PRS Matches in the SE region can be had but not easily. Competitors typically travel from all around the region to shoot at different venues. To my knowledge Georgia only has two PRS style matches on a regular basis. The primary match that is part of the PRS Regional Series is held monthly at the Cool Acres Sporting Camp and hosted by Masterpiece Arms.
PRS Background
The first match I attended, and only one outside of Cool Acres, was the February 2022 match at Alabama Precision. I showed up with the action and barrel I still shoot but virtually nothing else. I purchased a Daniel Defense Delta 5 in 6.5 Creedmoor the year prior. This was the original composite stock with the Heavy Palma barrel. I had a Leupold 6.5-20 x 50 LRP scope on it and a muzzle break. I arrived way too early and purchased an Armageddon Gear Game Changer from the pro shop. All I had done up until that point was watch YouTube videos.
To save myself some embarrassment, I hit 19 targets out of around 100 but still had a blast. As my luck would have it with my squadding choice, I squadded with Phil Cashin, the owner of Masterpiece Arms. New to the world of PRS I was probably the only person at the match who did not know who Phil was. He gave me a few pointers along the way and kept an eye on me. He could tell I was comfortable with a firearm but not comfortable in that setting. I fought my magazines most of the day and had no idea what power to shoot on with the scope. The biggest shock of the day, unlike 3 gun there were no stage walkthroughs. You just get a brief and start shooting. I finished 111th out of 123 shooters that day.
After the match Phil was nice enough to talk to me and get to know me a bit. He told me what would and would not work on my rifle to get into the game. I got his email about some possible training at work with my team there and then became interested. Most important he told me about the almost monthly match at Cool Acres. That match is not in Practiscore so if you don’t know to look on their website you will not find it.
Cool Acres Matches
I shot two more matches at Cool Acres in 2022 followed by three so far in 2023. I keep an excel document with my match results. I track how I finished, how many targets were available, how many I engaged, and tabulate both hit percentages. My focus is hitting the targets I shoot at. In this game a miss and a fail to engage are scored the same. I also look at the Practiscore Percentage of the winner. Practiscore grades on a bell curve. It gives the winner of the match 100% and gives you a ranking based on that. In 2022 my hit percentages were below 40% of the targets I engaged, and I remained below 40% of the winner.
The June 24th Match was my third match at Cool Acres this year. It is what I would describe as a bowling alley range. It is generally a long, straight range. They get creative with a few angles from the left side of the range across the main lane. Each target has a significant berm behind it. The main range area is sort of terraced as it moves out to 1000 yards. On the extreme right of the firing line the targets can get out to 1200 yards.
The first two matches of the year went well. I was rusty at my first match with nowhere past 300 yards to practice. In May I took a class with Robert Brantly and then shot the next weekend. For the first time my hit percentage of targets engaged was above 50% hitting 44 out of 83. I did not have much time to dry fire between the class and the match so I did not get to realize the full benefits of the course.
Most Recent Match
This match was on a hot and muggy day. Cool Acres is relatively near the coast so it is always humid. We had a lot of rain heading into the match which delayed the zero that was supposed to start at 6:30 that morning. A neighbor who had never been to a PRS match rode along with me this time. It is just short of 3 hours from my house to the range so I typically wake up at 0230 which gives me time to stop in Dublin, GA for breakfast.
I was squadded with a few very talented shooters and at least one guy who had never shot a match before. We started on stage 9 towards the west end of the range (right as you face downrange). I had a rough first stage only getting three impacts in the first array. My day got better from there as we shot from the truck next then moved to the east end of the course. In total I had four stages with eight impacts and an additional two stages with seven impacts. Unfortunately, that left me with two stages each with two or three impacts.
Results
In total I had 56 of 87 shots impact with a possible 102 targets. That is a successful engagement of 64% of targets engaged and 55% of all. Despite significant personal improvement, it was only good enough for 54th out of 64 active competitors. The stages I struggled with involved a new barrier called the Cool Acres Barrier, the mover (a pig at 618), and two stages where you shoot off round objects. In this case one stage is a bunch of plastic corrugated pipe while the other was different concrete pipes and blocks. The last two were also the first and last stages of the day so concentration may have been an issue.
This is a great match to attend. It starts early but they hustle to get you done by 1 or 2 at the latest. The give you a burger, chips, cookies, a soda and maybe a hotdog around lunch. I did not stick around for the trophies this time but did hang and chat with a few shooters. The Masterpiece Arms Team always has quite a few shooters there and Daniel Defense typically has a few employees who shoot. In addition to dry fire 1-2 times per week I also upgraded my optics for this match and added a Gray Ops Mini Plate Pro. I used Vortex’s military appreciation event at the end of May to upgrade to a Razor Gen III. I had been using their Strike Eagle after that first match but the mirage can get brutal in the GA humidity. The Razor certainly helped cut through it.
Next time, maybe August, I will add a much more detailed match breakdown. Hopefully I will be moving up to some mid-pack shooting with continued dry fire practice.