I was considering doing something like F-class but not really competitive. im having a rem 700 LA trued and its getting rebarrel with a lilja barrel in 280Ackley, not exactly a benchrest round but its original purpose was hunting (and still will be) its a #5 contour barrel.

I dont actually have the rifle back but heres hoping i get the phone call this week. I've done plenty of 100yard shooting, and some 300 and once at 600. Was wondering if there were gun clubs that had shoots most weekends and had like 500 and 600 shoots in a day. I live in the wairarapa so could easily travel to the manawatu or down towards masterton. probably wont have the load sorted till after Xmas as things get pretty busy on the farm with docking in the next month and shearing right after that.

The Masterton Rifle Club (affiliated to the NRA of NZ) have a range out to the east of Masterton, which goes all the way back to 1200 yards. NRA 'Open Class' is sort of equivalent to the American 'F' Class.

The following link outlines the MRC program for this season and provides a contact.

http://www.gderb.com/nranz/comev.htm

Hopoe this helps.

Paul: Just another thought - if you would rather drive through the gorge than down to Masterton, you could try the Cheltenham club. Here's their web site:

http://www.gderb.com/cheltenham/cheltopen1.htm

the cheltenham aye they only go to 600 yards which suits me, they dont appear to have as many shoots as masterton. they are pretty much the same distance from here.

have you had any experience shooting in our open class?

quote:

have you had any experience shooting in our open class?

No, not to any serious extent. I have an occasional shoot with one of the NRA clubs at the Trentham range, north of Wellington.

An interesting assortment of ‘Open Class’ rifles appears on the firing line at times. Sporters, heavy barrelled varmint and ‘tactical’ type rifles, match rifles with the aperture sights replaced by scopes, and full-blown ‘F’ class rifles. (the latter looking much like long range benchrest rifles) The rests used go all the way from homemade sand bags, to bipods, to heavy BR-type front rests and sand bags. Some of the more highly specialised rigs must have cost a few bob, to put it mildly.