Need advice, new precision rifle shooter

For tactical/practical shooting, mil/mil FFP is the way to go. There is a reason 94% of the top PRS shooter have switched to it when most of them learned on MOA SFP scopes. That game is all about speed and shooting from positions you would realistically use in the field. It sounds like that is the type of shooting you are interested in doing, and you've manage to find a teacher that understands the requirements.

I would go with the Vortex with the new EBR-2C reticle. It's better suited for what you are trying to accomplish.
 
Oh, and get the muzzle brake. You'll need it to spot your own swirl. You can get way without one with a 6XC or 6 Creedmore, but not with a 308.
 
I have the 10TR with a Vortex Viper 6.5-20x44. It got me in the door for a pretty reasonable price. I also picked up a 10-round mag from Northern Republic, because PR is a real pain with a 4-round mag!

I was shooting sub MOA with the following load:

44.5 gr Varget
155 gr Hornady A-Max
IVI Brass
CCI Rifle Primers(200)

I also installed the tapco cheek riser(SFRC has them). I could have gone with lower rings and I will probably swap them out over the winter.

If you are looking for training for the ORA matches, TacticalTeacher runs clinics at CFB Petawawa, usually in September. I went to it this year and it was a great way to learn the game at a very reasonable price.
 
Kombayotch, cool that is indeed what I am trying to accomplish with this.
The teacher is very well qualified but cannot speak more of him since this is the internet, if I share info about myself it concerns only me but I do not speak of others here.
What do you recommend for muzzle break? At first I was steering towards JP but was discouraged since it has holes in the top (which is supposed to severelly affect accuracy when shooting in the rain)

Klatham, for now I do not wish to compete, this will be a me/myself/I activity to relax! I already somewhat compete in IPSC, it's enough to keep the social things of shooting going on.
Yeah I saw those mags, quite expensive! Holding off for until I have shot 100-200 rounds of .308 (which would bring me spring-summer 2015). I want to keep it budget, and if I do get some loose money somewhat i'd probably drop in an accuracy international compatible chassis to use their mags. There are lots of ifs in there so that's not being researched atm.
Yes I have heard of TacticalTeacher, even though I will pay for training, I wish to seek a course from him also, get second opinions on certain things and use what works better for me between 2 worlds.
For reloading I was recommended varget, but for bullet weight I was steered towards 175gr., that is why I finished researching 1:10 barrel twist.
This Savage deal got here at an excellent timing.
 
While the PR matches the ORA runs a lot of fun and I would encourage anyone to come out to them, they are nothing like PRS. Its like comparing PPC to IDPA.
 
For that application, you're really more concerned with muzzle rise than with rearward thrust. It's not about recoil, its about spotting your own shots. Holes at the top don't necessarily affect accuracy. I have several rifles with brakes that have holes at the top and they shoot accurately. Holes are what counters muzzle rise in a lot of brakes. That or having the ports open up at the top.

The JEC brake is really popular in PRS, but most of those shooters run 6mm's of some variety. JEC are good, but will not be as effective as larger brakes with a 308. The Badger FTE is pretty good on a 308. The best brake I have ever used is an Allen Precision Painkiller 3 port brake. Not sure if you can get them up here. The muscle brake would be very similar, and Bighorn Sales brings those in.

The most effective brakes will vent backwards at about a 30 degree angle.
 
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For a good discussion of the Precision Rifle Series look at the Precision Rifle Blog - a very well written piece of work that focuses a lot on what the top PRS shooters in the US use.

OP - it is good to see someone who has thought through their reasoning for wanting FFP; you will be very happy with Sightron glass ( I haven't used their FFP scope but every one of the SFP ones I've owned/looked through have been v.good ).
 
Definately get on Snipers Hide. A wealth of information on there as well as 6mmbr.com. Both great places to start reading up. A lot of the internet mumbo jumbo is just that. The most value you will get it getting out and pulling the trigger. Mil vs MOA is all crap. They both get you there, it is all what you are most comfortable with. Unless you are actively engaging moving targets which you wont be, it really doesnt matter for ranging capabilities. I dumped my Mil scopes to back to MOA. All the gongs are in inches and MOA is a hell of a lot closer to inches. When I look at something, I see it in inches, not meters or centimeters. When I see a miss on a piece of steel, it is in inches and I want to correct that way. MOA made it easier for me to learn that way so I stuck with it. Now however, when I have a miss or a correction, I just measure it in my reticle and call the correction. Doesnt matter to me what it is. I have a range finder so I dont calculate using my reticle. My shooting partner is all MOA so having matching reticles also helps.

Choose what makes more sense for you, not what everyone else tells you. Do you measure in meters/centimeters or inches/yards. I also found that all the good reticles in Nightforce where in MOA at the time. All the good reticles in Bushnell are in in Mil. Sometimes that will decide for you.
 
The only place you find people saying there is no difference is on the internet. The people winning the PRS matches are doing it in real life, not on the internet. And they have nearly all switched away from MOA scopes.

The only reason you would ever need to think about an inch or a cm with an FFP scope is for ranging (object size). And no savvy shooter sits there and does the math to figure it out during a match, they print out a card like this and put it on their forearm so they only need to take a glance at it without getting put of their shooting position.



So it really doesn't matter is you're more comfortable with inches and yards. Makes no difference with a mil scope. None whatsoever.

And this is way faster than putting the rifle down and taking out a range finder... especially if you're trying to range a target with nothing around it. If you aren't steady, you get readings of stuff behind the target.

The really savvy shooters will put their come-ups right into the table instead of a distance...
 
Along the top you have various target sizes in inches: 9, 12, 16, 18... The far right column is how many mils the target is in your reticle. The numbers in the table are the distance.

Ex: a 24" target that measures 1.5 mils in your reticles is 445 yards away.

Stick the card to your left forearm (assuming you are right handed). Then after you measure the target with the reticle, you just look down at it to get the range. Then you just use the reticle to hold over, fire the shot, then move to the next target. This is how you deal with a stage that requires you to shot 4 different targets at 4 different unknown distances in 30 seconds.
 
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Wow this is very cool, so simple to understand!
I had not purchased a range finder yet, and from what i see it will not be required for what i wish to do.
 
You would come in dead last using a range finder in one of those matches. Its too slow. But, thats not to say you shouldn't have one.

Using the reticle instead of dialing is also why the EBR-2C is preferable to the EBR-1B or the Sightron reticle.
 
I was on vortex website and looking at the zoomed reticule. On their site they also give values that lines represent.
These will have to be learnt, i could almost imagine dry firing lots at the cottage ranging trees and stuff using this.
I imagined an 18" tree stump between certain lines and went back to this table to see range.
If MOA doesnt have these tables it makes so much sense to work with MRADs.
 
You can make the tables in mil or MOA, with distances and target sizes in any unit you want. You can make it as coarse or as fine as you want. It doesn't matter...

Ranging is the thing you use the reticle for the least. The real power of a reticle is all of the other things you use it for in tactical shooting.
 
OP - you have now been given a ton of information ( and, to make matters worse, some of it is contradictory ! ). Yes, Snipers Hide is a good site - a bit more 'rough and tumble' than our own genteel CGN but populated by a lot of people with real, quality, shooting experience. The PRS website is, of course, the place to go and that is actually where I should have referred you but Kombayotch was good enough to give you the website BUT please don't panic when you read what top shooters use otherwise you will throw away your .308 as all the top shooters there use 6mm or 6.5 LOL! No, your .308 will do you just fine :)

Finally, while I am a fan of Sightron as a mid-price scope you really should look at the Elite Tacticals from Bushnell as you are set on FFP - I wrote a review of the top model and more recently bought a lower model without the zero stop and with 5mil per revolution. Glass is very nice and the value is there.
 
Half of the people in the top 10 in this years PRS were from the GA precision shooting team. They all run Bushnell Tactical Elites.
 
Cool thanks, for sure there are tons of info to be read, for now i am just looking at the big picture, i am keeping the real trainig experience with a long range teacher.
Himself got me into .308 , seems like its the perfect learning platform. The barrel will burn in 8-9K rounds instead of 2-3K of magnum proficient rounds. It's a caliber easy to reload for. And with the 10TR and a 1K scope, it's still considerably cheap to get into precision, at least get the feel for it. If i don't like it i am sure a 10TR will resell for full or almost value, and a scope i'd recoup 80%, not a huge loss to try something new.

As for scopes, if i we're only to target shoot i'd look into many options, one of the things that always gets me looking back to vortex is the no bs warranty. I could lug that scoped rifle in the woods like i didnt pay for it, the weak link being the scope, is fully backed by vortex. Even if a 800$ vortex was equal to a 1000$ bushnell, that very feature is nice to have.
 
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