Wade Stuteville, from Shawnee, Oklahoma, has simply dominated competitions in recent years taking first place in the last 4 out of 5 Rifles Only events held in Kingsville, TX.
Wade, congratulations on your big win at the Rifles Only Bushnell Brawl! This is your fourth win at Rifles Only. If you could give up a few secrets, what do you do that may give you an edge over the competition?
At rifles only you must be prepared for anything. While Jacob draws from his book of core stages for a portion of the match it is his improvised stages like the stress fires, obscured target UKDs, and rifle/pistol night stages that will test your ability to while thinking beyond fundamentals.
Going into the competition what was your mindset and what were some of your goals?
My goal is the same for every match. It is to shoot a solid score on each stage. I remember one match in particular that I won without winning a single stage.
Give us run down on the gear you were using, and how did it help you during this match?
I have been shooting Surgeon Rifles since its inception, some rifles have been built by me and some built by Stephen Barrier, the head rifle builder at the shop. This year we built our rifles around the excellent and new Berger 6mm 105 hybrid bullet. This combination has exceeded all of our expectations in accuracy and external ballistics. Hodgdon extreme powders have been every team member's mainstay since before the team was formed.
Describe some of your favorite stages from the match.
Rifles Only runs a very well rounded mix of stages that range from slow to fast, simple to complicated, and long to short range. The chopper/trench pistol/trench run rifle/kims 4 stage culmination was without question my favorite. We flew over a target in the chopper and fired 3 rounds from our rifle into the target, moved from the bird to the secondary stage location, fired 5 rounds from our pistol at a steel pistol target, and moved into a trench where we fired 6 rounds from our rifle from different positions at steel while crawling through ports, pipes, etc to get to each firing point. Between the chopper ride and the length of the multi stage course of fire I could sure feel the effects of the adrenaline during the stage.
Some people have said shooting competition is mostly mental, how would you describe the mental game in this sport?
I would agree completely that the game is mostly mental. I consider myself an average marksman but an above average mathematician and tactician.
I'm aware that you do practice regularly, please describe some of the most important aspects of practice for yourself
On average I practice close range for a couple of hours about every other week. I typically try to compete against local, accomplished shooters such as Brad Stuteville, Preston Pritchett, John Sommers, or Tim Long. I rarely get an opportunity to shoot long range and often will only dry fire for weeks depending on family or work. Right now coach pitch baseball is priority 1.
Although you have been shooting long range matches for over 12 years now, do you ever get nervous, or feel unprepared for a match?
In the past few years I have never been as prepared as I was when I first got into the sport. The time is simply not available. I generally figure things out as I go in the match and am only a little nervous at the beginning.
Your traveling partners and team mates Tim Long and John Sommers always seem to bring their A- game, describe some attributes that make them so consistent contenders.
They are obviously excellent marksmen and tacticians. They practice religiously and rely on each other to push to the next level.They also have the best gear available.
Some people may not beware, but you have served an important role on the PRS committee along with others, give us your input on the sport of Precision Rifle and how it has evolved and anything you would want to mention about the PRS, its members, or its possible affiliates.
Since I began shooting long range competitions I personally wanted to know how I stacked up against other shooters throughout the country. To do so a shooter had no choice but to travel to far corners of the country to shoot against different groups, and the results were approximate at best. The PRS has introduced a ranking system that has been lacking from our sport but was present in one form or another in every other shooting sport.
This is Wade's second win of the PRS season and landing him with 294.832 PRS season points out of a possible 300.000 points making his ranking very hard to top.
Special congratulations to all the shooters who made an effort to shoot the Bushnell Brawl, I'm very proud of all the PRS shooters who showed great sportsmanship, competing against a field of 92 very experienced shooters, PRS shooters captured 30 of the top 35 places.
Special thanks to Jacob, Lisa and the crew of RO's for handling nearly 100 shooters through 3 long days of intense shooting. Great job!
