How Did I Get Started in PRS?

How did I get started in PRS? To be honest, I started out by accident. I was looking aimlessly at Gunpost.ca one day and saw a used Lyman Reloading Set that included everything that a person needed to start reloading. I had always been intimated by the reloading process and always thought it was a dangerous and in-depth process for elite shooters.

It turns out I was wrong.

Can reloading be a painstaking and labour-intensive process? Yep. And I can now attest to that. Can you also do the bare minimum with a used reloading kit and create more accurate and consistent bullets than factory rounds? Absolutely!

So I bought a reloading book, watched a few youtube videos (There are a few thousand video options to help anyone reload), and tried making my first round. I have to say, when you are walking out to the pasture with your very first bullet, it is a bit nerve-racking, but there is nothing more satisfying than pulling the trigger and having the round work perfectly.  

And then I became addicted.

I had two rifles at the time.  I had a Mossberg MVP Predator in 223Rem and a 308 Tikka CTR.  I started reloading the 308 because I kept the brass just in case I could get someone to reload one day. After testing my first bullet, I went back to the house, made twenty rounds, and returned to the range. 

The only target I had was a piece of cardboard that I put typically printed targets on that I found off the internet for free. These online targets are a terrific choice, and I still use them to zero rifles today. 

Now that I was reloading, though, I had to replace the targets more often, and I was starting to get bored with having the target in the same spot (about 125 yards) all the time. 

So off to the internet I went, and found Prairie Precision Steel.

Prairie Precision Steel is a Canadian company out of Consul, Saskatchewan. Where is that, you might ask? Well, you drive until you think you are in the middle of nowhere, take a left, and then drive five hours further, and then you will be in Consul. Luckily they ship!

Prairie Precision Steel’s targets hard at work dodging bullets

Prairie Precision Steel creates some of the best targets on the market and some of the most creative. There are the standard IPSC, round gongs and rack type targets, and then there are the rubber duckies, Unicorn Pigs, Godzillas and Sasquatch. I'll admit there is nothing more frustrating than missing a wind call one inch off the duck’s bill, but it does make the afternoon more enjoyable!

After emailing the owner Colton a couple of times, I bought a full-size IPSC and a ten-inch gong, thinking I would put the gong at about 100 yards for a challenge and put the IPSC at 300 yards to give myself a big target to hit it on the off chance I get accurate enough. 

While waiting for the targets to come in, I also read about ballistics apps and different options to get shooting solutions. I had never been around them before and didn't know anyone that used them, so I used trusty Google again and landed on downloading Strelok to my phone.

Now, there are many different options, and I won't debate which is the best app, but Strelok worked for me. It was easy to set up and fairly intuitive to use. 

What really sold me on the app was after setting up my full-size IPSC at 300 yards and walking out to the fence line to take a shot, thinking there was a 10% chance that I would hit the target, I had a first-round impact. After the obligatory celebration dance, I shot a few more rounds and all impacts and returned to the house.

I know there will be a few people laughing at me right now thinking, "Of course, you hit the target. It is a full-size Ipsc at 300 yards. How could you have missed it?". At this point, I had never really shot at any distances before, never used a ballistics app, and didn't have the luxury of having a lot of precision shooters around me. I live in the country, and there are a lot of hunters, but very few people sit around talking about shooting positions and ballistics software where I live, so this was all new to me, and I was learning on my own.

And then, I started down the dark path of different techniques and equipment to reload better, but I will save those reviews for another day.

During the reloading research project, a video of a Precision Rifle Competition came up, and I became obsessed with learning how to do it. 

Again, no one was around to help me out, so I learned off of Youtube and Google. Multiple different links helped me but search terms like "learn PRS positions," "PRS competitions," and "best equipment for PRS" will help anyone get in the right direction.

Perfect spot to practice.

It turns out that I had been training for PRS my whole life, I just hadn’t known it. Every since I was a kid, I have been shooting gophers or deer off of fence posts, tree limbs, barbed wire and multiple other weird shooting positions, and this is what PRS is all about!

My main advice is, "Just go shoot." Don't buy a lot of equipment until you have been to a competition or, at the very least, shoot about 1000 rounds in different shooting positions until you figure out what you need and what are nice to have. My advice is you only need a rifle, something 6mm is preferred, but anything 308 or less will get you going, a tactical scope (a Diamondback Tactical is a great first scope and relatively cheap), and a shooting bag. 

My first set of equipment was pretty basic. I didn't have a bipod and hadn't done any prone shooting before. My main shooting benches have always been a small round bale and the top of a Bull Dog Archery target. So I made a shooting bag out of an old sock that I filled with durum and started shooting with it. Huge difference! 

Next, I researched different stages and some standard ones I could build for relatively low effort and wouldn't cost too much.

The first two stages I built were pretty straightforward. The first one was a barrel stage. I found two old oil barrels at a neighbour's abandoned yard and then grabbed an empty cattle mineral tub. The second I pounded three t-posts into the ground and put old pop bottled on the top to protect shooting bags from being ripped. I found this out the hard way…

The third was slightly more effort but easily manageable. I built a tank trap. Again reasonably straightforward, but in today's lumber world, not the cheapest option. 

First Tank Trap

Now on to practice. I started by shooting each stage as a normal competition would; setting a timer for two minutes on my phone, hammering through ten rounds, and keeping track of my progress. While it was an absolute blast spending the afternoon doing this, the ammo cost started to ramp up in a hurry…  Then I stumbled onto two different practice techniques: dry firing and a video from MDT called 3 Positions 40 seconds MDT Drill, stage trainer.

Dry firing is exactly that. You set the timer for two minutes and go through your stage no different than if you were actually shooting it. This is incredibly helpful but doesn't help in the managing recoil part. 

The MDT trainer is, in my opinion,  the best of both worlds. You start a timer with 40 seconds, and you do one shot in three different positions. It is harder than it sounds and works great without using up a pile of ammo. 

Another prop to practice with. Old logs are a challenge to shoot from and are cheap!

So with my grain bag, 308 Tikka CTR, and homemade props, I practiced. And practiced. And practiced… 

Then the first match since COVID started was announced, and I was in! I had repeatedly read that you shouldn't expect to do well when you go to your first match. It is an entirely different environment than shooting at home, and the top guys have been shooting for years. With my three months of PRS practice didn't expect to come in the top 10, but I thought I could potentially be in the top 25. 

And I was wrong!

Out of 104 shooters, I came in 79th, and I was excited to place there! Even had I come in dead last, it was the most fun I had had shooting a rifle in my life, and I was hooked. 

The benefit of the competition was studying what everyone else was doing and what they had for equipment. I asked a tonne of questions and kept a list of equipment to research later. 

And then the pain of buying equipment began. Luckily, I had built up a pretty good COVID nest egg, and pretty much could buy what suited my "needs" best. Needs are in quotation marks because, as a new shooter, I do not need most of my equipment. When you are at a match, the match director will usually ask if you are a new shooter, and if you are, everyone on your squad will lend you whatever equipment you need. Mainly because the majority of the people at a PRS competition are fantastic and helpful, but partly because they know that as a new shooter, you aren't going to be in the top 5, so why not help out as much as possible. 

So how do you get into PRS? Just go shoot and have fun doing it!