee

[ar15barrels]

Originally Posted by Brobee

[*]8 inch diameter circle target (click here to download)

Link is bad.

[Brobee]

Originally Posted by ar15barrels

Link is bad.

repaired.

Also added a lower ink version:

20cm bull low ink