As a Pro-Staff shooter for Douglas Barrels, taking care of my equipment between matches is paramount to success. I have been competing in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) for 8 years and was hooked on PRS shooting after my very first match. To me, shooting in PRS matches is exhilarating and each match is a bit different from the last match which keeps things interesting. There are many aspects to shooting a match, but my blog for Douglas Barrels is going to focus on “After the Match” which starts the evening after a match when my vehicle pulls out of a shooting venue up until pulling into the next shooting venue the following week or a few weeks later.

Match days can be very long, so getting home safely after the match is the number one priority. Some drives are as short as an hour and a half and others can take four or more hours. Sometimes the drives are with a friend or two and sometimes all by myself. Depending on the outcome of my finish at the match, there are many different moods for the drive home. Whether it was a good day or a bad day, the drive home is always a time of reflection of the day’s events.

Once home, all my gear needs to be unloaded from the truck and carried back into the house. This requires a few trips back and forth as there is a surprising amount of gear taken to every match including my rife case, range backpack, tripod, binoculars, extra clothing or rain gear, and of course a small cooler with food and drinks. I will put any extra drinks and snacks back and dump the ice from the cooler first. Then I put my extra clothing and shoes away, followed by my tripod and binoculars to their normal storage areas.  Next, I take my range backpack and fish out all my fired rifle casings and place them in a container taking note of how many I lost. I also remove the remainder of my loaded ammunition and put them back into their normal storage containers to determine how many rounds I fired for the day.  For instance, last weekend I fired 115 rounds and only lost 2 pieces of brass. After I determine the count of fired rounds, I will note it in a journal I keep with information pertaining to each barrel that I shoot. Recording this information helps me track my expected barrel life and my cleaning regiment.

The final step before calling it a day and heading to sleep is to put my rifle into the safe. Before placing it into the safe, I run a couple dry patches down the bore followed by an oiled patch to clean out the day’s residue. This helps protect my barrel until I do a thorough cleaning on another day.  Additionally, if the weather that day was dry, I will just place it in the safe until I’m ready to clean it. If it was a hot sweaty day, I wipe down the exterior of my rifles with a lightly oiled rag prior to placing in the safe. If it was a wet rainy day I take my barreled action out of the chassis, wipe everything with a dry towel to make sure it is nice and dry, then wipe everything with a lightly oiled rag and reassemble.

Part Two of my blog will focus on other preparations I take with my equipment between competitions.