Why You Should Compete in NRL Hunter in 2025

Competition has always been one of the best ways for a hunter to hone their shooting skills, but competing has never been more relevant or accessible than the NRL Hunter Series is now. My best development as a shooter was made while buckled into a sweaty shooting jacket, straining through the peep of an M1A or AR15 service rifle, but the gear, strategy and techniques of service rifle competition aren’t directly relevant to hunting. NRL Hunter is a precision-shooting sport, but it’s geared towards hunters and the equipment we take into the field.

I had a chance to experience NRL Hunter for myself this past spring, when Hornady and Leupold teamed up to put a crew of outdoor writers and experienced hunters through a crash course in precision rifle training to prepare us for the Hornady Precision Hunter Match in Utah a few weeks later. From the first shots sent downrange during training, through practice at home, and until the steel rang on my last target of the match, it was an enlightening experience. Here are five things I learned that improved my hunting shooting skills.

Every Hunter Can Benefit from Good Instruction

The first phase of our NRL Hunter experience was an intense three days of instruction and practice at K&M Precision Rifle Training in Finger, Tennessee. I’m an experienced shooter with solid basic fundamentals, but a sharp-eyed instructor can help anyone improve their technique. I learned several key things that helped me improve my shooting:

• How to properly position a shooting bag on different support surfaces
• How to build a variety of stable supported shooting positions at different heights
• Different ways to use a shooting tripod for support
• The importance of gear manipulation and a smooth workflow in a shooting situation

Every hunter can benefit from quality precision shooting instruction. You don’t need to become a serious PRS competitor, but a few of the techniques you learn will help you shoot more accurately, regardless of your hunting style.

Efficient Gear Manipulation Is Key

Whether backpack hunting for Dall sheep, stalking the Nebraska Sandhills for mule deer, run-and-gun coyote calling, or shooting an NRL Hunter match, smooth gear manipulation will help make you more effective. What does that mean, though?

Efficient gear manipulation means deploying and using your shooting or hunting gear without mistakes or excess movement. It starts with carrying or packing your gear thoughtfully — in a way that you can grab and use what you need quickly and effectively. How you attach your tripod to your pack, where you carry your shooting bag, whether you marked height settings on your tripod legs, and other details like that are important.

When watching experienced NRL shooters, you’ll notice that they set up their gear quickly while assessing the shooting situation in front of them. They will set their tripod to an appropriate height for the situation and probably won’t change it after that. As they move through the stage, they only use what they need, making it look easy. It’s not easy.

Being able to work smoothly with your hunting and shooting gear is much more important than what specific gear you choose. We often like to buy the best stuff we can because we believe it will offer us an advantage in one form or another. It can, but the gear alone does us no good if we fumble with it under pressure. Whatever you’re working with, you will be better in a competitive or hunting situation if you can train to use it quickly and efficiently.

Think Outside the Box

One of the most valuable things that I learned through training for, and shooting, an NRL Hunter match, was to recognize a wider variety of shooting positions. Like many hunters, prone is my comfort zone, and my confidence in other positions wasn’t outstanding. Unfortunately, neither competition or real hunting situations always allow for easy prone shots. In some terrain, it’s rare. Many times, being able to construct a solid non-prone shooting position will make the difference between seizing an opportunity or losing it.

Learning how to build a stable standing position with a tripod helped me quickly and efficiently shoot a nice mule deer buck with a muzzleloader this fall. Tall grass prevented a prone shot, and the buck was sure to see me as soon as I raised far enough above the grass. He was feeding on another nearby hill, at slightly higher elevation than us. Rather than crawl and try to set up a kneeling shot, I opened up my tripod, stepped uphill until I could see him clearly above the grass, rested the rifle on my tac table, and shot quickly.

Learning to think beyond prone, and practicing different positions and support methods will help you recognize more solid shooting rest options in hunting and competition scenarios. Where you may have previously just rested your fore-end atop a small boulder or tree limb or not even attempted a shot, you might now recognize that you can set your shooting bag on top of it for a more stable position. If time allows, you might be able to deploy your tripod and use the leg as a rear support, creating a position that is nearly as steady as prone would be.

Repetition Is Irreplaceable

The key to bringing both your gear and skills together smoothly under pressure is repetition. If you don’t practice it, it doesn’t matter how nice your rifle or gear is. If anything, this is one of the most common faults of hunters. We simply don’t practice. Go to a public shooting range a couple days before hunting season opens and you’ll see overwhelming evidence of this. Investing in a good-shooting rifle is highly regarded, and many hunters believe that picking a big cartridge will make up for poor shooting. The best gear or rifle cannot make up for lack of practice.

Even if you’ve learned valuable skills from a training course, you won’t be able to employ them effectively if you don’t practice. Between training and match time, I built a makeshift barricade out of old pallets and used it to practice several key skills every day.

I followed a simple 10-minute routine every morning where I’d use my .22 rifle and switch between standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone positions as quickly as I could, tracking my group sizes and time each day. It was simple, but helped me practice building positions, set my shooting bag on different surfaces properly, break good shots, and spot impacts — all under the pressure of a clock. I also practiced deploying and setting my tripod until it was second nature. Of course, I practiced some long-distance shooting, too, but the most beneficial repetitions were run with my .22 or by dry firing my match rifle in my backyard.

This type of practice will help you, but the repetition of shooting stage after stage for record in a real match will help you in a hunting situation even more.

Pressure Is the Best Teacher

The most beneficial component of competition shooting to a hunter is the pressure. In many ways, it doesn’t matter the discipline. Shooting under the pressure of a clock, observers, or competitors produces one of the most accurate simulations of the excitement we feel in a hunting scenario. NRL Hunter isn’t exactly like real hunting, but it asks us to complete many of the same tasks we face in the field — all under the watchful eye of a range officer and their clock. If anything, it’s a better exercise in pressure because unlike hunting, every stage has a tight time limit.

The pressure that you’ll feel when the RO says, “Your time begins now,” will make things seem more difficult than your backyard practice sessions. The key is experiencing and learning to function under pressure. Good shooting is only part of the battle. Something that makes the best shooters the best is that they don’t make silly mistakes — the kind you or I would. When they do make mistakes, they aren’t derailed by the pressure. They keep going and get back on track.

If you go shoot your first NRL Hunter match, you will make some big mistakes. Learn from them. Use the pressure as practice and prioritize thinking clearly and tackling each stage as deliberately as you can. You will slowly get better at handling the pressure and will be far better equipped for hunting season.

NRL in 2025

The 2025 NRL hunter season will be kicking off in January, running through August, and will feature 28 matches across the United States and Canada. As a challenge for the new year, pick a match near you, sign up, train hard, and have fun. You won’t regret it.