It is no secret that to become a better shooter in PRS and racegun rifle shooting, you need to be able to spot your hits and misses, in order to be able to compensate on the following shots for wind or other factors. To spot your own shots, there are a few factors at play, including your stance and driving of the rifle, as well as the follow through, rifle weight and recoil, which is also cartridge and caliber dependent. For all the other factors, you should read up on our Learn to shoot better series, but for the purpose of this post, we will be looking at rifle weight and how you can increase the weight of your rifle system.
The move to an aluminum chassis or micarta Foundation stock and thicker profile barrels have already had the consequence of increasing rifle weight dramatically over factory rifles with thin barrels, wooden or polymer stocks. With PRS shooters preferring rifles in the 18 to 25 lbs range, there are many ways to further increase your rifle weight. For most aluminum chassis systems, there are m-lok weight sets that can be added to it, both internal and external. Even for the Foundation micarta stocks, you get brass internal weight kits and some shooters have put custom brass arca rails on the forends to further increase weight and balance.
Let us look at the various metals and how much they weight compared to their volume or size below, and that could help you choose what materials to add to your stocks to make them heavier:
| Material | kg/m3 | lbs/ft3 |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | 21 440 | 1 340 |
| Gold | 19 280 | 1 205 |
| Tungsten | 19 280 | 1 205 |
| Mercury | 13 520 | 845 |
| Lead | 11 360 | 710 |
| Silver | 10 480 | 655 |
| Sterling Silver | 10 320 | 645 |
| Copper | 8 960 | 560 |
| Nickel | 8 880 | 555 |
| Bronze | 8 800 | 550 |
| Brass (Red) | 8 720 | 545 |
| Brass (Yellow) | 8 480 | 530 |
| Brass (Forging) | 8 400 | 525 |
| Steel (Cold Rolled) | 8 000 | 500 |
| Steel (Carbon) | 7 760 | 485 |
| Steel (Tungsten) | 8 080 | 505 |
| Steel (Stainless) | 8 000 | 500 |
| Tin (Soft Solder) | 8 400 | 525 |
| Tin (Pure) | 7 280 | 455 |
| Tin (White Metal) | 7 264 | 454 |
| Tin (Pewter) | 7 264 | 454 |
| Tin (Tin Babbit) | 7 520 | 470 |
| Iron (Pure) | 7 840 | 490 |
| Iron (Wrought) | 7 680 | 480 |
| Iron (Cast) | 7 120 | 445 |
| Iron (Malleable) | 7 200 | 450 |
| Zinc | 7 120 | 445 |
| Titanium | 4 480 | 280 |
| Aluminium | 2 720 | 170 |
| Magnesium | 1 760 | 110 |
Conclusion
As you can see, when it comes to value for mass, the best options remain lead, which some do not like for fixed parts because it is so soft, otherwise brass. It would be great if you could add solid Gold weights to your rifle, but you need to be some kind of royal family member to be able to do that.