500 yd shots more common these days

600 yard group !2"

A close shooting buddy that collects Military rifles shot a Canadian Ross at the Leland, Ms range at 600 yards with peep sights and got a 12" group, that stuff is just awesome. I can't see the open sights that well.He shoots the old Enfields the same way. It ain't bragging if ya can do it and he proved it to me. These doubting Thomas's need to see some of the delta boys shoot,cause after the crop is in thats what they do. Money for equipment is no object so they try it all.:) :)
 
I have a 500-yard range here at my house. A shooting table, and three hanging steel plates of 22" diameter.
Click to expand...
Not to hijack but Art, I can't believe no-one said anything about this. Dude you got a cool house!
As for the 500 yard shot, do-able yes. What's the point blank zero range on a 300 mag at a deer sized vital area anyway? Even if I was that good, I wouldn't want to shoot past that because then you're getting into the field of sniping and worrying about things like drop. Also shooting from more than a quarter mile, I'd be afraid of finding just a gut bag where I dropped the deer by the time I got there :)
 
"I can tell you he has a panel truck with a bench, wind velocity meters, thermometers, range finders and computers and printers as well as digital cameras. Reloads in the truck also. He's very well equipped."
I kinda thought the idea was going hunting not taking the NASA jet propulsion lab with you :D
I like practising at long range with different calibers and bullets and some quite amazing shots are doable, I dont often take anything over 300yds on animals though, but I can practise out to 500yds on paper ok. The fun is in getting a decent group at these distances which means it isnt just a fluke.
 
Next Step

GPS pinpoint hunting is next. You won't even have to leave your truck. A GPS will aim a roof mounted firearm to the coordinates of a deer in the vicinity. A button in cab has to be pushed to actually fire the rifle. This will give the guy a sense that he is actually hunting. After the deer is down, a deer cleaning robot will be deployed. All the hunter has to do then is go gather the wrapped deer meat and throw in his truck.

I know a couple of guys that do 90 percent of their bird hunting with 28's. They are great wing shots. They do limit their range to the efectiveness of their shotguns, but they hardly miss. I am more impressed with these guys then anyone dropping long range game with some sort of super magnum something or another.
 
chemist, I call my house a hunt camp with wall-to-wall carpet and A/C. 100-yard benchrest on the front porch, pistol range in a natural bowl behind the house, and I clamp my clay-bird thrower to the back-porch deck. :)

The whole deal with this long range stuff is knowing the distance pretty close, and as I said, being able to dope the wind. If you know your rifle and the bullet's trajectory for a given sight-in, it can all work out quite nicely. I've mostly used one rifle for some 35 years, and I've been messing around with the '06 since I was a kid. Heck, I'm supposed to know this stuff. :)

At a known distance on a firing range, wind is the only real variable. That's a lot different from out-there hunting...

:), Art
 
No Arguements Anymore?

I suppose some of you think that long range shooting is no problem. Some of you consider that hunting.

I suppose that means you give the muzzleloader hunters that uses in-line weapons a big thumbs up.. They can hit game a bit farther then the traditional blackpowder shooters. But if you think long range rifle shooting is good, then in-line shooters should not get any grief from you.
 
IN LINES-------------NO Problem

Year before last ,I contacted Cecil Epps at PRBULLET.com in Canada and bought some of his world champion DEAD CENTER bullets for my OMEGA in line. He recommended using Triple 7, fffg powder around 100 grs and a mildot scope. The 45 cal Omega shoots super with his bullets. We set the cross hair to shoot 3" high at 100 yds, this gives the first dot below the cross hair a 200yd zero,2nd dot a 250 yd zero, and the 3rd dot a 300 yard zero. His 195gr bullet is 357 diameter in a 45 cal sabot. It has a ballistic coefficient of 370 ,I believe. it will tell you on the PRBULLET.com site. It leaves the barrel at 2000 fps or so. We are getting MOA at all the distances. That means the energy is there to kill Whitetails and Caribou at 300 yards. Read his testimonials and see his targets on the web site. He is a super guy and has done it all with a muzzeloader, call him on his 800 number and tell him the boys down in Vicksburg, Ms have been bragging on his Products. He fixed several of us up with scopes ,bullets and special breech plugs as well as load data. Our state just said ok to using 38-55 and 45-70 break down rifles with scopes during the primative weapon season.They shoot a long way also.:)
 
roy, hunting is a skill. Shooting is a skill.

I've sneaked up on deer close enough to toss a rock and hit 'em in the butt. Most of my kills have been in the 50-yard to 150-yard range and mostly neck shots. I've killed running bucks to maybeso 175 yards.

Overall, what difference does any of this imake if you can make a clean kill? All I care about is DRT. I'm happy for anybody to work with traditional muzzle loader, in-line, iron sights, whatever. Not my business, not my problem. All that counts is a clean, ethical kill.

Where I hunt, the deer are sparse. You can easily go for several seasons without seeing a shootable buck. If the only buck I've seen in several years is "way out there", it behooves me to be able to hit him clean. One thing I guarantee you: You're not gonna do much stalking in this wide-open country. You absolutely cannot be silent enough that a mule deer won't hear you in the rocks and dead crackly, noisy stuff. Other country, yeah. Here, no.

:), Art
 
The problem is worse in the west, with the wide-open country that a lot of folks aren't used to. And, to be truthful, a lot of them underestimate the distances, as well...
Click to expand...
Yes, we do. :D I seem to recall a javelina out there that I thought was a bit closer than the 50 yards at which I dropped hammer on my .45... :o (Ah, well, he made decent tamales, eventually.)
 
For those of you who honestly can make an ethical cold barel shot at these distances, how often do you practice? What kind of records do you keep? Software? I feel comfortable behind a rifle at long ranges but rarely take a shot on game past 400yds unless I have practiced the shot under similar conditions ei wind, altitude, angle...Just curious to know how yall are doin it.
~z
 
zeisloft, for me it's one of those "been doin' it a long time" things. I learned the trajectory of my pet load way, way back. That's why I tell the story on myself of my nine-shot, one-hit kill. I goofed on the distance.

So, I dunno. I've just never had any problem hitting whatever's out there, as long as I knew how far, and figured the wind okay. On a really windy day and any distance beyond some 200 yards or so, and I'll pass the shot. If it's pretty much an unknown way-over-yonder distance, I'll pass the shot.

I'm fortunate to live where I can go out in the back-country anytime and shoot at most anything. I'm talking canyon country where there's nobody around for miles and miles. I've stopped occasionally and used up a box or two of ammo on rocks at various distances, just to see what I could do. So far, so good. :)

Art
 
Art, I'm doing the same stuff some 500odd miles north of you on Palo Duro Canyon. It sure is tuff to get cold bore hits on rocks at 1500yds-1 mi. But it sure is fun when everything works. Wind swirls and thermal rised on a midday canyon wall are the best humbler I have found.
~z
 
+1 on that Art Eatman
I,m lucky too, I have places where I can put targets out as far as I want. Ive made a portable bench and just set them out one after the other, like 100, 200,300, etc and see wher it goes for any zero setting, check how many clicks for the increase I want ( means you have to do a real job on getting scope/reticle horizontal with the action though). I was always taught by my big brother and uncle " hold on Hair not Fresh Air"! and it works for me. Ive said on another thread though that creepin in close is the real rush in hunting, just not always possible. Red deer in the Scottish Highlands are in open hill country no trees or bushes, 2,3,400 yds is often the only shot your ever going to get. As Art says familiarity with your rifle and loads and practice.
 
No 500yd shots for me. I took a moose with a 30-06 at 350yds. That is the longest I will ever shoot! Moose are very big targets though... I can't even imagine shooting a deer at 300yds! Aweful small target to put a bullet in...if you can see it that is...
 
As a competition shooter most of the stories you hear about 500yd shots are total BS..........most people have no clue how far 500yds really is. I'll give you a great example, setup a 10footx10foot target out at 500yds and see if you even hit the target, you'd be surprised. So many factors come into play at that range most shooters are just average just cant make it work. Yeah if you got a big jacked up scope you gotta better chance, but with factors such as wind, ballistic coefficients, bullet drop,etc, you have to really do your homework to make a shot like that, A) hit your target B) make the kill, not just injure the animal and C) do it consistantly........so if you can spot lets say an elk at 500yds, take the shot and make the kill, then I'm impressed......most wont even hit the animal!!!
 
I'll agree up to a point. The magnum effect and BDC scopes make people think they can do it simply because the BDC on their $700 scope says they can. Rifles are a lot better than they were 20 years ago, scopes are a lot better than 20 years ago, marketing makes people think magnum cartridges shoot as flat as a laser, and so people think they can do it. But the weak link in the chain is still the shooter.

That said, I have seen some bona fide 500 yard shots. I wouldn't have taken the shot, but the other guys did.

If you put up a standard 5' x 5' target on a 500 meter range, people look at it and think it is a lot further than it is. Most people have no idea how big a deer really is (I had a guy ask me one time if there were any deer bigger than the 300 pounder I had hanging. I told him if there were, he should go find them and shoot them). Wind can have a huge effect. Mirage. Dust. Not knowing the trajectory of your particular cartridge. Uphill. Downhill. You name it, range estimation in the field is difficult if you have not done a bunch of it.

I have seen people shoot right over the backs of game because they thought the animal was "way over there", so they gave it a few inches of elevation. More like a few feet! I had a guy once point to a phone pole about a mile away and tell me he had shot an antelope about that far away with his 30-40 Krag. Although I am usually tolerant of the 500 yard claims, I had to call BS on that one and tell him why. He argued with me until I pointed out that phone poles are usually about 100 yards apart, and there were 18 poles between us and the pole he pointed out. So much for range estimation.
 
Let me approach this from a different angle.

As a preface, here is my hunting experience--

I grew up hunting deer in Wisconsin. The longest shot I know of occuring on our land there was about 150 yards. The last two deer I took were at 7 and 30 yards.

Now, I live out in the West where we shoot to 1000 yards at least a couple times per month, and as far as 1500 regularly, in both recreational and "match" conditions.

For anyone who practices and competes shooting at 6-12" steel plates from 200 - 1000 yards, shooting a 10" square at 500 yards is pretty much a "gimme" target, even in nominal wind conditions, as long as he's in a stable shooting position.

To make hits on small/practical targets at long distance, there are a number of things that have to come together, but it is not impossible as some would have us believe. I have taken new shooters who have never shot a bolt gun before, and have them making hits on MOA targets at 1000 yards in under a half an hour. Of course, I have done all the "homework" in this case... which is really the crux of the matter.

Now with regard to hunting, let's look at how most people set up their hunting rigs: sporter rifle in 308 up to some big mega-magnum, simple duplex reticle scope, and a zero to give them some reasonable point-blank range.

This is pretty much totally opposed to how people who make first-round hits at UKD targets to 1000 yards do it. They use instruments and skill to range targets, they have carefully computed drop and wind tables, they know how their loads behave in different atmospheric conditions, and they can precisely adjust the elevation and windage applied to their sighting system.

I don't think anyone in this thread has the data to support if it's more common or not than it used to be.

Certainly today there is more information and technology available to the average rifle shooter that can enable him to make regular hits at 500 yards, than there was 25 years ago.

-z
 
In the not-quite seven years I've been at TFL and at THR, I gay-rawn-dang-tee you that the majority of all posts where distances to deer or elk were concerned, the vast majority of all shots was inside 200 yards.

That's not to say more folks don't try 500 yards, nowadays, but IMO they're still a distinct minority.

FWIW,

Art
 
I say the number of long range shots these days is due as much to the lack of woods skill as to the new technology. Most hunters these days just do not spend enough time in the woods to know hone their stalking and tracking skills. I have never had to shoot anything past 250 yards, and I only do that when stand hunting across a peanut hay field.
 
True, Mannlicher, but I'd bet a lot of "500-yard" shots are a lot like Scorch's telephone pole example.

A guy brings a deer in: "He was 500 yards off!"

"Oh, where'd you hold, on him?"

"Aw, right on his back."

(Bullet hole just below the spine.)

"Hey, that's a flat-shooting rifle you have there!" :D

Art
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top