When it comes to hunting preparation, zeroing your rifle from a bench pales in comparison to competing in NRL Hunter.
We are in the golden age of competition shooting, with different forms and flavors for every marksman. One of the underappreciated but rapidly growing organizations is NRL Hunter. Fusing traditional hunting scenarios with modern competition standards, NRL Hunter elevates the skill cap and educates people nationwide that marksmanship in the field isn’t shooting fish in a barrel.
In essence, it tests your skills to find, range and shoot targets from between 100 and 1,000 yards while layering the difficult conditions you might face while on a hunt. Even for seasoned competition shooters or hunters, this game isn’t easy.
But—it is satisfying, illuminating and oh so much fun.
The Soul of a Hunter
As the name suggests, NRL Hunter was started to benefit hunters. While many skills are necessary for a successful harvest, one of the most difficult to learn or practice is field marksmanship. Shooting off a bench at a paper target doesn’t address the critical skills needed for a real shot taken at an animal in the wild.
Stress, wind reading, knowing your rifle, your ammo and your limits are aspects that can make or break a hunt. Being able to put those skills to the test and improve yourself makes not only for more successful hunting but also more ethical hunting.
For many who shoot NRL Hunter, this is the whole allure of the game. And if you have a once-in-a-lifetime hunt coming up or just want to improve your shooting skills, NRL Hunter is a great place to push yourself.
Gamers Play the Game
Not everyone you meet at an NRL Hunter match is there prepping for elk season. Shooters focusing on hunting are probably the minority. While NRL Hunter is a great way of practicing for the big-game season, it is still a game. Steel elk don’t hear you stalking, AR500 bobcats don’t smell you, and no timers are counting down in the woods.
For a lot of the shooters, NRL Hunter is simply a fresh new format for precision matches, forcing different and interesting skills and giving people a good excuse to build a new rifle. Count me in that category. Matches that push my skillset or force me to learn something new are always attractions, and NRL Hunter does it in spades. It has quickly become my second favorite format to shoot.
Basic Rules
The exact rules should be consulted before your first match, but to give you a taste we can boil them down to CliffsNotes.
Every stage is shot “blind,” meaning you don’t know what you’re getting into. You don’t get to watch other competitors shoot the stage before you, and learning anything about the stage before you shoot is strictly forbidden.
Every stage is 4 minutes and allows a maximum of eight shots. Scoring is “2-1 dead target.” Hitting the target with your first shot earns 2 points, if you miss your first shot you’re allowed a second. Impacting with the second shot earns 1 point. If you miss both shots, the target can no longer be engaged. If you hit the target, it’s considered neutralized, and you move on to the next target at the stage.
Each stage consists of some combination of up to four targets and up to four positions. If you have four targets, you will only have one position. If you have four positions, you’ll have one target. There are also combinations in between, like two targets/two positions. The positions are not fixed and can be selected by the hunter while on the clock. A “new” position must be at least one arm’s length away from the old one.
Each stage is given left and right limits, so you know what area you’re looking in to find the targets. On the start buzzer, the shooter needs to find the targets, range the targets, get into position and shoot.
Trust me, the 4 minutes to accomplish all this go fast.
Equipment
Gear won’t win matches or put meat in the freezer, but it can help. If you’re an established long-range shooter or hunter and you want to test your gear and your skills, you probably won’t need to buy anything new. But if you want to get all the juice for the squeeze, a few tools are game changers.
My loadout included:
- Eberlestock UpRanger
- Armageddon Gear Game Changer Shmedium with Git-Lite fill
- Fix It Sticks Long Range Competition Toolkit
- Sig Sauer Kilo 10k Gen II
- Kestrel Ballistics 5700X Elite
- Longtucky Supply Bino Pouch
- Leofoto Tripod with Really Right Stuff Anvil-30 ballhead
- L3i Design Solutions Tac Table
The general strategy for a stage is to use a tripod to glass and find your targets, then get into position using any combination of tripod, bipod or shooting bag to take the shot.
Range-finding binoculars help speed and smooth out the process since finding a target and then switching tools to range the target eats valuable time. Add in a ballistic solver, such as my Sig Sauer Kilo 10k Gen II, and the process becomes even easier. It gives range and dope with the press of a button.
One thing to keep in mind is that gear is only useful if it’s easy to access. Most shooters use a chest rig of some kind to make life easier. Longtucky Supply just released its Bino Pouch not long before my California-based Mason Valley match, and it’s a winner. Magnets seal the hood, and Velcro makes the entire pouch adjustable to any size or shape of binos.
A solid bag to carry all your stuff in is a requirement, since stages are spread out and often over broken landscapes. The Eberlestock UpRanger has served me well for several years and is easy to recommend.
One piece of gear that didn’t arrive in time for the match was the new MDT Champion Backpack. While I didn’t get to use the new bag in Mason Valley, I have used it at PRS matches since then, and I highly recommend it. Giving yourself a portable workstation comes in handy when you’re in the bush.
Custom Lightweight Precision Rifle
Most of the gamers shoot in Open Heavy, giving them a maximum of 16 pounds of rifle to play with. Since the hunting aspect is what appeals to me in NRL Hunter, I shoot the Open Light class. This has a 12-pound limit, forcing competitors to use a rifle they more likely would in the field.
To make that goal but still pack on as many luxuries as possible isn’t easy—but it is doable. Here is how my Hunter rifle shakes out:
Rifle Action: Faxon FX7
Barrel: Faxon “Gunner” Profile, 20 inches, 6.5 Creedmoor
Scope: Vortex Razor LHT 4.5-22×50 FFP
Scope Rings: MDT Lightweight
Chassis: MDT HNT26
Muzzle Brake: Area 419 Hellfire Match
Suppressor: Silencer Central Banish MeatEater
Trigger: TriggerTech Special
Grip: Kung Fu Grip
Timer: MDT Crush It timer
Ammo: Black Sheep Ammo 143-grain ELD
This rifle has performed far better than my wildest hopes. Everything about it has been perfect from the first day … almost.
Faxon Firearm’s FX7 is a sleeper of a rifle. The action is a six-lug, 70-degree bolt lift Remington 700 footprint coated in ArmorLube DLC and made from 416 stainless-steel. Its assets include an integrated recoil lug, integrated 20-MOA Picatinny rail, interchangeable bolt handle, M16 style extractor and uses a standard R700 trigger.
The action is smooth and well-made, and it handles dust and grime better than any bolt rifle I’ve used previously. But my favorite part of this build is the barrel. Faxon Firearms offered the “Gunner” profile in AR-15 and AR-10 barrels for years but applying that idea to a bolt-rifle barrel has been magical.
Barrels are what pack on pounds to a rifle, and it’s hard to cut that weight without running into problems like overheating, drifting POI or groups that explode open. The Gunner profile is built to mitigate all of those. Starting thick, it quickly tapers down to an almost pencil profile before opening up at the very end to host a threaded muzzle. The result is a 20-inch 6.5 Creedmoor barrel that only weighs 2.45 pounds. With my handloads, this is a comfortably .75 MOA rifle shooting 10-round groups with no downtime for heat.
Cutting all this weight left room in the budget for a suppressor, but only if it was light enough. Silencer Central’s new MeatEater by Banish comes in at only 10.3 ounces but offers a full 32dB sound reduction and helps cut recoil with the inclusion of a muzzle brake at the end of the suppressor. If you haven’t added a suppressor to your match or hunting rifle, I cannot recommend it enough. Making life quieter and easier to stay on target is a must-have for any rifle system.
The MeatEater is not the least expensive suppressor you can find, but the full titanium build and added muzzle brake are entirely worth it.
For glass, Vortex provided the Razor LHT 4.5-22×50 FFP. This is an interesting scope that ticks a lot of boxes and is almost perfect for NRL Hunter. While mostly a hunting scope at heart, it has enough features to make it effective in a match environment. A rock-solid zero stop, perfect tracking, great Christmas tree reticle and impressive glass worthy of the Razor name, it has all the hallmarks of a last-generation top-tier competition scope. But at only 21.7 ounces, this was built to not weigh you down.
Part of where the LHT saves weight is the 50mm objective lens and 30mm main tube. While enough to get the job done, this does limit the light-gathering ability of the scope. But even on my last stage of day one at Mason Valley, where we went way past legal hunting light, I could still find the gray steel of my last stage against the gray rocks. For what this scope is designed for, it’s impeccable.
MDT’s HNT26 was the chassis of choice for this project. My feelings on the HNT26 have gone back and forth between love and hate, but after a weekend shooting NRL Hunter, it’s settled on love. The HNT26 feels lightweight. It should, since it’s 26 ounces. But in your hand, out of the box, it feels too light. Don’t let that fool you, because this chassis can take some insane abuse.
Two long days of competition lead to progressively caring less about being gentle on your equipment, none more so than the chassis. But even being banged on boulders, dropped on cacti or dumped in the sand, the HNT26 ate it all.
The only failure point on the chassis was the grip and that happened a couple of months before the match. The carbon-fiber grip of the HNT26 is a shell epoxied to a plastic piece that connects to the rifle via a standard AR-15 grip interface. That epoxy on my grip just failed and disintegrated—slipped right off in my hand. Reaching out to MDT, it turns out my grip was one of the unlucky few in a specific batch of grips where something went sideways with no way for QC to catch the problem until they were in the hands of users. Oh, well. These things happen.
While MDT offered to replace the grip, I didn’t love it, so I was fine with using something else. I like near-vertical grips on my precision rifles, and this NRL Hunter rifle was no different.
The Bubba in me reached for one of my spare Die Free Co. Kung Fu grips because it was the perfect shape and texture. A little Dremel work to remove the beaver tail, and it was perfect.
To finish it all off and actually put lead on target, Black Sheep Ammo provided a pile of their 143-grain ELD match-grade ammo. Made in Union, Missouri, Black Sheep is a newer brand of ammo manufacturer focused on quality over quantity. I’ve used almost everything they make, from 115-grain 9mm to this 143-grain 6.5 Creedmoor, and all of it has been impressive. Accurate, low SD/ES, and dead-nuts reliable. Plus, the brass is great for reloading as well.
Mason Valley Match
Just a hair outside of San Diego County in Southern California, you can find Mason Valley Ranch, a piece of land that hosts one of the best NRL Hunter matches in the nation. This was my second time shooting this match (once in 2023 and once in 2025), and both have been outstanding, though not without challenges.
Boasting 20 stages, it makes for a packed course of fire across just 2 days, with 12 stages shot on Saturday and the last eight shot on Sunday.
The madman in charge of Mason Valley is Serge Ducourneau; assisting the madness was Ben Gallimore. The Mason Valley match has become infamous for how the stages are designed to push shooters in every aspect. The targets weren’t easy to find, and like real animals, they were often where you wouldn’t expect them. Mason Valley is also infested with Sasquatch of a few types. These tall, skinny targets require wind calls with no margin for error.
The targets and the machinations of the match directors are only half the battle. The environment is the other. There was a 50/50 chance of precipitation and a 100-percent chance of wind. Though, it turned out mild by Mason Valley standards with temps in the mid 60s and wind gusting to only 35 mph
The course of fire is spread out across a wide area, and shooters walked 2-3 miles over both days. Most shooters have a love-hate relationship with Mason Valley. On the one hand, it’s an unforgiving match. On the other hand, it’s the challenge that keeps us coming.
As for the match, while Serge and Ben designed some truly diabolical stages, they weren’t all dialed to 11. Most of them were approachable, but some of those ate my lunch (curse you, Sasquatch!). All of it was educational.
And that’s the rub of NRL Hunter: If you’re willing to step up, the matches offer more education, excitement and fun than you can shake a rifle muzzle at.
If you’re not willing to accept the challenge—possibly a fat goose egg on your score—maybe try something less stressful … like watercolors or stamp collecting.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2025 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
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