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

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The first part of that question is can you hit. A friend of mine hunted elk. When he left home, he would have trajectory and lineage tables taped to his stock, memorized as well. When a person shoots dozens of guns, relying on memory is reckless. He had range finder scopes that he learned completely, and he learned how to dope wind.

He was REALLY good. One of the guys who could put those rounds in a pie plate, in the field, reliably at 400. Whoever it is, I'd like the hunters to follow his lead, not go by guesswork.. just learn the distance and work on wind. He used a 7 mm magnum. Took several elk.

The second question is how slow can you let a bullet get and still mushroomed and have the energy to tear a big enough hole. I think that any 06 class cartridge can kill out to 300+ -, as long as it's a good bullet that will perform at the lower velocities, and even 400 if that round hits the proper place.

There are places that can reliably kill game, and other spots that can cause lethal wounds. If you wind up behind the lungs, through the gut, 300 magnums will do a lot more damage. If shooting a 270, you've really got to be in a really sensitive spot, or the round may not be good enough at longer ranges and diminished velocity, a magnum gives you a little more room.

Is that an answer? Can you plonk your butt on the ground after a long walk, with shooting sticks, and hit that pie plate 6 or so out of ten? Are the rest still in the range of a torso shot?

Using good hunting ammo, that defines your acceptable longest range, imo. If you can make those shots at 300, with 06 range rounds, you would still be okay to reach out to 400, as long as you know your rifle, use your windage and range info, and accept that you have done your best, and are willing to accept failures. you can maybe finish a wounded animal.

Right now, I wouldn't shoot much beyond 150. Too long out of practice. As a boy, I could have done 300, but now, whatever I shoot, I'm afraid that I'd blow that shot.

Shoot as far as you are lethal with almost any shot, and you don't have to fire an ultra magnum.

I suggest that everyone should go into the field with a little humility and a lot of. Preparation. My dad took his 30-06 into the field after elk, firing a half box of shells for prep and sight in, and never shot any more. I don't think that was right for a Wyoming hunt. He was good off of a bench once a year, but not good enough for elk in the field.

He once asked me to hunt Idaho with him, but I couldn't take leave from work. God, in retrospect, I wish that I had quit the job if I had to. The hunt of a lifetime. He didn't go, because I wouldn't, and he was really hurt.
 
What are your chances of wounding vs clean kill beyond 400 yards?
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Because you asked Picher:
A 400 yard shot for me with the hunting equipment I use is possible. But at that 400 yrd and beyond distance I know my shot is marginal at best and dangerous to others out & about. Such bullet having a higher then preferred chance of a terminal wounding for my quarry,_ a miss is unlikely but still possible. Knowing that. Keeps me from attempting as all through my hunting life I always managed to dispatch my deer with one _spot-on humane shot. (30 plus to date) at reasonable ranges. Such a shot for Extreme Distant Shooters formally trained_ military trained_ or self taught is seldom accomplish. Not believing? Just watch some of those so called professional long distance hunting shooter shows on TV. Count the shots and see their animals shot everywhere else other than their quarry's ribs_ neck_spine_or head. Gut shots more often than not I’ve seen quite often. Saying the above. I don't promote such a big game harvesting technique be done by anyone. That's my opinion on this subject liked or perhaps not.
 
I try to get a 200 yard rig for deer hunting. A shot inside 200 is a lot simpler than ones at longer ranges. I hunt for meat, but I am not going hungry if I don't get a deer.

At this point the only sport aspect of hunting for me is trying to get as close as possible before shooting. If I can get within ten yards that is better than ten points.
 
I have only taken two animals at that range, one at right around 400 and another right around 500. These were mule deer when I was stationed in Colorado. I used an AR-10 with a 20X scope. Each animal was DRT. This was in the era before everyone used ATVs to hunt with. Hauling a field dressed 220lb mulie up a steep hillside for 300 meters to the road is not nearly as much fun as it sounds.


With proper training, math and ballistics will tell you that if you use the right ammunition and gun; range is just another number.


Picking up an old Mosin at the pawn shop and blasting away at Elk with some milsurp ammo at 500 yards would be the opposite of the above.
 
That's exactly what TrackingPoint does with their guided projectiles.
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Partially. You still have to tell TP what the wind conditions are and that is a major shortcoming of many shooters at distance. Also, TP does not have guided projectiles. They shoot regular, matchgrade bullets. Once the bullet leaves the barrel, there is no guiding performed.
 
Prone and calm/rested with a bipod on an undisturbed animal at 400 yards, using a flat shooting rifle with a high-power scope? That's a walk in the park. I can hit a woodchuck in the head at that distance.

Under typical big game hunting conditions, with my heart pounding from just having made a stalk, resting on a backpack, with a lower powered scope on a light-weight gun, with an animal that's jittery because it thinks maybe it saw something where I am... that's a whole 'nother thing.

So many scenarios, so few blanket answers to give us a nice clean answer for them all.
 
My longest shot on a deer was at 465 yards and it was DRT. But I probably let a 100 walk before I took the shot. I hunt a large field from a stand that I built as a shooting bench. It measures 8 X 8 and is 8 foot off the ground and has a solid bench built into it. I practice a lot from that stand and I have ranged the entire field. I printed out a map of the field from Google Earth and use a RF to check distances. If I hunt a new area the first thing I do now is print out a map of the area and using a RF I plot distances and record them on the map.

My magnum rifles are sighted in at 300 yards, everything else is set at 200 yards. When I hunt this field and a deer steps out I know within 25 yards the distance to the animal. Most of my shots are at 300-350 yards. There is a ditch there and the deer seem to follow the ditch out into the field.

So, if you plan on shooting game animals at far distances then get comfortable shooting beyond your comfort zone. That means from prone, hanging from trees like Tarzan, whatever. But I practice from my bench all year long. A lot! I started out using cardboard targets with 2 inch stickers at 500 yards. Now I shoot steel plates with 2 inch black painted dots. I'm aiming at the dot, not the plate. You really don't want to injure an animal at long range. By the time you get to where you shot him he may have travelled a long ways. Here in the south he may have crossed several creeks and shoved his way through thickets that would stop a tank. And most likely it will be dark thirty by that time too.

And shoot the biggest and most accurate caliber that you can handle. I prefer to see daylight through them when I pull the trigger. :D
 
Just something that everybody should know; the USGS provides maps and information.

http://nationalmap.gov/ustopo/

If a person is walking into unknown territory, whether or not a gps device is available, a printed topo map will be a lifesaver if needed. GPS devices can get broken batteries die. A flat topo map gives all of the information you would need, and if you are any good at reading topography, you can find yourself just by your surroundings, and map out a clear and safe path. A reason that I would prefer a physical map is that it is a full, wide, clearly drawn map, rather than a thing the size of a paperback.
 
It just all depends on how good you can shoot. It is in all honesty more ethical for me to shoot a deer at 600 yds than it is for some of the knuckle heads that hunt on the adjoining land to shoot at deer at 100 yds. One of them missed a buck at under 15 yards, using a rifle. It is bad to miss with a bow at 15 but a rifle???
 
One of them missed a buck at under 15 yards, using a rifle.
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With some scopes on a moving deer, not running, just moving, not too difficult to do. Should know his equipment better, but doesn't surprise me.

If I use a scope on my deer gun I also have irons for close shots. may not get a perfect cheek weld, but inside 50 yards it doesn't much matter.
 
I hunted with a guy that missed a whole herd (literally, a herd) with 5 shots from a semiauto 12ga when they were standing about 25 feet from him. They didn't run until he started flailing around to reload. Only my dad and I saw that fiasco.

Same guy missed one with his muzzleloader, resting on the side of his truck, with the deer broadside and stationary at about 40 yards. That one had 1/2 dozen witnesses.

But, just because he can't, don't mean I can't.
 
Let me toss another thought ij. We've read and heard all of the ideas, even from boon and Crockett, now let's ask the deer.

Missing the kill zone is not the same thing as missing the deer.
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from Denver post.

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deerfriendly.com
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Unknown
 
The thing about hunting is some people get buck fever and some don't. If you are one that gets excited and can't control your breathing or heart rate I would suggest letting them walk at that distance. If you dont get excited then either you are just getting meat for the freezer or maybe you shouldn't be hunting. Taking a long shot just for the challenge isn't good hunting ethics in my book.

I wish I had a dollar for everytime I've heard someone say ( I wouldn't normally shoot that far but I couldn't let that trophy walk away) and I'd say most hunters aren't capable of guessing the correct holdover at 400 yards. I have a 400 yard range in my back yard and I've never taken a shot that far. I'm very capable and have rifles purposely built for shooting that far but they aren't my normal hunting rifles. I've lost a deer before and I can't sleep after losing one.
 
Proper, I can't understand how anyone even shot a deer in the nose. Another shot that should not have been take. I'm not sure why a reward was posted, unless it was poaching.

The second one is probably photshopped. But, they are examples of whAt happens.

Ed Lyle was at deer camp with my dad, and missed a shot, but blew up the things back knee. Then, he drove it back to camp by chasing and poking it. If it had gotten away, he'd have let it go and waited for another one.
 
You have to realize that there are millions of hunters and multiple millions of shots taken every year.

The fact that there are a few (literally, a few) pictures and discoveries of oddly wounded animals is no surprise. If 0.0001% of shots caused a "freak" wound, there'd still be dozens of them. It is not necessarily indicative of slob hunters taking unethical shots.

A friend of mine showed me pictures of a doe that he shot through the head with a bow. She had been standing broadside at a laser ranged 18 yards. At some point between "too late to stop the shot" and "before the arrow got there", she whipped her head back against her side, as if a horse fly or something had just bit her. He couldn't explain the exact timing of it, which is understandable considering that the time between "squeeze" and "impact" might be a 1/2 second and it's pretty hard for the human brain to properly sequence unexpected events in such a short window of memory.

Weird stuff happens.

It is silly, IMO, to separate out a single variable such as distance and draw an arbitrary line somewhere between "ethical" and "unethical".

I've killed many dozens of deer. I lost count years ago. I've wounded a few. Every one of them was a close range, "gimme" shot where I can't explain what went wrong. The longest shots I've ever taken, while not "long" by the context of this thread, have all been successful.

There's a lot more to it than distance.
 
My cousin is a marvelous shot with rifle, black powder rifle, and bow. That said, I did find a doe one cold crisp winter morning. She just stood there as I walked up to her. Had an arrow hanging in her rectum. Too weak to move. I put her out of her misery. It was my cousin's arrow. I never told him, knowing he'd feel terrible. And one day I was skinning out a big buck, with the cousin standing by and drinking my coffee. He made some snide comments about my marginal bullet placement. And just about then, there was a "clunk". Not supposed to be a "clunk", so I looked around and found a flattened musket ball that had fallen from under the skin of the buck. Knowing exactly where that ball had come from, I handed it to the cuz and said "I think this is yours". He shut up about my shot placement. Point being that even the best of shooters aren't always perfect.

I saw the cuz put 3 arrows in a group you could cover with your palm at 90 yards.
 
If I counted the squirrels that I have gotten bad hits on, or missed entirely, I'd quit hunting. Fortunately,squirrels rarely survive a hit with a .22 even if it's a marginal hit. Blow off a leg,they'll go on with their life. Bird shooting is sort of similar, if they are hit badly enough they will drop, but a few pellets, you could expect birds than survive with a few pellets in the skin. Rifle and how hunting big game is a unique situation, imo. The non lethal hit zone is big. Probably over half of the body in some game animals is a crippling hit that could still let one escape into hiding and never be found. For a lot of years, I home hunted tree rats with a .177.

IF I CARED, I'd be disgusted with all the cripples I lost. With the domestic predators,they didn't live long. Anything that hit the ground that I shot was a dog toy for a few gruesome minutes. Oh, boy, that little beast loved her rodents.

This was pest control, I feel differently about that.
 
603, I understand about cuz. Like I said, until I get my body built back up, the zombies are safe. I could do one inch bench groups with my favorite rifle, now, three is about the best I can do. After a box of rounds at 2-3 or so, I fired a guys bolt .223 and missed a steel eight inch going four times. Really kind of unhappy.
 
briandg, I gather your not from Co or hunt Co. T.hat picture was a boost to the anti-hunting crowd here.

Elbert county is mostly private land and it's east of I-25 and is known as Plains game unit and it's a draw tag. They have different hunt dates and they have archery season in Dec when that deer was shot. Colorado DOW regs covers how to handle wounding of wildlife and can be a felony if not done right even if the animal gets onto private property.

Like I said that deer got lot of press and landowners put that reward up to find out who shot that deer. It was a bad shot and bad deal for all bow hunters here.
 
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