HH SeptOct 2021

My wife, Temple, and I were on our way to North Idaho from Las Vegas and had about 15.5 hours of drive time to think, talk and reflect. I got to thinking about my journey into long range shooting. I thought about my successes and my failures. It has been a long journey that began one day while cruising YouTube. I stumbled across a video from Long Range Shooters of Utah (LRSU) where they were shooting milk jugs full of colored water at 10001760 yards. They were having a ball! It intrigued me since at that point in my life, I had maybe shot 300 yards with one of my old 30-06 hunting rifles and most likely missed the target completely.

I started playing around with a few ammunition load combinations trying to figure this stuff out on my own. It became apparent fairly quickly that the road I was on wasn’t going to lead me to the place I wanted to go. Everything was wrong. Wrong cartridge, wrong scope, wrong stock, wrong barrel, etc. So I started researching my options and reading everything I could find. It became my obsession.

On one fateful day, I stopped by a local gun shop in Las Vegas on my way home from trap shooting at the Clark County Shooting Park. There it was, a brand new Ruger RPR chambered in 243 Winchester. I had read about these rifles, and they were promoted as affordable, match-grade rifles right out of the box. For the most part, it boasted positive reviews.

To this day, I don’t think my wife had any idea what this purchase would set in motion.

When I arrived home with my new shooting iron, I started looking at scopes. Glass for a long range capable rifle gets VERY expensive, and it gets there fast. I ran across a cool guy on the internet by the name of Aaron Michaud. He ran a sporting goods store in the midwest and was selling a new scope brand, Athlon. After much internal debate, I ordered one. It wasn’t the NightForce I wanted, but it fit the need and current budget. Over the next month, I pieced together my first long range rig on a fairly tight budget.