OK, sorry for the long delay in responding. Now, as i have said, i have experiance shootiing varmit at extended ranges, but i have no experiance shooting biggger game at those ranges.
Im not talking about going out and finding my first deer,elk,whatever and making my first shot a 1k+ gamble. I want to start like everyone else here and get as close as i can. BUT i do intend to work my skill up so that if the need/opportunity presents itself i will be equiped to take the long shot.
For me getting on my hands and knees is a difficult thing. I have a knee injury that makes crawling a uncomfortable and painfull experiance. Knowing that, i feel that not being able to crawl comfortably will force me to work on long range hunting/shooting skills.
I have spent some time thinking about this topic, and i truly understand the sentiments here. They make sense, when you consider its a old sentiment. Born of a time when guns and ammo wernt capable of hitting anything reliably past 200 yards. Thus birthing the above said sentiments. Now tho we have guns and ammo capable of much much greater accuracy, and its tempting people to take these long shots and work up the skill to reach out and do it cleanly.
Part of this is knowing when to take the shot and when not to. That is something that is mentioned alot when a new shooter asks about long range hunting on the forum at
www.longrangehunting.com. Wind is the biggest determing factor in a shoot or dont shoot get closer situation. The key thing to remember is, that long range hunting takes experiance. You cant and wont get that experiance to know when you can take the shot, or when to move closer, or what fine tuning of the scope is needed untill you actually go out and try it.
On the cartridge side, i have been looking at the 30.06AI, the 7mmsaum,7mmrum,7mm Allen magnum, .300wsm, .300winmag.
Im sure there are more .300's out there, im still looking, but im gonna try and narrow my feild down to one cartridge.