The Older You Get, the Better You Might Shoot

Most sports belong to the young. Smallbore prone is different. At Camp Perry this July, competitors will fire 640 record shots over four grueling days, plus a practice day and a team championship, all while trying to keep every bullet in a tiny X-ring at 50 and 100 yards. The winner won’t necessarily be the strongest or the fastest—it will be the one who can stay mentally sharp after nearly a week of relentless precision. In one of America’s oldest sports, experience isn’t a handicap. It just might be the greatest competitive advantage of all.

Smoke, Steel, and 1,000 Yards: The Great International Rifle Match at Dollymount

The year was 1875, and long before ESPN, endorsement deals, or even organized leagues as we know them, one of the most electric sporting events on earth unfolded on a windswept stretch of Irish coastline at Dollymount, just outside Dublin. This was the Great International Rifle Match—a transatlantic clash that, for a brief window in history, made precision rifle shooting a premier spectator sport.

The 10-to-4 Problem: What Rimfire Teaches That Centerfire Hides

At distances out to 100 yards, the differences between rimfire and centerfire aren’t subtle—they are foundational. A .22 LR match round leaves the muzzle at roughly 1050 feet per second, already flirting with the sound barrier and quickly settling into subsonic flight. Compare that to a typical centerfire round—say a .308—moving at nearly three times that speed, carrying significantly higher ballistic efficiency, and backed by a rigid, jacketed bullet designed to punch through the air rather than cooperate with it.