I have spent plenty of weekends on the clock in all sorts of competitions and classes, including Rimfire PRS, along with a handful of smaller regional and private precision matches, but until this year I had never shot in an NRL Hunter match, and I had never so much as watched its parent discipline, NRL, in person. That changed when Leupold, who happens to be based just down the road from me here in Oregon, invited me out to compete in this year's Relentless Rifleman match near Madras, an event they title sponsor from top to bottom. Including a particularly lucrative prize table for those participating in the competitive divisions (non-skills). So today I’ll take you through what many consider to be “The Toughest NRL Hunter Match in the West” and share the newfound obsession I’ve discovered in this long-range precision shooting sport.
What NRL Hunter Actually Is
Most first-time NRL Hunter competitors show up cold, sign the waiver, and figure out the sport in real time in the Skills division, which is exactly where I competed. I did not get that same cold start, however. Leupold had me out a few days early to their private range in Madras for three days of instruction, gear familiarization, and practice alongside a small group of Leupold staff and a handful of other media. It would be both rude and dishonest of me to write this up like I earned every bit of that experience on my own, so let's talk about what that head start actually looked like before we get into the match itself. Daniel Y. previously wrote an article about what it's like to do this all on your own here.
If you have not been exposed to NRL Hunter before, or haven’t read Daniel’s article series, here is the short version. It is a two-day, blind stage precision rifle competition built specifically to simulate western hunting scenarios rather than to reward the fastest trigger finger in the field. Matches are laid out along real terrain, in this case a juniper-covered ridge on Mud Springs Land and Cattle, a private property outside Madras whose owner has generously let NRL Hunter return year after year. What makes many call this particular match the “toughest” in the West is the unique combination of high and variable winds, and the fact that almost every stage shoots into or across a wide canyon, creating some unique wind and angle shooting conditions.
I don’t think you can get a view much better than this at any other match in the country!
Stages are built from a small set of standard components, either one target engaged from four positions, two targets from two positions, or four targets from a single position, and they get engaged near to far, far to near, or across a line left to right or right to left. You show up to a stage brief with no advance knowledge of distance or target placement, and you have four minutes to find, range, and engage to earn a maximum of 8 points.
Scoring is deliberately unforgiving in a way that rewards a good first shot far more than a good group (like in hunting). It runs on a 2-1-dead system: your first round on a target is worth two points, a second round hit only gets you one point, and if you miss both shots you get zero for that target and move on. A hunter connecting with roughly two out of every three targets, which is where I landed on my rougher first day, would be considered a mediocre hunter at best if we are talking about a real animal instead of a piece of steel. That is the entire point of the sport. NRL Hunter founder Travis Ishida has been deliberate about not letting this turn into another hit factor race, and it shows in the format. Every mechanic of the match, from the blind stages to the harsh miss penalty, is built to slow you down and force that first shot to count, which is precisely the skill that translates back to an actual hunt.
This year's Relentless Rifleman match ran 20 stages across two days, 12 on Saturday and 8 on Sunday, with a minimum round count of 72 and a maximum of 144, targets ranging from 200 to just under 1,000 yards and averaging around 425 yards. The rulebook caps any individual stage at a maximum of eight rounds, and matches are required to run at least 12 stages, so the total round count at any given NRL Hunter match will typically fall somewhere between 70 and 160 rounds depending on how well the field is shooting and how many stages get built into that particular event. It is a low round count sport by design, which matters more than it might sound like on paper. Central Oregon's high desert terrain around the Ochoco National Forest, with the Cascades and Mount Jefferson in the background, is rocky and unforgiving on ankles and gear alike, and competitors cover roughly three miles of walking across the two days of shooting. Not exactly a long hike, but the Eastern Oregon Desert isn’t anything to scoff at.
There is also a day zero built into the schedule before the match ever starts, typically the Friday before a Saturday and Sunday match. Competitors bring their rifles and match ammunition out to chronograph, which matters far more in the Open Light, Open Heavy, and Factory divisions than it does in Skills. Those divisions have to prove their rifle and ammunition combination clears NRL Hunter's minimum power factor of 380,000, calculated by multiplying bullet weight in grains by muzzle velocity in feet per second, unless they are shooting factory sealed ammunition in 6.5mm or larger at 130 grains or heavier, which is exempt from the PF requirement entirely. Skills division shooters do not have to meet any power factor requirement at all, and can run any rifle under .30 caliber and 3,275 feet per second. Day zero is also just a smart opportunity to confirm zero on a hot range the day before the match starts, especially with competitors traveling in from all over the western United States and beyond, since a rifle that got jostled around in a truck bed for six hours is not a rifle you want to trust blind.
Gearing Up: Three Days at Leupold's Private Range in Madras
Before any of us touched a stage, Leupold put us through three days of instruction and practice at their private range, and this is where the head start really kicked in. We spent those days learning the optics we would be running for the match, working through the software that ties it all together, and getting coached by some genuinely serious talent. Kyle Lamb (Viking Tactics), who I had previously trained under during a truncated CQB and night-shooting class through Surefire's Tennessee Turbo Nights event, was on hand, giving tips, as was Dan Bertocchini, a veteran NRL competitor whose read on positional shooting problems was worth the trip by itself. Travis Ishida himself, the founder of NRL Hunter, spent the week with us too, coaching, shooting, and taking photos, which is not something every new competitor gets to say about the guy who built the sport.
The Loadout
None of the following gear is strictly required to shoot an NRL Hunter match, and for some competitors, running high-end electronics might even run counter to the spirit of the sport if the goal is simply to get better with the rifle already sitting in the truck. But if you want to be competitive in a low round count match like this one, having your ballistic solution dialed in before you ever step up to a stage matters, and that is exactly what these three days were built around.
Optics & Apps
Leupold BX-6 Range HD: This was the single biggest piece of new tech for most of us in the group. It is Leupold's flagship rangefinding binocular, capable of ranging game out to 2,000 yards, trees to 3,000, and reflective targets to 6,000 in long-range mode, and it houses the Hornady 4DOF ballistic engine directly in the unit. On a blind stage, being able to glass, range, and get a firing solution without ever taking your eyes off the glass is a real advantage, and it is the same reason serious western hunters have been moving toward rangefinding binoculars in general.
There will be a more in-depth look at this particular piece of equipment because I think it genuinely gives a hunter or competitor in this sport a significant advantage over a traditional set of binos and a separate range-finding device. In particular, because the BX-6 Range HD’s software houses a very accurate and handy wind-particle simulator, which lets you very consistently and quickly read wind as long as you have dust, debris, or even leaves or trees blowing in the background.
We’ll take a look at the BX-6 Range HD in a future article, but for now, just know that this one piece of equipment is largely responsible for doing a lot of the heavy mental lifting that would normally be done by the shooter to get an accurate first round shot.
Leupold Mark 4HD 6-24x52 M5C3: This is what topped our rifles for the week. It is a first focal plane scope with a 4:1 zoom ratio, a 34mm tube, and Leupold's ZeroLock M5C3 elevation turret, which gives you 30 mils of travel across three revolutions with a tactile stop that keeps you from getting lost in your dial. Between the 6-24x magnification range and side focus parallax adjustment down to 25 yards, it covered everything we needed from the closer 200-yard targets out to the near 1,000-yard shots without feeling like the wrong tool for either end of that spread.
Leupold Control App: This is the piece of software that actually ties the BX-6 and the rest of your ballistic setup together. You build your rifle and ammunition profile inside the app, and it pushes that data over Bluetooth to the binocular so your dope updates in real time as your environmental conditions change. Entering a new rifle or a new load, or dropping a GPS pin on a spot you want to remember, all happens through this app, and honestly it is worth spending real time with it before your first match rather than trying to learn it stage side.
Hornady 4DOF: The ballistic engine underneath the whole system is Hornady's 4DOF calculator, which solves for drag coefficient and the actual physical modeling of your specific bullet rather than relying on a single ballistic coefficient number the way older calculators do. It is also the first widely available calculator to correctly account for aerodynamic jump, which is the vertical shift a bullet experiences when it meets a crosswind. At the distances NRL Hunter shoots, that kind of precision genuinely changes whether your first shot lands.
The Ammo
Hornady .25 Creedmoor 134-grain ELD Match: Hornady supplied our match ammunition for the week, and this was the load we ran. It is built around Hornady's Heat Shield tip, which resists the aerodynamic heating that degrades a normal polymer tip bullet's ballistic coefficient at extended range, and it produced legitimately impressive groups off the Vandal 2 all week. I legitimately have never had any real complaints about Hornady’s ammo quality, especially their match-grade competition ammo, and this week was no different in terms of ammo performance. That being said, a good chunk of my fellow shooters that week ran the whole match with their own home-brewed ammo.
The Rifle
Horizon Firearms Vandal 2: Derrick Ratliff of Horizon Firearms, an upcoming guest on TFB's own Behind the Gun Podcast, supplied the rifles for the match, and I was issued one of his recently updated Vandal 2 Core rifles chambered in 25 Creedmoor. At roughly $2,300, it undercuts a lot of the rigs I saw in my own squad by a wide margin while still being a legitimately premium small-batch factory rifle. Derrick participated in the match with us and used one of his rifles in a setup nearly 100% identical to ours.
It comes with a premium steel barrel in Horizon's Varmint #4.5 contour with skip dash fluting and a shale coating that carries through to match the action, a TriggerTech Primary curved shoe trigger, and an Iota BKS stock in their textured Timberline finish, all built around a Stiller Hyrax action. What makes this configuration particularly interesting from a rules standpoint is that Horizon Firearms sits on NRL Hunter's approved SKU list for the Factory division, meaning this exact rifle, in a caliber that clears minimum power factor, could be legally run in Factory rather than needing an Open class build. Horizon does not currently have a rifle marketed specifically for NRL Hunter, but they told us one is coming.
- TriggerTech Primary Curved Trigger: The trigger on the Vandal 2 deserves its own mention since it is such a big part of what makes a rifle like this shoot the way it does on the clock. TriggerTech ships the Vandal 2's Primary curved shoe set between 2.0 and 2.8 pounds from the factory, adjustable down to 1.5 or up to 4.0 pounds, using their frictionless release technology that keeps the pull consistent shot after shot without relying on polished or lubricated surfaces that wear over time.
- Iota BKS Stock: Horizon's in-house stock brand, Iota, builds the BKS that comes on the Vandal 2, finished in a textured Timberline coating that blends tan, olive drab, and gray into a pattern that looks as good in a truck bed as it does on a stage. It ships with an integrated ARCA and Picatinny combo rail on the forend, which matters more than it sounds like once you are trying to run a bipod on uneven, rocky ground.
- Stiller Hyrax Action: The Vandal 2 is built around Stiller's Hyrax action, a tightened, higher tolerance revision of their Predator action with a pinned recoil lug and a pinned and screwed 20 MOA rail. It runs an extended Remington 700 footprint magwell that accepts AICS pattern magazines, which is the same magazine standard most of the field was running.
Support/Load Bearing Gear
Banish 30-V2: Every rifle in our group ran suppressed, and mine wore a Banish 30-V2 from Silencer Central. It is a fully user serviceable titanium suppressor rated for anything from .17 HMR up to .300 Weatherby Magnum, and it ships in a modular design that lets you run it long at 8.17 inches for maximum sound reduction or break it down to a shorter 6.4 inches when weight and length matter more, which is exactly the kind of tradeoff you are constantly making on a match like this where you are hiking with the rifle slung as much as you are shooting it.
I ran mine with the optional Banish Suppressor Brake installed in place of the standard end cap, a precision-machined titanium insert that trades a bit of additional sound suppression for genuinely noticeable recoil reduction and faster return to target between shots, which mattered more than I expected once I was trying to spot my own impacts through the Mark 4HD on some of the further stages.
Atlas Bipod: Every rifle in our group ran a B&T Industries Atlas bipod off the front ARCA rail. If you have shot any precision rifle discipline in the last decade, you already know why. The independently adjustable legs and preloaded pan and cant let you get a solid front rest on uneven rock and brush without having to fight the terrain into submission first. However, a far more capable and popular option for this sport is the MDT CKYE-POD GEN3 Triple Pull Bipod, which has an insane amount of extension and really helps you get into odd prone or seated shooting positions when the terrain is unsuitable for a tripod.
ColeTac: ColeTac provided our armband shooting boards, which are a handy quick reference to keep track of targets and shooting conditions, and also helps you mentally prepare for the stage once you get to the placard and get the initial info before you’re allowed to start the stage and glass. This is a piece of equipment virtually every shooter has on them in some shape, form, or fashion.
Eberlestock backpack: Carrying everything through roughly three miles of terrain over two days is not optional, and the Eberlestock pack our group ran handled the ammunition, the spare layers, and the rest of the kit without ever feeling like it was fighting me on the move between stages. Many other companies like Osprey and even 5.11 Tactical make backpacks that are suitable for this type of setup, but I’ve always liked Eberlestock’s blend of design and durability.
The Eberlestock backpack along with Leupold’s Pro Guide Tripod, and an Abel Company Gen2 shooting table
Armageddon Gear shooting bag: A good rear or barricade bag is one of those things that does not look important until you are trying to hold a natural point of aim on an odd angle with the clock running. Armageddon Gear's Game Changer line is about as ubiquitous in this sport as it gets, and for good reason. I’ve got plenty of my own, but for this match I used one of the Leupold branded ones with the heavy fill material inside of it - this is probably my most favored piece of peripheral equipment, and I ended up using the bag on virtually every stage - don’t skimp out on this one if you’re serious about hunting.
Spiritus JSTA Pouch: Not a necessary piece of gear, but one I found handy is the Spiritus JSTA Pouch, which I had mounted to my belt. I found this a handy place to stash my spare mag (a 5-rounder) in case my primary went down, and also kept a small rag and a lens pen there too for dusting off my optics between stages.
What a Realistic NRL Hunter Loadout Looks Like
Strip away everything I just described, and NRL Hunter's own FAQ lays out the actual baseline gear list, and it is a lot shorter than what my group was running. At minimum, you need a rifle with a bipod and a quality scope, a rangefinder or rangefinding binocular, a shooting bag, a pack that can carry everything but still let you access it quickly on the clock, and the right clothing and footwear for the terrain. That is genuinely it. Plenty of competitors show up running the same rifle they hunt with every fall, a basic rangefinder, and a bag they picked up secondhand, and they do just fine, because the sport is designed to test the hunter rather than the price tag on their rack. NRL Hunter even runs a loaner program for members who want to try match caliber gear from partner brands without buying in first.
What Leupold, Hornady, and Horizon gave our small media group, and what a handful of other well-sponsored competitors in my squad were running, was a significant leg up over that baseline. Having the BX-6 Range HD on hand, which gives you a firing solution the instant you range a target, instead of ranging with one device and running numbers through a separate app or a data card, saves real seconds on a four-minute clock when a majority of that is often taken up with trying to just find the targets. So, rather than pretending everyone in the Skills division starts from the same place, I think it's worth mentioning here that my particular setup was high-end in a lot of respects, even though there were some outrageously fancy setups at the match as there are in any form of firearms competition.
Match Days at Mud Springs Land and Cattle
The match itself ran two days, ten stages a day, each with anywhere from one to four targets built out of that same set of standard NRL Hunter layouts. My first day was rough. I took several zero stages, meaning I walked away with no points at all, which stung, but I tried to give myself some grace given that I had genuinely never done this before. Skills division shooters get to glass early on a stage if they want to, which I took advantage of more on day one just to get a feel for how the format worked.
What does not show up in the stage descriptions or the round count numbers is what happens once the last shot of the day is fired. NRL Hunter allows free dry camping right at the match location, RVs and tents welcome, and a good portion of the field takes them up on it rather than driving back into Madras or Prineville for a hotel room. The result is less of a typical match parking lot and more of an actual camp, with tailgates down, coolers open, and a loose rotation of people wandering between rigs trading food and stories about whatever stage humbled them that day.
Nobody is talking about hit factors or trigger pull weights around the fire at night. It is closer to a festival than a competition once the sun goes down, koozies clinking, kids running around camp, and strangers who were squadmates twelve hours earlier turning into the kind of friends you already have plans to shoot with again next season. That atmosphere is not an accident either. NRL Hunter has built its whole identity around being a family affair, right down to comping a youth slot with every adult registration, and there were a lot of kids at the match too participating right alongside the adults. Pretty cool.
Day two felt different almost immediately. While the skills division allows the shooter to pre-glass the stage while other shooters are running their stage, on the second day I elected not to do this, and those in our small group jokingly called this "Skills Plus," wanting a more realistic look at what the match would feel like if each of us stuck with this sport going forward. It was harder. It also felt far more put together than day one had. I finished the match in sixth place overall in the Skills division, with only three zero stages total, all of them on day one. Day two, I never zeroed a single stage again, squeaking out at least a two on my worst stage of the day and scoring six or better on most of them.
Final Thoughts - I'm Going Back
Here is the thought keep coming back to every time I think back on this match and what I’ve been taught. If a hunter only connected on 63 percent of the animals they had a shot at, and we are not even talking about shot placement at that point, most people would call that a mediocre hunter at best. That is exactly the gap NRL Hunter is built to close. It uses practical gear, very likely the same rifle you already hunt with, at distances and in positions that force you to slow down and make that first shot count, because a first-round hit is worth twice as much as a follow-up. Travis Ishida has been deliberate about keeping this from becoming another fast-paced, hit-factor-scored sport. That is not the goal. The goal is giving hunters a structured way to sharpen the specific skills that show up in the field, put themselves into odd positional problems on purpose, and treat marksmanship as a discipline worth practicing more than once or twice a year around tag season.
Coming from a lot of tree stand hunting experience in the South and Midwest, or otherwise just punching holes in paper nearly every week on The Rimfire Report testing ammo and guns, this match was a genuine eye-opener into what non-tree stand hunters, particularly out here in the West, deal with as a matter of course. There is nothing wrong with hunting from a stand, especially if it is putting meat on the table on a budget, but for a huge number of hunters around the world, a comfortable shooting position simply is not the reality. NRL Hunter puts you through roughly 20 different simulated hunting scenarios over two days, sometimes ten in a single day, which by itself is more practical shooting reps than most of us get in an entire season of actual hunting. If you have never tried it, my honest advice is to find a Skills division slot at a match near you and go find out for yourself. It certainly put a smile on my face!
