What are your chances of wounding vs clean kill beyond 400 yards?

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Picher

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I'm concerned about the ethics of shooting at animals beyond the distance that people can hit a pie-plate sized kill zone on the FIRST shot.

Have you lost animals you've shot, or shot at at long distances (over 400 yds)? Do you commonly use a rangefinder, a wind meter, and have you actually shot your hunting rifle at ranges you hope to kill a big game animal?

The longest distance available to me for sighting-in was 450 yards, so I limit my shots to 400, using a .270 Win and hot handloads. We don't have many long fields and our favorite hunting spot has a 400 yd. max range down a woods road. If a deer isn't dropped in the road, sometimes it's impossible to find it.
 
Depends on caliber and the shooters skill level with the skill level being more important. Do what you KNOW you're capable of, don't take a shot your not capable of. As hunters it is our job yo kill our quarry as cleanly as possible, accidents happen, bad shots are made, bullets don't penetrate or expand correctly, it all happens and it's very hard to control everything but we all know our abilities and shouldn't push it animals are living things that shouldn't be tortured by someone taking a shot they are completely incapable of.
 
The only long range (to me anyway) around 400 yards, shot I have taken was on my first antelope hunt, with a 7 Mag and handloads. Put the first shot just slightly back, could see blood pouring out of her in the scope, missed the next 3 shots and she fell over while I was reloading. Where I hunt I don't need to shoot long range, so I don't practice it, thus even if presented with one unlikely I would take it. I can just wait a little while and take a shorter range shot. I would love to have a place to practice some longer range shooting, but it would just be for my own pleasure and fun.
 
I've killed coyotes and pigs at 400 yards, but pass on deer shots over about 300 yards. Lost a pig that I shot at 490 yards. Good blood trail, but rain came and I lost the trail. Many years ago I shot at a big buck that I thought was 350ish yards out. That was pre-RF. Hit him, but lost the blood trail. The shot, when stepped off, was closer to 450 yards. The crosshairs were perfect when the rifle fired. The blood I found was dark red. I had to have hit him in the right front leg, just south of the heart. Couple of weeks later, Dad called to brag about a big buck, with a tall white rack, that he had killed near where I had taken my shot. I asked Dad to look at the deer's right front leg. Yup, there was a bullet wound. I remember what he said, as he laughed - "son, I'm always cleaning up your mess". And he had the head mounted and then hung it right above my childhood bed, so I'd see it every time I visited.

Anyway, I'm far more selective with my shots now. Give me my 220 Swift and a RF and a coyote at 400 yards and no wind, and he's a dead coyote. A pig at that range I won't shoot with the 220, but will take him with the 260. A buck or doe at that range gets to walk. Out past that, I'll remain in observation mode.
 
It depends on skill, caliber and what you're hunting. I know a lot here like sub.300 calibers. Iron sights on a 30.06 at 200 yards might be a stretch. But with a good scope on a .50, 600 yards is not a tough shot, even with a little wind.
 
I'd bet my best rifle that there are more big game animals shot at ranges under 50 yards that are wounded and escape than over 500 yards. There are lots of casual hunters who don't practice enough or take ill advised shots. Generally speaking the guys who attempt the longer shots know their limitations and only pull the trigger when they know they can make the shot.

With modern optics, rifles and almost any cartridge shooting spitzer bullets 2800 fps or faster a 300 yard shot shouldn't be that hard with any form of improvised field rest or shooting sticks. Zero such a rifle at 200, even 100 yards and hold on the top of the animal and the drop on any of them will put the bullet in the kill zone.

Beyond 300 yards and out to about 400 wind starts to be a factor as does range estimation. But a shooter that has practiced up to 400, uses a range finder, a scope with dots or dials and has enough sense to not shoot when the wind is unpredictable should be able to do it.

This is my personal limit based on my practice. Never had to shoot beyond about 250 at a game animal, but have practiced enough out to 400 to feel safe at that range.

I've actually shot as far as 600 yards with shooting sticks and every shot would have been in the kill zone on an elk size animal. Not on a smaller deer size animal. But I've not done that enough to have the confidence to try to pull it off on game. Probably never need to do it anyway.
 
IMHO, only take shots you know you can make and the only way to know is to practice those shots under field conditions. Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to take a shot at up to 300 yards on a deer but have never needed to. My farthest was only 210 yards. I do use a range finder and highly recommend one, not only for longer shots, but for open areas where distance can be very deceptive.
 
On deer I hold myself to 300 yards. Coyotes or hogs I will give it a go out to 500.

We set up 5 targets at our hunting club and had 10 people to estimate the range and then take 1 shot at each.
Targets were 205, 290, 365,420 and 470 yards.

Only 3 estimated withen 10 yards of the correct yardage. The others were all over the board and some being almost 100 yards off.

Most were ok on the 205 and 290 shots , but after that it fell off quickly. Only 2 were able to even hit the 470 yard target.
 
Most of my kills on Bambi were made within 200 yards. Call it a Zen thing, I guess, but if I feel right, I'll take a long shot. I made a one-shot kill at 350 with the bullet hitting within an inch of where I wanted it. A one-shot kill at 450 was right into the heart, from the front.

But I've passed a few opportunities at maybe 75 or so yards because for whatever reason I just didn't figure I could hit where I wanted. Damfino.

Think of the kill zone, not the deer. At what distance can you be fairly certain that you can hit +/- 2" or so from a center point? If you think of it in terms of a specific target, forget about hunting and deer/coyote etc. It becomes much like shooting from any sort of rest at any sort of that-size target.
 
Knowing the distance really gets important out past 300. Before RF came into use I was an avid golfer and was pretty good with distance estimation. Yup, that's about a 5 iron....

I'm serious.
 
I'd give a guess of better than 50% of a poor hit. Not to seem arrogant but some hunters simply don't have the skill or equipment to consistently make hits @ 400 yards.
I've made a reputation of being a good long range shooter among a crowd of mediocre shooters but have to admit there are many, many far better shooters(big frog in little puddle sort of thing).
There's a huge difference(in my book) between flinging a long range shot at a varmint/predator and a game animal. If I cripple a coyote, I figure it's a fair return for the way coyotes kill their supper. A deer deserves a better end than suffering to death.
With the trend toward packing a relatively precise range finder and calibrated scopes, trajectory isn't the big problem it used to be. On the other hand, wind is still the demon it's always been when it comes to putting bullet on target over varied terrain.
 
I remember reading Jeff Cooper (somewhere) where he said that if you ever took a shot at a game animal beyond 300 yards, you should be forced to write a full page letter, longhand, in triplicate (no carbons) explaining exactly WHY you HAD to take that shot.

I always thought that was a good idea, as when sport hunting, if you can't get closer, you aren't playing hard enough....

I've never taken a deer beyond 200 yards, and barring starvation, will never try to. However, I have shot and hit woodchucks out to 600.

All about personal ethics I think. Just because you can make the shot (or think you can) doesn't mean you should take the shot.
 
Not that I am an expert or highly experienced by any means, but the only game animal I have shot farther than 300 yds was an antelope buck at about 320 yds, and that was as close as we were going to get to it. Other than that, I have always been able to get closer.
 
ethics

With all the chatter about long range hunting these days, folks are probably banging away at big game further away than ever before.

A lot of folks do not get much of an opportunity to hunt, if a legal critter shows, my observation is that many will bang away and hope for the best. Now, with all the hype, it seems as if it is almost encouraged.

For about a decade, I was in a deer lease that was cut by multiple gas and powerline right-of-ways. There were shooting houses erected on those R.O.W.s, and folks sat them regularly. A whitetail past 350 yds likely had the odds in his favor. The 7mm mag was the preferred caliber for that sort of thing, and big scopes. Some deer got killed, some were hit and lost, and a lot were likely clean misses. Most guys had little idea of the ballistics of their rifle at that distance, and no idea how a stiff wind might affect their shot. I'd say the hit/recovery rate was below 50%.

I was shooting at a pals place in recent weeks, at steel plates about pie plate size, out to 500 yds. The rifle/ammo combo was capable of about 2 MOA. This was known distance shooting, off of bags. Miss a wind call, and it was still pretty easy to miss the plates at 4-500 yds. If the distances were not know, it would have been even more tricky.

There are folks who have the ability to hit quickly consistently from field positions past 300 yds, but I do not think that that is the norm.
 
I'm with Bamaranger. It is not so much the distance as other factors. Cross winds, the animal moving, whatever. I know a few guys that shoot across the river for bear and deer and do good every year. I take shots on running deer all the time and we do good. There are people that would never take a shot on a moving deer. I would say it depends where you are hunting.
 
First, there is no such thing as a guaranteed rifle or caliber one shot DRT.

I shot an Elk with a 375 H&H, good heart lung shot, at 80 yards. He didn't go down right away.

I shot an elk at a measured 386 yards with a 270 Win., again heart lung shot. It went down instantly (except it rolled down the hill into a creek).

The difference???? The first critter though it wasn't running, was spooked and its adrenalin was high. The second didn't know I was even in the same area code.

I shot an antelope with the 270 W at 586 yards a couple years ago. It didn't know I was there. It ran about 100 yards, thought I missed until it did a triple summersault. When I dressed it, its lungs looked like a pile of used coffee grounds.

Last year I shoot one that was spooked at 635 yards. It went down like it was poll axed.

In short, YOU CAN NEVER TELL WHAT AN ANIMAL WILL DO WHEN SHOT.

400 yards isn't long range. The trick to shooting at ANY distance is fundamentals, and trust in your zero, sight adjustments for distance, and judging wind and other environmental conditions, and PRACTICE.

Of course I do use a range finder, and wind meter. The advantage I have, is I have access to a abandoned gravel pit on BLM land, about 2 miles from the house. I can easily shoot to 2000 yards.

I set up an 8 inch gong then climb on my 4 wheeler, drive all over the place to get different ranges, angles, wind, etc.

PRACTICE. Know your rifle and sights, and have a bullet that works at what ever range you intend on shooting.

I'm old and cant run around chasing critters all over creation. So I have to depend on my shooting to be successful. The thing is, setting and glassing I now see more game then when I was younger and ran all through the woods hunting.

The trick to long range shooting, is not a trick, its the ability to weaponized math.
 
... the animal moving...
Click to expand...

This is what kills me, pardon the pun. The hunter can do everything else right with the windage, elevation, and environmental assessment and have the perfect dope worked out, but then have a stationary animal move out of a properly placed killed shot into a miss or nasty gut shot in the amount of time it takes from when the signal is sent from the brain to pull the trigger (~0.1 seconds, assuming it isn't a slow squeeze to surprise firing) and the time of flight of the bullet (~0.5 seconds for a 2750 fps .308 150 gr. bullet @ 400 yards).
 
Back when I was young and stupid, I shot at a way-over-yonder buck. He was stationary and sideways to me. For wind, I held on a line with his nose. For elevation, I held a foot above his back.

The bullet hit the ground at his hind foot. Roughly five feet of wind drift and three feet wrong on trajectory. Guesstimate of 550 yards vs. my first estimate of 400.
 
Kraigwy summarized the entire thread
...weaponized math.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what TrackingPoint does with their guided projectiles.
And larger projectiles with high BC's make the math a bit easier for secondary effects like wind.
 
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