There is one word that every rifle shooter should know: BRASS. If you learn this word and what each letter in the acronym means, and then apply them to every shot, you can’t miss.

BRASS stands for five words: Breath, Relax, Aim, Slack and Squeeze. Basically, used in the order presented above, you do each step prior to making your shot. Here is what you do:

Breathe: You are in position; you have your target selected and in range and you raise your rifle to your eye. You take a fairly deep breath, exhale it, then take in a half breath and hold it. This does two things: it enriches your blood with oxygen which helps steady your aim, and it gives you more of a steady rest since you are not breathing while taking the shot.

Relax: Perhaps one of the more difficult parts of the sequence, especially if it’s that big buck or predator that you’ve been waiting for all morning. This is the part where adrenalin is beginning to affect your hold, position, and timing—and might make you rush the shot. By concentrating on relaxing, you will notice your sights or crosshairs begin to settle down and not do the “figure eight dance” so much.

As soon as you are as relaxed as the situation allows, you concentrate on sight alignment. If you are shooting iron sights, you know that you have to have that front sight blade locked on the six 0′clock position of your target and your rear sight positioned correctly with equal light on both sides of the front sight blade. Your rear sight should be a bit blurry, with a good clear and crisp front sight blade. Do NOT try to focus on the front sight and the target at the same time. The target should also be a bit blurry. It’s the front sight that counts in accuracy. When shooting a scoped rifle, make sure you have a clear view of the target and the crosshairs with no half-moon shadows on the sides or top of your scope lens. The scope picture should be round and clear and bright. If you have an AO—an adjustable objective lens—you can adjust your parallax and your focus ring so that your crosshairs are clear and sharp and so is your target. And make sure you have the proper eye relief behind the scope so that if your rifle recoils you do not end up with half-circle cuts in your forehead! Part of aiming is also proper grip. There are different schools of thought, but when I shoot from a rest or bipod position, I use my left (non-trigger) hand to support the heel of the stock in my shoulder and pull slightly back into my shoulder with my right hand at the small of the stock. Do not “over grip” as this will produce shaking or unsteadiness due to fatigue.

Slack: This is where you take up the slack on the trigger. Be sure you are very familiar with the feel of your rifle. Every rifle is different, and each one has a different trigger feel and pull. Use the pad on the tip of your finger only. As a old instructors would say, “pull it gently feel the slack taken up—then stop.”
Once you know your trigger feel and how much slack there is, you are ready for the hardest part of the shot sequence, the “squeeze.”

Squeeze: The most critical part of your shot is the last ½ second. It is the part when you launch that projectile down range and will either hit your target—or miss. Most of the instructing I do with shooters focuses on the last bit of trigger squeeze, and that’s where most make their mistakes. The bottom line is that the shot must be a surprise. You should not know exactly when it is going to happen, or try to anticipate it. If you do, you may flinch, jerk, or buck. Flinching normally causes the shooter to close his or her eyes at the last second—a sure miss. Bucking is shoving your shoulder into the rifle unconsciously in anticipation of the recoil. Jerking is “pulling” the trigger instead of squeezing it. Bucking will throw a shot to the left, while jerking will throw it to the right. If you are lining up a prairie dog at 800 yards, you have no room to buck, jerk, or flinch. You’ll miss the guy by a yard! Remember BRASS, practice it, and you’re shots will find their target.

Trying new cartridges is one of the most interesting aspects of shooting. Most every cartridge has its application or “place”. It seems many are   confused when it comes to selecting a cartridge and caliber. Questions like “what’s the best caliber?” are very common. No one likes to have their questons answered by another question (specifically “what are you using it for?”) but, there is no “best” caliber or cartridge. Application is the key. Here’s how I decide what caliber I want next (I say “next” because given enough time I’d no doubt have them all ). I’m lucky enough to be able to   reload my own ammo, If you can’t, the selection process is different. Those who don’t reload must take into accout ammo availability as well as cost. Cartridges like the 308 and 223 are very good when restricted to using factory ammo due to lower costs and availability of high quallity ammo. I’ve   also noticed the 308 generally comes from the factory with fast enough twist for fairly high BC bullets one would choose for long range shooting. If you do re-load, this is the basics of how I select what cartridge I want, specifically, with long range application.

Step 1) select a bullet.

I’d first decide how heavy a bullet you want to shoot, for vital shots on Elk 1200ft/lbs of engergy would be nice. 600ft/lbs is a good minimum for deer (These energy figures I read in the book “Hunter’s Guide to Long Range Shooting” by Wayne Van Zwoll, a fellow I trust to give accurate information). A   ballistic calculator can give you a good idea of the engergy available at a given distance. If you’re just punching paper this isn’t a factor. For long range, BC is paramount. For example if you want a 130gr bullet it would be foolish to use a 7mm .395 BC, when a 130 gr 6.5mm has a BC of .595. If these were fired at the same MV the 6.5mm would have greater energy at long range,not to mention superior ballistics and wind bucking ability. For my   personal use I go with the following (these will change with new bullets becoming available all the time):

6mm (.243″) up to 115gr
6.5mm (.264″) from 130gr to 140gr
7mm (.284″) 140gr up to 180gr
7.62mm (.308″)175gr up to 240gr
8.58mm (.338″) from 250gr to 300gr

Step 2) select a cartridge

You should now decide the ballistics/energy required for your application. Cartridge selection should be based on speed, and bullet BC’s. If you’re   only shooting out to 500yds it may not be wise to sacrafice too much speed to shoot a bullet with a higher BC. At 1000yds BC is extremely critical and   one may be well suited to choose a higer BC even if it requires you to sacrafice considerable speed. Spend time checking the possiblities with a ballistic caluclator. Be realistic with your expectations of muzzle velocity. It’s easy to come up with increadable results on a ballistic calculator. Check the recorded MV’s of more than one source. You may be able to match the results you read about, but your brass may become fatigued   quickly doing so. It may also be advisable to select cartridges that are common in competition as info on accurate load data, and quality components   will be more abundant. If you’re using a high quality hand-lapped barrel (especially the Benchmark Barrel’s 3 grooves I use) you are within in your rights to expect some decent MV’s.

Step 3) Compromise  

Now that you’ve found the “perfect” cartridge/caliber for your application (no doubt a super magnum) you need to compromise with…
1) Expected barrel life
2) Recoil you’re willing to tollerate
3) Weight (large magnums reqire longer barrels to explot their potential, and also subject you to carrying heavier ammo).
4) Novelty factor (there are many ways to get a desired result; in reality the 338 RUM gives up little compared with a 338 Lapua magnum. It’s the   novelty of the Lapua that makes it desirable to so many.)
5) Cost (100gr of powder per shot down range will empty your savings quick if you do much shooting.
Let me know if you find a good deal on .338″ 300gr SMK’s).
6) Availability of reloading components (no matter how good the cartridge, you’ll be up a creek if you can’t find brass anywhere).
Other things to keep in mind…

Make sure your barrel has a fast enough twist to stablize the bullets you plan to shoot. This is often the limiting factor in factory rifles for long   range use. If you’re building a custom rifle you can really exploit a caliber’s long range potential by getting the proper twist. In my experience some bullet makers don’t recomend a fast enough twist. Check what others are using to stablize specific bullets. Some cartridges require a longer barrel to exploit their capacity. If your barrel is too short for your cartridge, you may be simply wasting powder. If a short barrel/rifle weight is a priority for you selecty your cartridge accordingly. For example the WSM’s have been reported to give good MV with shorter barrels compared to the standard   magnums wich often sacrafice a great deal of MV if the barrel is not at an ideal length.

I believe the process outlined above is in a logical order, however, you may have a factory rifle or already have a rifle built. If this is the case   check your twist rate and test bullets that will work with your twist and give you favorable ballistics for your application. You may have to   compromise quite a bit, but when it’s time to replace that barrel get it right. When investing money into a rifle build, do the research necessary to   get it right. Keep in mind, new cartridges will often be hyped a great deal (some rightly so) especially on the internet. Don’t be tricked so easily.   There is no “magic” giving a cartridge supernatural performance. If a cartridge has a higher opperating pressure it may give excellent performance   per/grain of powder. If a cartridge neither withstands higher pressure, nor holds more powder than another, how can it give substantially higher performance? I won’t say it’s not possibe, but use common sense. I could find information on the internet to back any rediculous claim I’d want to make, but this doesn’t make me correct.There are some cartridges (with factory loads) that use powders not yet available to the public wich yeild excellent performance. You would not be able to duplicate this performance with your handloads.

Things will change. New bullets and cartridges are becoming available all the time. Recently the 6.8mm (.277″) has recieved a boost due to new high BC   bullets available from Berger (likely in response to new cartridges like the 270WSM and 6.8 SPC. Previously there was little intrest in this caliber for long range use, due specifically to bullet selection.
 
I’m not claiming this is the only or best way to go about cartridge selection. This simply outlines important factors that should be considered by   anyone deciding on a cartridge for practical long range use.

One mil-dot equals 3.6 MOA, so it is really easy to figure out your drop and put it inside your lens cover. You can also, if you wish, put in your wind drift as well.

Do you know what its like to put the cross hairs where they’re supposed to be and not have the bullet go there? I do and man it’s extremely frustrating. I was using Sierra I-5 ballistic software some time ago and time and time again I checked to make sure everything was right. I was ok to about 400 yards, but from there on I kept on getting further and further away. I thought to myself, ok my muzzle velocity must not be right, but it was. Then I thought, maybe the atmospheric data was wrong, but it was right too. I even changed my zero to try to make it line up, but that didn’t work either. Even when I broke my flight path into different velocity regions and changed the BC (ballistic coefficient) value in each region, trust me that was a headache, still not even close. You see my scope is 1/8 MOA, which is an 1/8 inch at 100yds, OR so they say. So what I did, is put a target up at 100yds and dialed my scope 40 MOA which should be 40 inches at 100yds. But when I did, I actually only got 26 inches. Now divide 26 inches by the number of clicks it took and that gives you your actual click value, which in this case it turned out to be .0875 instead of .125 (1/8) MOA. Now some ballistic software allows you to change your click value to the correct amount, some don’t. Sierra I-5 does not. So I changed my software to another type and have never had a problem since. Millett, the manufacturer of my scope, the TRS-1, was kind enough to calibrate my scope to the correct amount, another plus.