Rifle

Jack O’Connor Would Have Loved the 6.5 Creedmoor

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Jack O’Connor died in 1978, nearly 30 years before the 6.5 Creedmoor appeared, but judged by the standards he championed in The Hunting Rifle and decades of Outdoor Life writing, he probably would have loved it—even if it never displaced his beloved .270 Winchester. O’Connor valued accuracy, moderate recoil, flat-enough trajectory, high sectional density, efficient bullets, penetration, and above all the hunter’s ability to put a bullet precisely where it belonged. The Creedmoor checks virtually every box: a 140-grain 6.5mm bullet has excellent sectional density, modern high-BC bullets retain velocity remarkably well, recoil is lighter than the .270, and the cartridge is famously easy to shoot accurately. Where O’Connor would still favor the .270 is raw velocity and its flatter trajectory at ordinary hunting distances—especially important in his era, when hunters estimated range rather than pushing a button on a laser rangefinder. Ironically, O’Connor also admired cartridges such as the mild-mannered 7×57 Mauser and repeatedly argued that shot placement mattered more than horsepower. The funniest conclusion, then, is that the old-school hunters who dismiss the 6.5 Creedmoor as some newfangled fad might be surprised by their own patron saint: the Creedmoor is essentially an O’Connor hunting cartridge designed 30 years too late—accurate, efficient, mild to shoot, and powerful enough to kill what you’re hunting if you quit arguing about caliber and put the damned bullet where it belongs.

A Beginner’s Guide to CMP AR Tactical and F-Practical

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Competitive long-range shooting used to look like a sport where the entry fee was a custom rifle, a pile of specialized equipment, and possibly a second mortgage. CMP’s new AR Tactical and F-Practical categories are changing that. Built around affordable AR-platform and factory-production rifles, practical rests, bipods, and limited-power optics, these events offer ordinary shooters a pathway onto the 600- and 1,000-yard firing line without first building a NASA-grade race gun. This beginner’s guide explains the rifles, equipment, rules, match formats, and what to expect at your first match. The wind is still free—and it will still humble you.

The Older You Get, the Better You Might Shoot

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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

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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

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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.