By Ian Macpherson

March 28, 2013

In the summer of 2011, I competed in my first national championship precision rifle shooting event. Before this, I had shot combat rifle and pistol, as well as small bore and air rifle. I had only a few rounds of prep work and a real crash course in the how to of sniper shooting.

I arrived at the event only to find that the ammo myself and my partner were counting on was nowhere to be found. We were desperate. Then somebody told us that the match organizers sold Hornady Match. We had never fired the stuff, but were in dire straights. We immediately bought 400 rounds of 155 gr AMax. A quick zero net us 1/3" groups at 100 meters. I was impressed.

We went on with the competition, and had great success, surprising not only ourselves, but all our fellow competitors; Nobody could have imagined the accuracy of a 155 gr projectile at 700 and 800 meters. Firing in 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock winds of 10-15 km/h, from 800 meters, we were able to score groups as small as 6" while firing from the prone.

I went on to take a second place finish in the tyro category with less than 30 rounds of prior practice. It was a placing that I attribute to three things:

• My coach/spotter,
• The finely tuned rifle we shared and finally,
• The incredibly accurate ammunition we were able to get out hands on.

To this day, I still fire Hornady ammo, almost exclusively, through both my rifle and my pistol.