The San Gabriel BR School concluded successfully. Those that chose to be a part of it expressed their gratitude for what they saw. It proved to be an great learning experienced for both veteran participants and newcomers who had never shot a PPC before. I was happy we could get so many people together to promote benchrest. And I want to give credit to all the club members and instructors who worked hard to maked the event possible.

The school began bright and early on April 9th. All our “profs” arrived by 0700 and registration was completed by 0745. Students, who had pre-registered, were assigned to one of five topical seminars. These covered virtually every aspect of the Benchrest game from bullet-making, to gunsmithing, and even target-handling and scoring.

Seminar Groups
Each Group started with five or six students. Each class lasted 45 minutes. Then students were allowed to circulate among any other classes they wanted to. Everything went well with each class staying busy. I was helping Walt Berger (Arizona) with the bullet making. Even though I have made bullets for 9 years I was appreciative to learn from Walt. All the students at the bullet-making school had a chance to make bullets. I was also taking care of the Benchrest Facts table. Here I brought most of my Rifle, NBRSA News, Precision Shooting, Shooters News (Gammutto), Handloader, Page & Newick books. A lot of reading was done this day.

The other classes were also popular. I noticed much interest in Gary Sinclair’s presentation of shooting bench procedures and match strategies. Gary, along with Mike Marcelli, presented the proper way to be at the shooting bench and strategies for shooting groups in various conditions. Timing, targets, groups and aggs were discussed during a shoot.

Lawrence Weisdorn and Danny Moscaritolo also had good-size classes for their two sessions of BR Loading. I caught part of their class and could see they were discussing pre-loading which has become popular again. Also Lawrence ran a series of tests on temp and humidity and made a chart for his loadings. Danny showed how to prepare for pre-loading and what equipment is needed for it. Don Nielson and Dennis Thornberry discussed case preparation and wind flags. Don showcased his new high-speed case lathe. On sale now, it delivers higher rpms, with more power and all-metal construction. The new lathe will work with his current neck-turning tools. You’ll find photos and a short video in the tech section below.

Gene DeLoney and Mike Sosenko drew a good size crowd of shooters interested in Benchrest gunsmithing. Gene displayed his Dodd Rail Gun and explained the modifications he did to smooth out some rough spots on the gun. Gene also brought out some of his chambering tools to show the curious what it takes to chamber a barrel. Mike, also a successful BR gunsmith, talked of some of the projects he has done. [Editors' Note: Mike recently smithed John Adams' new fast-twist 22 Dasher. Impressively, Mike steered the Dasher to a middle of the pack finish in the School Match against a very competitive field of full-race PPCs. This proved that VLD bullets CAN be competitive at short range. Mike will be working with AccurateShooter.com on some product evaluations in the next couple of months--testing a new infrared Chronograph and doing comparison tests of benchrest primers in a tunnel.]

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John Loh and Tom Libby discussed front rests and bags and cleaning. Tom is one of our current World Record holders having shot a 10-shot NBRSA record in Unlimited Class. John’s company, JJ Industries, manufactures the superb Loh “JJ” Front Rest, a favorite among our shooters and world-wide (Photos below). [Editor's Note: We observed that many of the "top guns" at the BR School had Loh rests on their benches. We were able to put one through its paces and were very impressed. It is incredibly smooth, and the windage movement is perfectly linear with no vertical jerking. Gary Sinclair loves his Loh, and Lou Murdica says that "I own them all, including a few Co-Axials. I do use the joystick rests when I'm testing and have plenty of time for precision aiming. But in a match, I really favor the ease and speed with which I can get an ultra-precise aim point with the Loh. It is also superbly machined."]

Dave Blazzard (Utah) and Lou Murdica had a nice crowd discussing BR Rifles, barrels, stocks, and triggers. Don’t know if the new Kelbly trigger was discussed but the next time you see Lou ask him about the Kelbly trigger he will have a couple by then and have tested them. [Editor's note: Lou showed us one of the prototype triggers he has tested. He demonstrated how it can be easily adjusted from a couple of ounces to over a pound, just by switching out a pin. Lou liked the rigidity of the trigger housing and he predicted we'd be seeing many of these on the firing line soon. The trigger retails for $240.00 from Kelbly.com.]

Afternoon Agg–Putting Principles into Practice
We shot a five-stage (5×5) afternoon HV Agg as the second part of the BR School. We had two classes. The first class was made up of regular San Gabriel regular shooters while the novice class was made up of first time or novice shooters. Several instructors helped the novice shooters. I helped Rowland Rodriguez. John Loh tutored Rob Daniels who finished first among novices in the School Match. Several other Instructors coached novice shooters. We started with a Warm-Up Match that counted only for the small group trophy. As a historical note, when I started in 1977, NBRSA Warm-Up matches were common place.

Each match had a different winner for small group. Lou Murdica won the Warm-Up Match with a .167. Match 1 was won by Mike Marcelli with a .134 (also small group for the day). Match 2 was won by George Eickhof with a .149. Match 3 was won by Phil Levesque with a .183. Match 4 was won by Amanda Le with a .163. Match 5 was won by George Eickhof with a .162. For the class of regular shooters, Lou Murdica, shooting his 220 Russian, took top honors with a .2524 Agg. Phil Levesque finished second with .2566 and Dan Capps was third with a .2596.

Among the novice shooters, Amanda Le posted small group of .163 (not bad for an eighth grader!). HV Agg results were: 1st place Rob Daniels .2996, 2nd place Phil Peterson .3146, 3rd place Marty Childers .3362, 4th place Dan Carty with a .3478 Agg, and Amanda took 5th place with a .3834 Agg.

BR School Summary
The BR School was everything we expected it would be. I thought the teaching was excellent. Gary, Walt and Tom were a great addition to the returning staff of instructors from our 2004 BR School. I noticed the students stayed focused for all the classes they attended. Many of our regular shooters attending said they learned many things they had not paid attention to before. Hopefully we have sparked an interest among some new shooters to join the world of BR competition. I want to express my appreciation to all the Instructors and Students that made the BR School a success.

Stephen Perry
IBS Director | NBRSA Shoot Director
San Gabriel Valley Benchrest Shooters, SGBenchrest.com

New Shooters
We had several new shooters at the BR School, including some true novices. We also had some rimfire veterans like Glen Robinson of Ventura who were thinking of crossing over to centerfire. Some novices brought their own equipment, while others shot “loaners” provided by club regulars. Glen, who shot Dick Ahern’s PPC, said he really appreciated the opportunity to try out a “full-race” PPC before shopping for a new rig. “There’s just so much to learn–it’s like starting from scratch–but now I know ten times more about centerfire benchrest than I did before.” Glen said learning about loading and cleaning techniques from Dick was just as valuable as the trigger time during the match.

We encourage new shooters to come back and participate in our monthly shoots. Hopefully many of these first-timers will join the fun. Here are some tips for shooters interested in getting started in short-range registered benchrest.

Take BR Seriously
One thing I want to say here the idea of sharing BR knowledge cannot all be done in one day. Every shoot and every practice can be a BR School if one looks for it. Seek knowledge from wherever you can get it. Ask questions. Make your practice serious. As I heard Gary Sinclair say, practice under Match conditions. Set up your flags. Shoot sighter shots. Test different conditions on the sighter to see what each condition is worth. Use your timer. If you change barrels mark the scope settings for each barrel. Shoot the components you are going to use in the Shoot. Take notes. The more you pay attention to details before the Shoot the better you will do when the competitition starts.

Buying Your First BR Gun
Setting up for BR Shooting can be expensive. If you are starting out, a used gun is probably where you will start. Keep your eyes out for someone who is buying a new gun and wants to sell his old gun. I hate to drop names of manufacturers but you can’t describe a gun as x brand barrel and y brand action so pardon me for what I am about to say. When I bought my first used BR gun I was looking for certain things. I wanted either a Six stock or McMillan. Action–whatever was a current manufactured model. Scope–I wanted a Leopold only because Weaver hadn’t made the T-36 yet. Barrel didn’t matter because I knew I would re-barrel soon. What I ended up with was a Hall-actioned 6 PPC, with Six SPG stock, Hart barrel, Leupold 36x scope, Remington 2 oz trigger, Sporter Class. It was a nice gun, costing $1200 in 1994. Used guns are out there for decent prices. Try and have a BR gunsmith look at the gun before jumping in. Plan on re-barreling, when purchasing a used gun. No matter what the seller says, plan to re-barrel in your first year. Have a BR gunsmith look at the gun because some sellers have been known to screw on a barrel they have laying around just to sell the gun. The barrel may not have been headspaced for your action.

Consider buying a new rifle if you can afford it. Good smiths that build complete BR rifles include Ron Hoehn, Gene DeLoney, Don Nielson, Billy Stevenson, Gary Ocock, and Kelbly’s, among others. See the ads in NBRSA News, Precision Shooting, AccurateShooter.com. A new rifle gets you all the latest technology and more importantly, you’ll have a gunsmith that knows how your rifle was put together. One the most frustrating things for a BR gunsmith is when a guy brings in a used rifle with no history. Most smiths want to know who did the work so they know what they might be dealing with. It’s no fun for a smith to rebarrel the rifle and the customer comes back saying the barrel won’t shoot. Chances are the bedding is bad but that becomes another item the customer must pay to have corrected. A new gun will hopefully have a good bedding job.

Powder Charges–Does Weighing Make a Difference?
Quite a few of San Gabriel’s best shooters, including Lawrence Weisdorn and Danny Moscaritolo have turned to weighing their match loads. (Even the best BR powder measures can vary up to 0.3 grains with a thrown charge.) Conventional wisdom suggests that weighing charges is unnecessary because even a fairly broad variance in bullet velocity won’t show up as vertical at 100 yards. Lawrence disagrees, based on extensive testing with charges weighed to 0.1 grains. He believes that, if you don’t control velocities very tightly, the effect of barrel vibration can toss a shot high or low. With weighed charges, Lawrence believes, you keep bullet in-barrel time more uniform. This ensures that all bullets in a group exit the muzzle at the same point in the barrel’s vibration cycle.

Cleaning Methods–More Rounds, Less Brushing
While the majority of San Gabriel regulars brushed after each 5-shot match we noticed a wide variety of cleaning styles. Quite a few shooters used wet patches only and others went 20-25 rounds before cleaning. We hope to do a test with a new PPC barrel to determine whether a PPC can maintain match-winning accuracy over a fairly long shot-string. Mike Sosenko has volunteered to run that test for us in the Compton underground tunnel.

Preloading–Not Just for Long-Range Anymore
We were surprised to see that more than a few competitors arrived with pre-loaded ammo. BR School match-winner Lou Murdica had pre-loaded all his 220 Russian rounds long before the match. Lou has done extensive testing and he’s convinced himself that pre-loading works–at least for the 220 Russian. A number of other shooters seated bullets at the range, but they brought pre-measured charges (in test tubes) to the match. It will be interesting to see if pre-measuring and pre-loading becomes more popular.

Caliber Choice–Is There a .22 in Your Future?
Look at the equipment list of most recent BR matches and virtually everyone is shooting a 6PPC. Lou Murdica broke the mold at the BR School with his 220 Russian, posting small group in the first match, and taking the overall Agg win. Lou also shoots a 6PPC but he believes that the plain vanilla 220 Russian is capable of superior accuracy. He will campaign the 220 at the Super Shoot later this month.

“Mr. Moderator” behind the Pentax 100ED

By contrast, the Zeiss 85mm (fitted with 20-60 zoom eyepiece) offered more eye-relief, making the Zeiss more user-friendly than the Pentax. The Zeiss’ image was a little more blue (less yellow) in tone than that of the Pentax. In my opinion, color fidelity was slightly better with the Zeiss. Contrast was good, but I’d give the edge to the Pentax as it was so bright. But when it came to pure sharpness, or resolution, in my opinion, the Zeiss 85mm out-performed the big Pentax. The resolution on the Zeiss is really just incredible–the best I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve also sampled the top of the line Leicas and Swaros. I also preferred the focusing system on the Zeiss. The course-focus wheel is fast and smooth and the fine-focus knob is just about perfect. Lastly, the Zeiss weighs less than the Pentax and is much more compact. Bottom line: If I was shelling out the cash, I’d buy the Zeiss, unless I wanted superior low-light capability. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that there ARE differences between individual scope units. Conceivably, if you pulled a different Pentax 100ED out of the box and compared it with a different Zeiss unit, the Zeiss’ resolution edge might not be so apparent.

You can’t win a BR match if your scope reticle is bouncing around from shot to shot. At San Gabriel, we noted that many competitors used a Murdica-Nielson zero lock device to avoid “wandering zero”.

In the photo at left, you can see the device in place on Mike Marcelli’s BR rig. That extra silver ring in the photo is used to “lock” the windage and elevation on a 30mm Leupold benchrest scope. Conceived by Lou Murdica, this accessory is now produced by Don Neilson. It features a split ring that fits together with internal dovetails. As installed, two small holes are drilled in the scope tube. Small adjusting knobs then hold the internal windage and elevation adjusters in place. In theory, with the device installed, the Leupold’s reticle can’t move relative to the bore axis. Feedback on the device was positive.

All the photos (except Jan Cleary’s images) were shot with a 2.0 megapixel Canon A60 “point and shoot” camera. Having been replaced in Canon’s line-up with more powerful cameras, you can purchase a brand new A60 on eBay for under $65.00 (we paid $135.00 in 2004). The still images were taken at “medium” 1024×768 resolution, JPEG output. Each original picture is 200-300kb. You don’t need 4-8 megapixel cameras to make images for the web! In fact, a 1024×768 photo is often much easier to work with and you still deliver plenty of pixels on screen. The video clips were taken with the same camera.The Canon A60 has some very nice light and color-control features that help produce great pictures. Fill-flash was used in most of the pictures. Daylight flash output was pre-set to 30% of max. This reduces the flash burn-out effect, and lessens the drain on batteries. EV, or exposure, was preset at -1/3 EV. This slight under-exposure (an old trick of film photographers) tends to give better contrast and saturation. Color temperature control was automatic–this is important because it lets you switch from flash to non-flash without worrying about odd color casts. Canon has two very nice features for in-camera image enhancement–a slight sharpening filter and a “Vivid” color setting. These both work very well for images published on the web.

You’ll notice that the images of rifles usually are taken from a diagonal, from the front or the rear quarter. This helps fill the frame with the rifle, and minimizes distracting backgrounds. Getting in close and using a slight wide-angle setting also gives good depth of field and showcases the details of the metal work and stock. A rear quarter angle also gives the viewer a “shooter’s eye view” of the rifle, so he or she can better imagine how it would feel to use the gun on the bench. Of course, there are times when you want to show the whole rifle from a normal perspective, as in the shot below.

After cropping the images, we generally add a little sharpening, and sometimes increase contrast or saturation, but normally the “post-production” image correction is minimal. Cropping, rotating, and adding labels is much more time consuming. All that work is done with Irfanview, a FREE image editing program. Unfortunately, the Canon’s video files are plain-vanilla AVI. This results in very large file sizes. We are soliciting donations for a better video camera that can output MPEG files which should be about half the size. We also need to purchase some video editing software that will allow us to zoom, crop, and add captions to the videos.