Shoot2Hunt University

[longrangelead]

S2H Winter University

I'll drop this here so all the S2H U stuff is in one thread.

First, we survived!

We got a good dose of winter for the Winter U.
It was 5-10 below zero several days with light snow during the day. We had some heavy snow at night and one night was -25! We did some inside learning that morning!
Everyone did great staying warm and focused on shooting though. After a few days it warmed up to freezing and then sunny and 45 which was really nice for snowshoeing/ skiing up in the hills to shoot.

As far as students, people from all over the country came with skills just as varied. One guy bought his first two rifles for the class. While even very experienced shooters will learn to improve, brand new shooters will skip YEARS of frustration and go straight to success without ingraining bad habits.
It was really cool to see everyone there put ego aside in order to have an open mind and learn regardless of previous skill and experience. Two students were returning students and it showed. Both said it was great doing it again. Like watching a movie twice, you pick up things missed the first time. Overall it was a good group of chill people and we all had a good time.

Form and the other instructor were great. The amount of experience they have is evident immediately. They both take the time to help everyone to make sure everyone is progressing to the next exercise.

The food and accommodations were great. Plenty of amazing food so we could keep the calories up and stay warm.

The fun stuff...
Form had a couple Marshall's for testing, the first UM suppressor and the RokStok Lite proof of concept rifle. Any attempt to get photos resulted in blurred images so Form can elaborate when appropriate.

I think all the new students were shooting RSS 223's with SWFA's or Mavin 1.2's. There were a few small problems, pretty much the usual for having that many rifles firing that many rounds.

I built a RSS 223 to try all the things. no cleaning, quick load dev, UM products, SWFA's, RokStok and other things.
on the coldest morning my fingerprints were freezing on my ammo as I loaded mags. That little bit of frost accumulated around the lugs causing hard extraction after several mags. Just pulling the bolt and wiping the lugs/bolt clean fixed it.
The factory mags gave me intermittent feeding issues, I was able to use a Mamba Mag after the first day which never gave me any problems.
I also swapped the trigger spring for the lighter one which resulted in a AD on the second to last day. fortunately it was the third round as I closed the bolt on a target. I'll be switching back to the factory spring before using it again.
I chose Hornady 73 ELDM's after testing a few bullets and powders. The 77TMK shot slightly better but was significantly more expensive since I bought 2k bullets and I want to save the TMK's for hunting.

I almost didn't go. My first inclination was to work on everything I have to do. I'm glad I decided to go knowing I would be challenged and become a better shooter.
I'm a pretty proficient shooter but as we went through the fundamentals, my groups opened up. I felt it was in my grip but couldn't figure out exactly what. They helped me figure it out and my groups immediately got even tighter than before.
As the exercises progress, consistency is built through repetition. Then repetition builds efficiency and doing things quickly. Part of the field exercises is just getting your mind to think about how to use your gear and/or surroundings to build the position you need for a good shot.

By the end, every person put bullets on target to 750 yards and was quickly smashing things from 400-550yds.

I've been in construction my whole life so feet and inches make sense to me. Out of that I was a MOA guy up until I heard Form explain Mils, quick drop and wind brackets. Mils is so much easier and faster there is literally no reason to use moa. Don't be dumb, just use mils!

To top it off, we did the re-warming drill on the last night. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It was a valuable experience though. Knowing how to handle the situation ahead of time if it happens might just save your life or someone you're with.

Overall, I can HIGHLY recommend any of the S2H courses for any shooter of any skill level who truly wants to get better.

Invest in yourself!

You are part of your rifle system!

Learn how to maximize your complete system!!

I plan on taking the extended range course as soon as I can.

 

[Bluumoon]

S2H Winter University

I'll drop this here so all the S2H U stuff is in one thread.

First, we survived!

We got a good dose of winter for the Winter U.
It was 5-10 below zero several days with light snow during the day. We had some heavy snow at night and one night was -25! We did some inside learning that morning!
Everyone did great staying warm and focused on shooting though. After a few days it warmed up to freezing and then sunny and 45 which was really nice for snowshoeing/ skiing up in the hills to shoot.

As far as students, people from all over the country came with skills just as varied. One guy bought his first two rifles for the class. While even very experienced shooters will learn to improve, brand new shooters will skip YEARS of frustration and go straight to success without ingraining bad habits.
It was really cool to see everyone there put ego aside in order to have an open mind and learn regardless of previous skill and experience. Two students were returning students and it showed. Both said it was great doing it again. Like watching a movie twice, you pick up things missed the first time. Overall it was a good group of chill people and we all had a good time.

Form and the other instructor were great. The amount of experience they have is evident immediately. They both take the time to help everyone to make sure everyone is progressing to the next exercise.

The food and accommodations were great. Plenty of amazing food so we could keep the calories up and stay warm.

The fun stuff...
Form had a couple Marshall's for testing, the first UM suppressor and the RokStok Lite proof of concept rifle. Any attempt to get photos resulted in blurred images so Form can elaborate when appropriate.

I think all the new students were shooting RSS 223's with SWFA's or Mavin 1.2's. There were a few small problems, pretty much the usual for having that many rifles firing that many rounds.

I built a RSS 223 to try all the things. no cleaning, quick load dev, UM products, SWFA's, RokStok and other things.
on the coldest morning my fingerprints were freezing on my ammo as I loaded mags. That little bit of frost accumulated around the lugs causing hard extraction after several mags. Just pulling the bolt and wiping the lugs/bolt clean fixed it.
The factory mags gave me intermittent feeding issues, I was able to use a Mamba Mag after the first day which never gave me any problems.
I also swapped the trigger spring for the lighter one which resulted in a AD on the second to last day. fortunately it was the third round as I closed the bolt on a target. I'll be switching back to the factory spring before using it again.
I chose Hornady 73 ELDM's after testing a few bullets and powders. The 77TMK shot slightly better but was significantly more expensive since I bought 2k bullets and I want to save the TMK's for hunting.

I almost didn't go. My first inclination was to work on everything I have to do. I'm glad I decided to go knowing I would be challenged and become a better shooter.
I'm a pretty proficient shooter but as we went through the fundamentals, my groups opened up. I felt it was in my grip but couldn't figure out exactly what. They helped me figure it out and my groups immediately got even tighter than before.
As the exercises progress, consistency is built through repetition. Then repetition builds efficiency and doing things quickly. Part of the field exercises is just getting your mind to think about how to use your gear and/or surroundings to build the position you need for a good shot.

By the end, every person put bullets on target to 750 yards and was quickly smashing things from 400-550yds.

I've been in construction my whole life so feet and inches make sense to me. Out of that I was a MOA guy up until I heard Form explain Mils, quick drop and wind brackets. Mils is so much easier and faster there is literally no reason to use moa. Don't be dumb, just use mils!

To top it off, we did the re-warming drill on the last night. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It was a valuable experience though. Knowing how to handle the situation ahead of time if it happens might just save your life or someone you're with.

Overall, I can HIGHLY recommend any of the S2H courses for any shooter of any skill level who truly wants to get better.

Invest in yourself!

You are part of your rifle system!

Learn how to maximize your complete system!!

I plan on taking the extended range course as soon as I can.

FNG flexes walnut Rokstok. “I simply built a modest RSS”. Love it.

 

[24valve]

Anybody survive the winter course? How was it!?

Course was great, shot a lot, learned even more, and ate some delicious food! It was interesting to couple the course with several days of subzero temps and see how equipment, gear, and people did with the cold.

 

[ztc92]

I would echo all the thoughts shared above. I’m one of the fortunate few to have attended the summer course and then more recently the winter course. As mentioned, going a second time and having all the fundamentals down from my first course allowed me to really hit the ground running this time and I got a lot more out of the course that I didn’t pick up my first time through.

I grew up in MN so cold like this is nothing new to me, but even so, it was a great opportunity to try out different gear and see what worked best in frigid conditions. I was very happy to have a good wool sweater, heavy wool base layers and wool glove liners/mittens on the cold days. It was nearly impossible to shoot without gloves in the subzero temps and I froze my thumb accidentally by placing it on the rear tang while shooting. That meant at times we had to shoot with thin gloves and this provided a lot of lessons on why leather gloves allow you to grip the rifle much better than thin synthetic or wool gloves. Finally, we all learned that heavy wool is a bad choice for the rewarming drill and some students actually took their heavy wool sweaters off because they couldn’t get dry while wearing them.

I learned there is definitely a right and wrong way to put on puffy pants (bring the zipper up from the foot, not down from the waist), and this delayed me about 3 minutes in getting through the early stages of the rewarming drill where you don your puffy suit to warm up and preserve body heat. Had it been more cold/windy those 3 minutes may have been the difference between struggling and thriving after a dip in the icy river.

The new prototype for the rokstok lite and UM suppressor made for a badass little package when added to a tikka 223 with a 16” barrel. I had a chance to shoot that rifle a few times and it balanced and pointed to the target very naturally thanks to its light weight and small profile. I’m 6’ tall and thin and despite that the lite felt great. One of the smaller shooters there who stood 5’ 4” mentioned the lite was better than any other rifle they’d used and wanted to take it home with them. The UM suppressor had a deeper tone then many of the usual TI suppressors including the DD LTI and my Scythe. As mentioned, it sounds like the next few prototypes will sound even better.

All told, it was a great week and a great group of people to spend it with. I’m grateful for the opportunity and look forward to more courses in the future!

 

[B_Reynolds_AK]

FNG flexes walnut Rokstok. “I simply built a modest RSS”. Love it.

That FNG is Alpine rifles, aka he built it himself

 

[Moose83]

S2H Winter University

I'll drop this here so all the S2H U stuff is in one thread.

First, we survived!

We got a good dose of winter for the Winter U.
It was 5-10 below zero several days with light snow during the day. We had some heavy snow at night and one night was -25! We did some inside learning that morning!
Everyone did great staying warm and focused on shooting though. After a few days it warmed up to freezing and then sunny and 45 which was really nice for snowshoeing/ skiing up in the hills to shoot.

As far as students, people from all over the country came with skills just as varied. One guy bought his first two rifles for the class. While even very experienced shooters will learn to improve, brand new shooters will skip YEARS of frustration and go straight to success without ingraining bad habits.
It was really cool to see everyone there put ego aside in order to have an open mind and learn regardless of previous skill and experience. Two students were returning students and it showed. Both said it was great doing it again. Like watching a movie twice, you pick up things missed the first time. Overall it was a good group of chill people and we all had a good time.

Form and the other instructor were great. The amount of experience they have is evident immediately. They both take the time to help everyone to make sure everyone is progressing to the next exercise.

The food and accommodations were great. Plenty of amazing food so we could keep the calories up and stay warm.

The fun stuff...
Form had a couple Marshall's for testing, the first UM suppressor and the RokStok Lite proof of concept rifle. Any attempt to get photos resulted in blurred images so Form can elaborate when appropriate.

I think all the new students were shooting RSS 223's with SWFA's or Mavin 1.2's. There were a few small problems, pretty much the usual for having that many rifles firing that many rounds.

I built a RSS 223 to try all the things. no cleaning, quick load dev, UM products, SWFA's, RokStok and other things.
on the coldest morning my fingerprints were freezing on my ammo as I loaded mags. That little bit of frost accumulated around the lugs causing hard extraction after several mags. Just pulling the bolt and wiping the lugs/bolt clean fixed it.
The factory mags gave me intermittent feeding issues, I was able to use a Mamba Mag after the first day which never gave me any problems.
I also swapped the trigger spring for the lighter one which resulted in a AD on the second to last day. fortunately it was the third round as I closed the bolt on a target. I'll be switching back to the factory spring before using it again.
I chose Hornady 73 ELDM's after testing a few bullets and powders. The 77TMK shot slightly better but was significantly more expensive since I bought 2k bullets and I want to save the TMK's for hunting.

I almost didn't go. My first inclination was to work on everything I have to do. I'm glad I decided to go knowing I would be challenged and become a better shooter.
I'm a pretty proficient shooter but as we went through the fundamentals, my groups opened up. I felt it was in my grip but couldn't figure out exactly what. They helped me figure it out and my groups immediately got even tighter than before.
As the exercises progress, consistency is built through repetition. Then repetition builds efficiency and doing things quickly. Part of the field exercises is just getting your mind to think about how to use your gear and/or surroundings to build the position you need for a good shot.

By the end, every person put bullets on target to 750 yards and was quickly smashing things from 400-550yds.

I've been in construction my whole life so feet and inches make sense to me. Out of that I was a MOA guy up until I heard Form explain Mils, quick drop and wind brackets. Mils is so much easier and faster there is literally no reason to use moa. Don't be dumb, just use mils!

To top it off, we did the re-warming drill on the last night. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It was a valuable experience though. Knowing how to handle the situation ahead of time if it happens might just save your life or someone you're with.

Overall, I can HIGHLY recommend any of the S2H courses for any shooter of any skill level who truly wants to get better.

Invest in yourself!

You are part of your rifle system!

Learn how to maximize your complete system!!

I plan on taking the extended range course as soon as I can.

So... are those iron sights on your rifle?

 

[longrangelead]

So... are those iron sights on your rifle?

yep, working on something...

 

[BjornF16]

That FNG is Alpine rifles, aka he built it himself

Form obviously been working on him...he's also rocking a SWFA Gen 2 scope!

Looking forward to my Wood RokStok Blaser!!!

 

[Wprinkle]

Still hoping to see a s2hu class in the slower winter months in a warmer southernish state.

Ive got the ranch and weather for it... Im in as long as I get a spot lol

 

[24valve]

I would love to hear what gear and equipment worked good and what didn’t.

For you and the other gear-queers out there:

CLOTHING: Puff suits that are easy to access were really helpful, I think only two people there had warm feet the subzero days and they were wearing mukluks, everyone else had more traditional hunting boots. During the subzero days the instructors were kind enough to let us wear thin gloves while shooting, and it was interesting to see how it affected everyone's shooting just having that thin layer between you and the rifle. Leather shined compared to wool gloves for grip on the rifles. Some kind of large over-mitt to put gloved hands in to warm up when not shooting was quite helpful. Someone had a pair of handmade beaver mittens that looked incredibly warm, but no one else could wear them since they were made for her tiny hands.

The rewarming drill really showed us how our layers performed. I had merino base layers and a grid fleece midlayer on when I went in the water and couldn't dry them out by the four hour mark. I will definitely reevaluate my base layers and midlayers after that.

EQUIPMENT: Tikkas did fantastic in the snow firing thousands of rounds with minimal issues as compared to a couple R700's that couldn't get more than two or a few rounds before having a malfunction. I was running some book max 243 loads without issue until we starting shooting in the snow. With the addition of a little water on rounds, in the action, chamber, etc I would occasionally blow primers which led to the bolt not seating or extracting. So moving forwards I'll stop "getting cute" with my loads and back them off a grain or two.

I had the opportunity to use a rokstok, and it ruined all other rifle stocks for me...

I hadn't paid much attention to suppressor tone until listening to the first UM prototype and all the other cans on the line. Some cans have a far more noticeable "ting", like a tuning fork, and others have less. I'd have to test it, but it also seemed like wrapped cans had less of that ting? From a tone standpoint, the UM prototype was more pleasant to listen to 200 shots a day than others. However, wrapped cans do not warm your frozen fingers up as much as unwrapped after 10 rounds...

Always tape your muzzle!

A rifle got knocked over and the SWFA gen 2 3-15 fell elevation turret down onto a concrete floor and bent the turret. After hitting the turret straight with a hammer and regluing the lower turret portion back on, we shot it and it held zero.

Generous eye relief on spotters is always nice, but is critical and far more important than glass quality when finding the target and spotting for your shooter under time.

We had some battery issues with electronics on the cold, which highlighted the importance of mechanical backups.

Some notes on making sure you equipment is set up properly at home: Someone brought a Tikka that didn't have the recoil lug properly set in the stock, and I used someone's tripod that didn't have a head loctited onto the tripod and it kept coming loose during timed shooting which was fun. A left handed guy brought a left handed rifle, and it wasn't until the second to last day it came out that he was actually right-eye dominant... That being said, he was shooting quite well for using the wrong eye the entire week!

Let me know if you have any specific questions!

 

[Wprinkle]

I'd die

In 28 years of killin elk, I have never killed an elk in any temp below -20......





Because my sorry ass wont leave the house when its that cold....... lol

 

[Wprinkle]

We all did! Course was amazing! We got a wild swing in conditions from well below zero to 30-45 degrees with some snow and wind sprinkled in. Our group was solid and some serious shooters turned out. We skied and snowshoed to the field areas outside of our "home" 100 yard range. Food was excellent, same as you likely had @T_Widdy during your course, but more seasonal from what I understood from the summer course veterans. The last night we did the rewarming drill in a creek. If you have any specific questions post 'em or PM me if you prefer.

-J

Doing the rewarming drill in those temps.... do your balls freese to your leg or just fall off completely?

 

[24valve]

Doing the rewarming drill in those temps.... do your balls freese to your leg or just fall off completely?

Nope but they do head north for the winter!

 

[Dioni A]

@24valve your going to want to back off at least 2 grains. I went through this last year.

 

[omicron1792]

Looks cool. And, no way in hell a southern boy like me would be caught dead out in that.