...Personally I am not opposed to LR shooting of BG animals if the shooter is truly capable. But I am skeptical of anyone trying it whose annual round count in practice or competition isn't approaching several thousand rounds a year under conditions.
Good points, BobinNH!!
I strongly agree with your comments above, EXCEPT for the number of rounds you've cited. I don't think you need that many, and truthfully, most long-range hunting rifles won't survive an annual round count that high. You will need several thousand rounds lifetime to become truly expert, but true expertise is a rarity among hunters of any stripe IMHO. I am firmly in the camp of "shoot a lot, but shoot correctly only a few times, many times over". I've got maybe 2000 lifetime shots at 600+ yards in my lifetime, but because I have been able to shoot small numbers of rounds over many, many range sessions, I've become a lot more comfortable at those ranges than a guy who spends 3-4 weekends of 250-round-count shots prior to his first Western speedgoat hunt.
I have dabbled in long-range shooting and hunting in Wyoming and here in Texas. It's deceptively easy to make long shots with a good long range rifle, but doing so on living creatures is a lot different than ringing a gong over in the next township. Learning to dope the wind is the hardest part of long-range shooting, and experience can teach you a lot about doing it... but even a Carlos Hathcock would have trouble doing it every time in many parts of the West. So there's a level of uncertainty that no amount of practice can compensate for.
Most easterners aren't aware of how long shots can be out here, and how often stalking closer simply isn't practicable. I tend to prefer spot-and-stalk hunting over any other method, and I love to get close. Which is why 5 out of my last 7 speedgoat bucks were taken at ranges under 150 yards. The two I took at distance (350 and 540 yards) were taken in spots that were table-top flat, with sparse short grass and zero terrain available for putting on a sneak. Those two shots would have been unthinkable if I hadn't had the use of a really good rifle built for long-range shooting & hunting.
FWIW, I didn't have any long-range practice time with that borrowed rifle before I made those shots. However, I had done a LOT of practice that season--and for several seasons prior--at 400 and 600 yards with my 270 WSM and my tactical 308. Having a good rifle was crucial to my success, yes, but far more important was 5 years of moderately frequent long-range shooting at the range. I'm talking about a couple hundred rounds per year, over a 4-6 month period each year.
BTW, at the end of that hunt I bought that rifle from its maker, Pat Varland of Douglas, WY. I've killed 4 whitetails with it since, on my lease in TX, at ranges from 340 to 560 yards. I intend to take it on my trophy antelope hunt I have planned for September in the Red Desert of Wyoming, where it's a challenge to stalk within 600 yards of a trophy speedgoat buck, so a rifle that you can hit with at 1000 yards is a definite advantage.
But as for the TV show mentioned in the OP, phuq them. It's high-dollar advertising is all that show is. I won't waste the brain cells I'll lose by watching that kind of horseshit on TV. That sort of show has about as much about long-range hunting as watching porn teaches young men about how to make love to a woman.
