Extreme Shot One Mile Italia 

1st Training Weekend 

-SICILY-

19-20 March 2021

Welcome to Sicily

We’ve been a little quiet on the shooting lately but we never stop. On the third weekend of March 2021, we held the training weekend for Extreme Shot One Mile Italia. By now you’re probably familiar with the competition. If you’re not, we invite you to have a look at the detailed program of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia 22-26 September. The competition will take place in Trapani, Sicily, 22-26 September 2021.

Register here for September 

 

“This ultra-long range competition in the panoramic Sicilian region of Trapani just 50min from Palermo and close to the idyllic beachside getaway of San Vito Lo Capo and Erice, is meant to give new and experienced shooters the possibility to shoot a full qualifying round plus 2.5 days of training while also enjoying a few days of relaxation in the Sicilian countryside topped with some of the best food in the Mediterranean. If you’re a foodie and wine lover like us, this alone is worth the trip! Coming from the Mediterranean myself, these views are not new to me but the coastline at San Vito is really something to write home about!” 

Training Weekend Video Clip

Back to what we’re here for. Here’s a reminder of how it rolls taken from the competition program:

“This competition is thankful to the numerous local & international sponsors that came forward to help see it through next September 2021. The support of the industry means a lot to shooters and organizers alike. Support the brands that stand behind you.”

For consistent performance, handload using VihtaVuori powders. Vihtavuori is sponsor of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia.

Vihtavuori_logo

Course of fire in pictures

Here’s a collage of the course of fire from 680m to 1340m. The weather was very poor during this stage as you can see below. The view was quite milky at times. Getting the correction bang on right away was crucial to gain points. Important lessons learnt.

Coarse of fire Extreme Shot One Mile Italia

Lapua is a leader in competition shooting brass, accessible everywhere and stands behind competition shooters.

Lapua is sponsor of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia.

Qualifying stage (Friday and Saturday)

qualifier round Extreme Shot One Mile Italia

14x rounds

Stage 1: Shot #1: Coldbore shot between 1000-1200m (3points) €100 prize for whoever hits with cold bore with a maximum of €300 in prize money (€100×3). If there are more than 3 shooters with a coldbore hit, a draw will be done to pick 3 names.

Stage 2: Shot #2Bonus charity shot, surprise distance (3 points)

* €10 from each competitor that opts-in for the bonus shot during registration will be given to cancer research charity TELETHON.

bonus shot extreme shot one mile italia

Stage 3: Shot #3-6: Start of string @ approx. 680m

Stage 4: Shot #7-9: @ approx. 810m

Stage 5: Shot #10-12 @approx. 1190m

Stage 6: Shot #13-15 @approx. 1340m

End of Qualifiers round.

Extreme Shot 680m target
680m target

810m Amazing group 338LM

Only two shooters rang the bonus shot plate and no one hit the 1000m cold bore shot! Standing behind the shooters during filming of some stages, I noticed most competitors rushed through the first two shots whereas these could be game changers. Rifles were mostly chambered in 338Lapua Magnum, 300 Norma Mag, 300WSM and one rifle in 33XC. This reminded me of sighter 1 and 2 during Fclass matches without the wind flags!

Join our facebook group at Trapani 1 Mile Shoot

Concept

The idea of this weekend was simple, to find out how we can make a better competition coming next 22-26 September 2021 while also enabling those who could make the trip the chance to warm up to this event. It was a great get together of passionate long-range shooters. We had target shooters with mixed background from Fclass to PRS, tactical shooting and even one guy from the Green Berets, elite military police with his personal Sako TRG 42.

Guardia di Finanza - extreme Shot one Mile Italiasako trg42

Above: Alfio, member of the Italian green Berets lines up on target during the training weekend. Right getting dialed in during load development.

Covid-19 made things a little more challenging for our friends from central Europe to drive down south as early as March. Nonetheless 14 shooters turned up for this training weekend. Rifles ranged from stock Sako TRG 42, BCM 338 and 300WSMs, Savage 338Lapua, Dolphin Gun company 33XC, Ruger 338 and Accuracy International AXMC hot out of the oven. There were about 4 savage rifles in 338 Lapua.

For all your ammunition needs when in Sicily, new and second hand firearms, checkout Armeria di Carlo in Palermo. DC GUN is sponsor of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia.

armeria di carlo Sicily

Watch Alfio from the elite police unit nailing the 1 mile target

For all your premium shooting needs, Armeria Regina in Italy is your go to partner. Armeria Regina is sponsor of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia.

Entry level rifles for ELR – Savage 338LM

I had no rifle during this training weekend as my 33xc DTA switch barrel rifle is being put together and my 300NM undergoing a cerakote job at Solidsolutiondesigns.com. Meanwhile Vito walked up to me and as a very hospitable Sicilian, kindly offered me to run this weekend with his Savage 338 Lapua topped with a Nightforce competition scope. I’m familiar with this scope from shooting at Bisley with one.

Anyways, I thought it would be a good test for me to try a new rifle during a training weekend. He sent me a screenshot from Strelok of this 300grain load he had finished testing the previous weekend and he said here you go, run with it. I said great, so you’ll be my spotter on this qualifying run, passed on my trusted spotting scope and we were good. The rifle is relatively light in the current setup but I must admit, it shoots extremely well and with a good muzzle break, can be tamed. Past my coldbore which was slightly high, we were onto the 395m target at a slight angle downhill. The 300gr Berger sent it spinning like a mad wind turbine with a 3/4inch hole! I could just capture the image again at 395m to see the plate spin on 15x mag.

3 out of 5 targets with first round hits, not bad I thought for the first outing with it. If you’re looking for an entry gun, check it out. I ended up 3rd overall running this setup.

Solid Solution Design custom rifles from the Netherlands.

SSD 338 lapua

Looking for a super 338LM?  Check out the the custom rifles made by Solid Solution Designs in the Netherlands. SSD is a premium European supplier of all ELR needs, one stop shop with fast delivery. SSD is a sponsor of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia.

First round hits stats for day 1

Ok here’s some numbers for those of you so oriented. As you can see, the average first round hit stands at 31%, 1 in 3 shooters can make a 1st round hit in these conditions we had. Interestingly, the ratio was higher at 810m.

distance 1st round hits 2nd round hits 3 round hits
680m 40x40cm 36% 45% 55%
810m 40x40cm 45% 64% 73%
1190m 40x40cm 18% 9% 27%
1340m 60x70cm 27% 36% 36%
  31% 39% 48%

Where would you stand on this chart?

first round hits Extreme Shot One Mile Italia

The weather wasn’t quite Sicilian, it rained but not excessively. It was sufficient to help those that were watching get a feel for wind speed and direction down range. Man was it accurate? I personally thought it was the best indicator.

I noticed a few shooters had brand new guns they have been running a few days or weeks. I knew we would have some potential issues. *Tip 1, when you’re doing your loads at home, do remove your firing pin and cycle your loaded rounds, make sure you’ve sized your cases well after firing and that each of your 29 competition rounds chamber like a dream. You don’t want stuck cases or hard bolts during a string when you’re doing well, it will spoil your string. Carry some extra parts with you like firing pins and some bolt lube.

Spotter – shooter Comms.

Want a solid tripod to spot from? Try these carbon tripods from Norwegian @Ulfhednar. This takes up to 40kg/80lbs!

kowa Highlander 82mm
Kowa Highlander 82mm bino Spotting scope

Spotter shooter trust and communication is important and vital as any dual sport. ULR is no different. Nowhere is this more evident  than in ULR. The most experienced guy is ideally your spotter to guide your rounds on target. If you can’t find someone more experienced than you at your club, find someone who is determined to see your impacts and learn about the wind. The spotter can see things around him which you may not be able to when you’re behind the gun even if you’re a wind wizard.

Featured

The spotter should be able to pick changing wind conditions (velocity or direction) and at least notify you that it’s happening.  If you’re more experienced, you will then know you may need to hold off if he caught a wind increasing or let off for a few seconds. Communicate back to him what you’re doing.

On the flipside, you want to have the confidence that the shooter does what you tell him. If he starts changing things on his own whim, it will be impossible to guide him. Unlike Fclass, we’re not actually plotting shots in the traditional way so keeping track of what’s happening is important in your communication.  If you have time to plot shots, do it. *Tip 2-Practice wind reading off the range, take the kestrel with you and flip it open, can you tell what the wind is doing and do your kestrel readings match your guess?

*Tip 3- Give corrections from the center of the plate not from the top edge of the plate or you will just be inducing error into his shot. It sounds simple but you’ll be surprised.  When you are impacting the edge of the plate, your next shot might well be out of the plate by virtue of your group size. If your average group at 800m is 5inch, your next round could be out.

Bill T prepares for his run at 1190m shooting this switch barrel AX MC setup in 338Lapua. Watch his string in the clip below.

Watch Bill. T at 1190m

 33XC King in Sicily

dolphin gun company elr

33XC rifle built by Dolphin Gun Company in the UK. Dolphin Gun Company is a premium ELR rifle custom shop in Lincolnshire. They export world wide and stand by their word. We’ve had numerous rifles built by them and they shot 1/4MOA no BS.

Dolphin Gun Company are sponsors of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia. 

My shooting buddy Robert brought his dolphin built 33XC on BAT CT action along. We had finished doing load development for this rifle last month. It shot a beautiful 1.25” group at 600m during load development so we had high hopes the rifle would do well. We had to shoot straight! This one is doing 3180ft/s with a 300gr Berger from a 33inch Bartlein. Not too shabby!

33XC 600m group

Rob passed me his kestrel with the range card already loaded up and winds set for 10mph full value 3 o’clock. I then work out the initial dope from there. I don’t do wind capture and all that jazz for one reason. The wind is changing all the time and during my string I don’t want to be playing with kestrel or be totally dependent on it. I just remember the full value wind correction and do basic math. If I’m confused I go back to that original full value wind value.

one mile shoot Sicily

Kowa was among the first sponsors that came forward to sponsor this competition. If you’re serious about spotting, take a look at their spotting scopes.

Once I know the full value wind from 3 o’clock 10 mph, I work out the initial correction for the first round. [10mph MOA value x direction factor x speed factor) This should put us on target or close enough to make minor adjustment. I also want to try to get a base wind dope and wind bracket for my shots to equate to a wind condition and know where that shot will go. This is not very different to F-class but you don’t have flags, so peel your eyes for conditions around you.

Example: Let’s say I have a 2x2MOA target. I dial 4 MOA of left wind and I hit 1 MOA right at 3 o’clock. Then I know that wind condition is 5MOA and I take note of it as a base dope together with something I can reference it to. On an F-class plotting sheet, this would be my V-bull wind and I imagine it as so. The edges of the plate resemble the markings of the vertical plotting sheet lines. If you come from F-class and remember it this way, it may help you plot your shots quicker mentally. I also memorize something around me when I break the shot. In F-class it would have been a wind flag, here it was the rustling of the olive tree leaves.  Checkout this string we shot at 1 mile in 14-16 MOA winds! That’s the wind bracket, 2 MOA.

david Tubb logo

If 33XC is your winning ticket, check out the website of 33XC creator David Tubb. Tubb is sponsor for Extreme Shot One Mile Italia.

Learn More about the 33XC here

One Mile 5/5 Perfect String

Here’s a perfect 1Mile String shot with a dolphin built rifle during this weekend with a 300Norma Mag at 1 mile with Berger 230s.

After that I want to be able to read the impact accurately enough to give him a correction accurate to the ¼ MOA.

The 33XC is about 450ft/s faster than the 338LM and it shows because the impacts on target happen fast and the trajectory is less pronounced. As one competitor described it, “quando ci sta, non la molla piu!” translated to “once it’s dialed in, it won’t let go!” It’s no magic however and you still have to go through the basics and apply yourself. With this 33XC, we ended up in pole position over this weekend.

Need loading equipment for your 33XC? 

Accuracyreloading.it is located in Italy and stocks all premium reloading components. They export worldwide.

accuracyreloading sponsor

The recent performance by Ryan Cheney at 4134yards with a 33XC testify to the potential of the cartridge!

https://www.outdoorlife.com/guns/longest-rifle-shot-ever-recorded-in-competition-shooting/

Day Two – 1400m, 1500m and 1640m

Final Round Extreme Shot One Mile Italia

Final Round Extreme Shot One Mile Italia

The next day saw us on the ranges early. Greeted with nice Italian espresso in the morning, the lads made sure to make us feel welcome. The Sicilian and Italian clock revolves around food. The British one around tea. Luckily my English shooting buddy Bill always carries some fine tea bags for our tea breaks! Breakfast in Sicily is sweet pastries typically filled with sweet ricotta in the morning with a variety of cornetti and cannoli. Amazing stuff from the region.

Before any shooting takes place abit of chit chat and discussions on what will be served for lunch dominates the morning conversations especially among the locals. From that we switched to an early wind chat, observing the rolling hills descending to the 680m and 810m target and then ascending up the hill to the other targets. My shooting buddy pollinated the firing line take wind readings while I did some spotting down range looking for some wind indicators. The rain started drizzling, more like a shooting session at Diggle ranges close to the Yorkshire Moors rather than Mediterranean Sicily!

Some shooters dropped by the 100m range to check their zero. One shooter had his mounts go slightly loose causing him to lose zero. These are issues that area easily avoided by going through your kit before the competition and making sure they are torqued properly using a torque wrench. (That’s tip 3) You’ve spent thousands putting your rifle, optics and ammo together. You’ve done a few hundred miles driving. Go through each working part and check it’s working well before hand.

300WSM at 1500m

A few shooters on our facebook page asked us what other calibers they may bring. Anything up to .338 will do. One of our shooters, Gege La Barbera was running his F-Open setup at 1 mile in 300 WSM shooting 215 bergers. The rifle is a hammer and once he got dialed in on the 1500m target, he scored 5/5 shots in competition environment. You see a lot of shooting videos on the web however anything done in competition environment is fantastic. The excitement level as well as the competitive nature of sports pushes us on the edge.

Spotting at ULR distances

It also shows how capable today’s rifles really are. From what I’ve seen also going through hours of footage filmed, it’s often the wind calls and the spotting that is off. You have a split second to see the impact down range whatever the condition.

Some other things I noticed – Shots not spotted accurately, corrections that were too coarse, incorrect dialing, flimsy tripods, all this makes corrections potentially disastrous and so will the follow up shot. There’s not much room for error when targets measure 1-2 MOA even on a perfect shooting system so make it a point to spend enough time watching impacts and misses as much as you spend setting up your kit. You won’t have markers here, it’s more like watching blowoffs in the sand before the F-class targets are raised. If you’re good at that, you will probably do well at this game too. Spotting costs you no money so spend more time doing it.

For all your optics needs, give these guys a shout. They are highly knowledgeable and stock most optics and accessories.

Optics Trade is a sponsor of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia. 

optics trade sponsor Extreme Shot One Mile Italia

Sako Trg 42 at 1 mile

300 Norma Mag at 1 mile group

As much as we love custom rifles, we enjoy watching stock rifles make headlines. Two rifles turned up on the firing line manned by equally competent shooters. Here we had Attilio Lipari, Beretta representative who turned up with a stock trg42 and Steiner scope. Attilio was shooting with Gege spotting for him. They did very well together and Gege walked him on target superbly. It helps when you have a spotter that truly enjoys being behind the shooter. Attilio came second during this training weekend -well done boys!

His shooting was true and I noticed they had good communication between them. Sako TRG42 tend to be plentiful even on the second-hand market so if you’re in the market and little tight on the budget, do check these out as well. They’re great value and shoot straight out of the box. If you want a brand new one, drop by your local Beretta dealer.

Beretta is sponsor of Extreme Shot One Mile Italia. 

Watching Italy’s finest

The other shooter I really enjoyed watching him shoot was Alfio, a member of an elite unit. I watched attentively as he lined up on the firing line. Methodical approach and steady execution. Alfio has taken up ELR recently but naturally does quite some shooting by profession with both pistol and rifle. His stock Sako trg42 shot very well and so did his loads, easily holding ½ MOA at 1.5km. Great to see professional shooters on the competitive line and we do hope to see more professional shooters on 22-26 September! Are you a member of the armed forces/police? Get in touch!

Stats from 1400-1640m

distance 1st round hits 2nd round hits 3 round hits 4th round hit 5th round hit
1400 60x70cm 0% 9% 18% 18% 36%
1500m 60x70cm 36% 55% 36% 36% 55%
1640m 60x70cm 9% 27% 9% 36% 18%
average 15% 30% 21% 30% 36%

 

First and second round hits tell you something about the skill of the shooters to gauge initial wind condition. The next shots perhaps indicate how fast they can correct to be on target and 3-5 tell you if they can stay on target.

Extreme Shot One Mile Italia

Extreme Shot One Mile Italia Podium

This training weekend was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. It’s awesome to see more shooters getting warmed up for the actual event understanding their strong points and short comings of equipment, making new friends and enjoying what they love.

Do you have any suggestions for Us? 

Drop us an email rod@rifletalks.com

 

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