Congrats to Lou Murdica on taking the win at the California Benchrest State Championships, which were presented by the Visalia Sportsmen’s Association on March 27th and April 18th! Lou, a close personal friend of Walt Berger and a Team Berger Member, took the win with a grand aggregate of only 0.299 inches!

For those of you unfamiliar with benchrest shooting, their goal is to get the smallest group possible in each match. Over the course of 20 matches in total, Lou’s grand agg was 0.299 inches. That means his AVERAGE group size was 0.299″ at 100 yards. Many of us are happy if we can shoot a half inch group at 100 yards, let alone reliably repeat that. This is why so many people say that benchrest shooting is one of the most competitive disciplines of shooting there is, but it sure is rewarding when you are shooting those tiny groups.

Lou was shooting a Berger 6mm BR Column bullet out of a 6mm PPC cartridge, which was fire formed from Lapua 220 Russian Cases. This bullet was built with 100-300 yard benchrest competitive shooting in mind, and is the same bullet that Walt Berger uses when competing.

Lou’s results were as follows:

• 1^st Place LV 100-200 – 0.2155
• 1^st Place SPT 100-200 – 0.2083
• 1^st Place Sporter 5 Shot 200 Yards – 0.2402
• 1^st Place Sporter 5 Shot 100 Yards – 0.1764
• 1^st Place Light Varmint 5 Shot 100 Yards – 0.2000
• 1^st Place Light Varmint 5 Shot 200 Yards – 0.1962

Note: 200 yard aggregates are presented as average group size at 200 yards divided by 2, so that you can compare them with 100 yard groups.