The PRS Grand Slam witnessed an unprecedented tactical victory this past weekend at the K&M Precision Rifle Competition, where a CZ 457 Varmint MTR, chambered in .22LR, secured the overall Open Series win. Competitor Chad "The Rimfire Rookie" Harrison clinched the top spot, not through superior ballistics, but via a meticulously exploited technicality in the 2024 rulebook and an almost pathological commitment to zero-hold shooting. Harrison, running an apparently stock CZ 457 Varmint MTR with a Nightforce ATACR 7-35x56 Mil-XT mounted on a 60 MOA ARC M-Brace, eschewed traditional DOPE and instead relied on a laminated map of the K&M range overlayed with pre-marked wind flags and range estimations from a week-long pre-match surveillance operation.
The strategy became horrifyingly clear on Saturday's notorious 1200-yard 'Desert Serpent' stage. While competitors grappled with 25 MPH full value wind calls using 6 Dasher and 6 BRA platforms, Harrison simply held dead center, calculating the full Coriolis effect and spin drift for the .22LR projectile to drift precisely into the A-zone. His Eley Tenex, meticulously sorted for lot number and weighted to within 0.0001 grains, reportedly exhibited an SD of 1.2 FPS over the chrono, providing an unnerving consistency that centerfire shooters could only dream of. The CZ’s minimal recoil and barrel harmonics, often overlooked, allowed Harrison to maintain an unbreakable sight picture, even through mirage that swallowed 6.5 CM impacts.
Post-match, PRS officials confirmed Harrison’s score, citing the absolute letter of the rulebook. A stunned PRS Board has already convened an emergency session, with whispers of a "Chad Harrison Clause" being drafted to explicitly prohibit rimfire platforms in the Open Series. Meanwhile, Harrison was last seen calibrating his Kestrel 5700 Elite for an upcoming smallbore silhouette match, reportedly mumbling about optimizing for density altitude at 300 yards with a sub-2 MOA extreme spread. The incident has sent shockwaves through the competitive long-range community, forcing many to question the very foundation of their multi-thousand-dollar custom actions and hand-tuned loads.
