I shoot competitively quite a lot. I shoot open class bench, stock class bench, and three position metallic silhouette. Will be glad to help you in any way I can. Just a few things to bear in mind, plinking at 300-400 yards is one thing, however once you graduate to 1000 yards and beyond, to be consistently good and competitive, your matches are won and done on the reloading bench.

Consistent ammo is the ticket to success. Powder loads down to the 10th of a grain, and bullet weight just as accurate. Brass trimmed and polished to exact dimensions. It's all very relevant, even matching poder batch numbers to ensure you get the same burn.

Equipment is the second most important thing. For optics, IMHO the March X is hands down the best there is. I use the 8x-80x. I am also a fan of Nightforce optics, neither are cheap but worth the cost to be good.

My Open Class Bench gun is a Shilen Custom, and it shoots like a laser, my preferred long caliber is .338 Lapua, to me nothing is better, especially in timed silhouette competition. You can dial in your 500 yd dope and be good 250-300 yds either side of that easily without re-figuring your dope.


This is the March X looking at 1000 meters taken with my iPhone looking thru the scope. It doesn't get mu better than this. A .25 MOA one click being .125 MOA. Very easily fine tuned. Crystal clear, and fights mirage well.

My Stock Class preference is the Savage 110BA LE, also in .338 Lapua, They come out of the box a nail driver.


AAs I said before the real match is won on the reloading bench, keying on consistency.


I'm a fan or Berger and Barnes Bullets, their tolerances are impeccable.

If you are going to buy box stock ammo, Hornady Custom Match is hard to beat. It's not cheap but it's right. And you get what you pay for. Hornady will custom load anything you want, but you still are taking something someone else has done. A lot of the real enjoyment of shooting happens on the bench.



For NATO Combat Simulation matches I use the DPMS Panther AR-10 .308, that I've tricked out with a Shilen Barrel and Geissele Hi Speed National Match Trigger set, and Magpul furniture.


.308 is a nice intermediate caliber, and works great in NATO matches where you have to shoot NATO calibers. But when you get out around a grand, it's falling off pretty quickly.

From there you just have to burn a lot of brass. Breathing and trigger squeeze is the ticket to being one target all the time. I prefer a light 1.75# trigger. Ed Shilen built me a Wimbleton rifle once that would dial down to 0.5# which is so light, if you shut the bolt to rough it will go off. It had a hydro-shock stock and weighed a ton. Strictly a bench rifle chambered in 7x300 Weatherby Magnum. Extremely flat shooter, but was rough on brass, because of all the necking down. A guy bought it custom dies and all at a match in San Angelo, he wanted it worse than I did.


If you are going to start out box stock, look into the Savage 110 tactical line, they are the best bang for your buck, and USA made, stem to stern. Savage is hard to beat. I'd recommend the .338 Lapua if you are serious about reaching out far, hard to go wrong like that.

300g Bergers OTM hand matched to 0.1g
Lapua Brass, trimmed and polished
92.5g of H1000 pushing 2795 consistently
Winchester LR mag primers

mfbarnes just won this thread. Everybody else go home.

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Don't get me wrong, I mostly agree with your post, except for 338 lapua is cost prohibitive from an ammo standpoint. Meaning that, if all he wants to do is hit steel for fun at 1000, I don't think it warrants spending that kind of dough for each trigger pull, IMO. If he wants to do it at 1400+, ok now we need to start talking about the big boys.

Without reloading, the 6.5 creedmoor or 308 will perform well enough to consistently hit a piece of steel at 1000, and will help teach fundamentals better, also.

With reloading, I would add .260 or 6.5x47 to the mix.

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Totally agree, 338 isn't for the meek hearted or the slim budgets. And I agree if you're just plinking to plink, stick with the NATO rounds, you can buy them buy the ammo cans cheap, and have at it.

But my followup was mainly aimed at the framework, and to me, out of the box shooters, Savage is hard to beat, hell I have an old Ted Williams Rem 700 BDL I bought for $120 at the Sears in Townshire Mall on Texas Ave when it first opened up decades ago that is still a tack driver for an old wore out 7 Mag, that has had a truckload literally shot thru it.

My latest affliction is my .458 SOCOM I built in an AR Rock River Frame that I have been blistering hogs with. Nothing nice about it. But it is a true, "One round, puts them down" kinda piece.



It kills in the front and wounds the behind...

It's kinda been addressed, but I'm wondering why OP wants to stay away from Remington? As has been said lots and lots of high end customs are built off 700s, and 700 clones, which kind of attests to the quality. I get that in bang for the buck, out of the box accuracy Savage is where it's at, but why not buy a 700, and have a starting point with more potential for down the road improvements? The savage triggers are nice, but you can drop a Timney 510 in for $140.

Nothing against Savage at all. At their price point it's hard to beat them, especially as a hunter, but if you really want to think about getting into long range shooting, I wouldn't dismiss Remington out of hand, they are used so much for a reason, and they are also the easiest model out there to find aftermarket upgrade parts for. Just a thought....

Here is my favorite rig to plink at distance. It's an Accuracy International AE MKIII chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. It's not even their top of the line rifle and it shoots as good or better than my custom rifles. I find it much easier to shoot than the .308 I got rid of. Much less wind drift than the .308 and you can get quality store bought ammo. A few pics to give you some idea. I am by far a lessor shooter than previous posters.



5@100 factory Hornady 140 A-Max


3@600 130 Berger handloads