There are a couple of guys on here that kill coyotes at twice that distance when conditions are right. But they probably have over a $100,000 invested in practice and equipment, and who the hell knows how many hours of practice.
IF you could find a bullet with a BC of 0.6 and drive it at 3000 fps, it would take it about 0.9 seconds to reach 700 yards. Add lock time, reaction time, etc, that means from the time you have committed to taking the shot and the trigger pull can't be stopped, until the bullet reaches 700 yards, is going to be over one full second. That gives the elk time to move, and since all the elk I have ever seen were moving forward, that means that bullet will likely end up in their guts.
Also, for each 3 mph that your estimate of wind is off, you are going to be 8 inches in error horizontally. Also, if that elk moves between the time you put your rangefinder down and pick up the rifle, you are going to be 9 inches off in elevation for every 25 yards the range estimate is in error. Throw in some scope parallax and a little mirage and you have some real problems. We haven't even talked about the difficulties due to finding a position in the field that even comes close to approximating bench rest stability. And then, how about changes in point of impact due to elevation and hand position changes from how the rifle was held during sight in from the bench versus firled positions?
At the risk of repeating myslf, I know there are people on this site and elsewhere that can shoot more ethically at 800 yards and farther than most can at 200 yards. I have absolutely no beef with them. But, I doubt if that what is this post is dealing with.
Last edited by Royce; 05/10/14.
