Saber Tactical Menace Precision Rifle Chassis Grabs First Podium

An interview by Chris Turek, Saber Tactical, with Josh Thomas, Pursuit of Accuracy

Rimfire precision matches don't leave much room for excuses. The targets are small, the wind is fickle, and the shooters lining up next to you are some of the best in the country. So when Josh Thomas of Pursuit of Accuracy stepped up to a two-day United State Precision Rifle Association World Qualifier with a rifle system he'd barely had time to run, including the very first competition outing for our new Saber Tactical Menace Precision Rifle chassis, we wanted to know how it went.

Spoiler: it went well. Josh finished 3rd overall out of nearly 100 shooters, dropping just three points across two days and eighteen stages. I sat down with him to talk about the match, the pressure of running new gear on a big stage, and what it actually felt like behind the Menace when everything was on the line.


The Interview

Chris: Let's start with the match itself. For folks who aren't familiar, what exactly were you shooting?

Josh: It was a two day USPRA qualifier. Basically, it's the match that determines who gets to represent the USA at the World Championship. So the stakes are real. You're not just shooting for a plaque, you're shooting for a spot on the team. We had just under 100 shooters there, and it was a stacked field. Some of the most competitive rimfire shooters in the country were on that line.

Chris: That's a heavy match to walk into with a new rifle. What was going through your head heading in?

Josh: Honestly, a little bit of everything. I knew going in that to be competitive, I needed three things to line up: an accurate rifle setup, dialed dope, and a rifle that was well balanced for making stable shots off all the different props you encounter on a course of fire. That third piece is easy to overlook until you're actually out there trying to get steady on a barricade or a weird prop position with the clock running.

Chris: Let's talk about the rifle system. This was the Menace's first competition outing, and you were also new to the action itself. That's a lot of unknowns stacked on top of each other.

Josh: It was. I was running a Deuce 2.0, which was new to me as an action, paired with the Menace, which was brand new, period. Its maiden voyage in competition. So I didn't have a deep well of rounds and reps behind this exact system going into the match. Not the ideal way to walk into a qualifier of this caliber, but it's also just the reality of testing new gear.

Chris: So how did you use the limited prep time you did have?

Josh: I didn't try to cram in more repetitions than I could actually absorb. Instead, I focused on how the rifle system reacted to being set on different props, how much input it took, or didn't take, to settle the rifle between shots and between positions. I wanted to build a feel for what "right" felt like with this setup, so that on match day I wasn't thinking about the rifle at all. I was just executing.

Chris: That's actually a great segue. Talk to me about the Menace itself. What stood out to you about how it handled on those props?

Josh: The biggest thing is how easy the Saber Tactical Menace Chassis makes it to balance a rimfire rifle. The buttstock is light, which shifts the effective balance point of the whole system forward, right around the midpoint of the chassis, which is exactly where you want a rifle like this to balance for prop work. When a rifle balances properly, it doesn't fight you when you set it down on a barricade or roll it into a weird angle. It just settles. That matters a lot in a match with eighteen stages of props, because you don't have time to fight your gun into position on every single one.

Chris: Did that balance show up for you in the way you expected once you were actually shooting the match?

Josh: It did. When the smoke cleared, the rifle system did exactly what it needed to do. At that point, the only variable left on the table was me, whether I could execute and not get in my own way. I ended up dropping three shots across two days and eighteen stages, which was good enough for 3rd overall. First and second only dropped two points, so it was tight at the top.

Chris: Walk me through those three dropped shots. Shooters always remember exactly where they lost points.

Josh: For sure. Of the three, one was on me. That one was correctable, and I know exactly what I'd do differently. The other two came on the smallest two targets we shot all weekend, in switchy wind conditions. Wind on tiny targets is one of those things where you can make the right call and still get beat by a shift you couldn't see coming. Those two didn't feel like gear problems or fundamentals problems. They felt like the kind of misses that happen at the level everyone at that match was shooting.

Chris: What's your takeaway looking back at the whole weekend?

Josh: Having the right gear is only half the battle, but it's also the first half of the race to the top. If your rifle system is fighting you, or you're second guessing your equipment mid stage, that's mental bandwidth you're spending on the wrong thing. When the system works the way it's supposed to, it frees you up as the shooter to actually focus on what wins matches: good trigger presses and good wind calls. That's what happened for me with the Menace this weekend. The rifle did its job, so I could focus on doing mine.

Chris: Third place, minimal reps, brand new chassis, brand new action. I'd call that a strong debut.

Josh: I'll take it. And honestly, knowing what I know now after a full match on this system, I'm excited to see what it can do once I've got real reps behind it instead of just prep week familiarization.

Josh Thomas competes as a sponsored shooter for Team Saber Tactical and was one of the first competitors to run the Saber Tactical Menace chassis in a sanctioned match. Congratulations to Josh on the podium finish. We can't wait to see what's next.