You're foot-slogging at 8500 feet above the oak brush jungles near Cortez,glance across a canyon and discover an outlandish MD buck that already has you "made",staring down your throat at 400 yards (the distance at which you're "supposed" to have plenty of "time"); he hangs around just long enough so that you(having zeroed at 100 yards, intending to rely on your turrets for anything over 200) have lazed him and twisted up for the shot.
He,being a finely tuned survivalist,ducks pronto into a stringer of spruce or aspen,and starts hightailing through the trees,angling slightly toward you,cutting distance,headed for a draw where he's gone forever...but hesitates at about 200...meantime you're twisted up for 400,trying to figure WTF to do and how to hold.But you really don't know,guess,and ....miss...cause all you had was a couple of seconds,which was not exactly cricket of the buck for failing to allow you time to click down(or similarly in reverse,"up")before he scooted off,knowing your intentions(remember he is not a 2.5 year old juvenile,but a seasoned survivor,why he is "big").
The whole situation was easily solved with a 270 or 7 mag zeroed 3" up at 100,providing only 8-12" of drop at 400.(And "no", the shooter would not be "guessing". Because he knows precisely how much drop he gets at 400 yards,having fired several thousand rounds with the rifle and load on varmints and at the range.)He was dead in seconds if you were trained and practiced with the rifle and load;he was also "dead" at 200,if you could live with an inch more mid range at that distance.No you would not miss high if you knew what you were doing....all without touching your sights; in seconds....
The genius of O'Connor,Page,and Keith with the 3" high zero was that they understood "hunting",game, and what it took to kill it under real field conditions.They kept it "simple";yet managed to kill even at extended range,and understood that what works like a charm at the range is not always the way to go in the hunting field.
