Long Range Training With Fritz Precison
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- By Unknowner
- Posted in .308, .338, 6.5, 6mm, long range, long range shooting, longerangeshooting, longrange
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Why Fritz Precision is a great place to start for experienced or beginner long-range shooters.
Long Range 2-Day Fundamentals from Fritz Precision
We recently installed a shooting simulator and classroom at our Yuma store. In doing this we have been trying to figure out fun classes to offer our customers.
Given the room we have I thought it would be fun to offer long range courses as the classroom offers the space for the classroom portion and the 1000y range at Adaire is a fantastic facility for shooting out to 1000y, especially for new shooters.
I have been passionate about long range shooting for well over 25 years now. With that said, I have not actively been long range shooting for that duration of time. Last year, I realized that I was rusty both in applied skills, and with all of the new technology in the long-range space.
The technology is amazing now. Long range shooting has always been challenging but now it is much less challenging with the advent of high BC projectiles and new cartridges that maximize the efficiency of these projectiles as well as all the fancy gizmos and gadgets now being offered by, well it seems everyone.
Software like Applied Ballistics and Hornady 4Dof are really incredible and can give new shooters a pretty good idea of where their guns will hit at varying distances. Moreover, these software programs are integrated into tons of really cool devices like Kestrels, range finders, binoculars, scopes, etc.
Last year I went down this rabbit hole and to be frank, I don’t see an end in sight. Working in a gun store has opened my eyes to some of the barriers to long range shooting - cost wise and some shooters may just not know where to start.
This caused me to come up with a plan to mitigate these barriers for shooters seeking to get into long range shooting. Our goal is to have two-day entry level courses open to the public which will utilize rifles and gear provided and owned by Firearms Unknown. We hope to offer our first course in the Fall of 2026.
Additionally, this pushed me to take classes offered by many of the top shooting schools in the country.
There are an astounding number of high-level firearms instructors throughout the United States - many of which are offering uniquely different but very high-level products.
Recently, I attended Don Fritz’s Fundamentals Level 1 course and was highly impressed with the course.
About The course
Don was readily available by phone before I paid for the course, before signing up and before going to the range.
Many instructors will do this, but it’s hard to get people on the phone these days. Not Don.
He was a wealth of information before, during and after I was his student and I am very grateful for this.
Fritz Precision holds their courses on a private range which is about 20 minutes outside of Lewiston, Idaho.
The Fritz Precision course is an all-inclusive course (mostly) in that the student does not need to bring anything; Don provides it all. Everything is covered in the cost of tuition except the cost of ammunition.
One of the things I found to be very impressive was the quality of the rifles that were offered to students. These rifles are custom built and are user friendly at a level that I have not seen offered from an off-the-shelf factory rifle.
He offers his students a variety of calibers to shoot. My primary focus was the 6mm and 6.5 Creedmoor’s. An additional piece of gear that is provided is a Kestrel. I brought my own Kestrel but if you do not have one, one will be provided to you. It is worth noting that I shot some of our Firearms Unknown rifles as well as the rifles that Don provided.
Class Sizes are limited: Don limits his class size to five students so that he can give specialized attention to each student. This was fun because I was the odd man out as I was there by myself and the other four people were both father and son teams. It is worth noting that one of the sons was 14 years old and seemed to outshoot us all at long distances with no previous instruction. This illustrates that what Don teaches, works.
Course Materials: Don’s course materials are professional, simple and explained well.
Accommodating: We all stayed at Don’s house with Don and his wife Shelly. They prepared all of our meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner. All the meals were excellent, and the home was comfortable with an amazing view.
Range: Rifles are zero’d on a special range at 100 yards but once zeroing is done, you don’t shoot at less than 450 yards. Don’s range is a private range with targets as close as 450 yards and as far away as 1300 yards. He has options for longer ranges but longer ranges are only offered in the more advanced courses.
This range is a challenge to shoot on. The students shoot off of a cliff face and over a valley. This topography gives the shooter a wind feeling/reading at the shooter that is different from what is happening over the valley which makes the wind calls challenging, even with relatively low wind speeds. I think the most we experienced were probably 8mph but the gusting nature combined with the inability to rely on the wind at the shooter, made the wind a challenge, i.e. fun to shoot in.
Day 1: Classroom time, it was a couple hours where Don went over the basics that are essential to long range shooting and gave an introduction on how to use the Kestrel. Once the classroom portion was concluded we went to Don’s private range and the day consisted of zeroing the guns to each respective shooter then truing the ballistic software in each shooter's Kestrel. This is done by shooting at a distance that is just before the projectile out of a given rifle goes transonic and calibrating the Kestrel at that distance. Most of the shooting was done from the prone position. However, by the end of the first day all of the students were shooting at and past 1000 yards and doing so from the standing position off of a tripod.
Day 2: We had a short classroom session in the morning and then moved to the range where we focused on positional shooting at distance - Shooting off of a tripod from different positions both clipped into the tripod and off of a bag that was secured on a tactical table that is clipped into the tripod. Day 2 went fast and was fun.
In conclusion, this course was of tremendous value - where it was fun it was full of information. The relaxed nature of the environment both at the house and on the range made it ideal for exposing new and/or young shooters to long range shooting. I think this course could act as a model for intro courses and I would like to take my wife and daughter to one of his courses in the near future. During my time with Don, I felt like I was part of the Fritz family.
I liked Don’s courses so much that we are in discussion about him potentially offering courses at our San Diego facility in the Fall, this year. If you are in the Southern California area and are interested in taking a course with him, you can contact him via his website here: Fritz Precision Shooting
Great write up. Makes me want to take his class.