We have now rolled into August and it looks like the heat of summer is finally starting to break a little here in the Atlantic Coast area. This is not to say that our upcoming Colemans Creek Matches, Pigg River or Quantico matches won't be scorchers but it does seem to be improving. By the time the Regional finale rolls around in October (October 18 Clinton House Plantation Clinton, SC) it should be a great time. The finale at Clinton House is a great event and according to PRS scoring the finale counts for double points. This is always a good thing if you are trying to crack the top 10 in your specific bracket.
Upcoming matches for Atlantic Coast are August 23 @ Colemans Creek. Sept 13 at Quantico MCB for PRS (Arrive early if you haven't secured a base pass as the base is 100 % ID right now so you have to go through PMO to get on the facility). October 4 @ Colemans Creek for the last regional qualifier. Remember your scores consist of your three highest matches through the season and at least one of the matches must be a qualifier so you can shoot in the finale at Clinton House.
Also since I have had the pleasure recently to shoot with some fantastic shooters in the Pro series, I wanted to give a shout out to where some great next level instruction has been going on. First off I want to give a shout out to Ken Sanoski of MKM Precision and Team MDT. He was our defacto squad leader at the Pigg River Ham in June and he was super helpful and always took the time to help us struggling shooters with wind calls, positional shooting ideas, and mental prep. All while he was shooting the match right along with us. You can reach Ken at ksanoski@mkmprecision.com or through the MKM Precision website under their training tab. I have no idea how much this training is, but if you have access to the PA area I would highly recommend him. Also Matt Stiner is at MStiner@mkmprecision.com so I really can't imagine you going wrong with either of these guys. Expect the training to be 1:1 for a day or day and a half of training.
The boys from thecadretraining.com are coming to Maysville, NC at the Alliance outdoors facility for two classes. Foundation Precision Sept 17-20 and then Intro to competition Sept 22-25 for four days of training for each of them. The instructors are everything you would expect from a group of USMC Scout Sniper instructors and recon guys. These are all gonna be hogs showing you "The way" so i'm sure this will be four days of barrel burning, critical assessments of skills, lots of hot wash of performance with skills and drills on your area of need, and maybe just a little bit of tough love. This is gonna be Phil Velayo (Former Scout Sniper instructor, Youtuber, and CEO of thecadre. Also i'm sure he is working towards some hair product endorsements. Matt Solowynsky, John Bumpus, Steve Holland, Corey Robinson, Eric D'Oro, and Ian Miner round out all the other instructors. These guys all seem to be scout sniper instructors and long range guys from out west so they are gonna teach you wind reads and a great deal about long distance whether for hunting, PRS, NRL or any other discipline you are looking for.
Also I want to close out my small rant of tooting everyone elses horn with Andy Slade. Great guy and always see him at Pigg River. They run one on one training at HTTPS://riflemanspath.com in VA. I'm sure they are shooting out at Pigg River for training. It is great stuff and you will definitely learn your wind calls. Give them a shout if you are in VA.
So new rant for next week will be on my personal failures of gear this year and what I would propose as a plan for your future gear purchases or equipment upgrades. It seems like everyone is running about 16-20 weeks for most everything you might want in the way of custom rifles. So my suggestion is if you have your eye on a production or custom rifle for the 2026 season, you need to have it on order NLT end of September so you are ready for the matches out west and down south starting in February 2026.