Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Is a 300 yard self limit too limiting?

This

First off, let me say I've never hunted elk. They come on our property now and again, but never in season. My reason for writing is that I wanted to concur regarding the idea of self-imposed limits on range.

Back about 15 years ago, I was out hunting on what was then my new farm. It was a warm evening in mid-November and as I came through a treeline, I saw a herd of whitetail doe on a hillside about 500 yards out. I decided I would just try a shot for the heck of it. I had no idea of actually hitting anything, but I wanted to see what it felt like to shoot at a deer at that distance and see how the deer would react. I braced my rifle against a massive box elder and took careful aim at a doe well apart from the rest and touched one off.

The rifle I had at the time was a Winchester 670 in 30-06. It was by far the best-suited . . .

Oh drat! I just looked at the time. I'll have to finish this later.

Okay, I've got some time now.

The rifle was by far the best-suited rifle in my deer battery, and my son used it just last year to set the camp record, taking a doe at 253 yards. I don't mean to crow about this exactly. 253 yards is not all that spectacular a feat. It is just that we don't usually get a chance to shoot deer at that range.

So back to my story. I took careful aim at a likely looking doe on that hillside, put the crosshairs right in the middle of her boiler room and touched it off. After a noticeable interval, I saw a puff of dust about 4 feet below her hooves. The herd was completely unfazed. I continued to do this until the magazine was empty. On the last shot, I saw a bullet go skipping through the grass which caused at least one doe to jump up a bit. It finally convinced the herd that something was up, and they went bounding off. I was now pretty much blind in my right eye from the muzzle flash. I was happy. The experiment had been a success.

This experience taught me a lot of things.

1) Until I tried shooting at something that far out, I had no idea. It certainly was not like what I'd read in Outdoor Life.
2) Windage on my rifle was fine, but the elevation was ridiculous. There was no way I could have judged the holdover
3) There was no way I could have hit anything like this offhand. Without the tree, the rifle was shaking too much.

From there on out, I was always leery of someone claiming 300 yard offhand shot with a 30-30 or a 400 yard hit off a freshly bore-sighted rifle off the rack at Wally World.

My point in making this post here is that until someone has tried this sort of things in real life, there is no use in speculating. No amount of avid magazine reading, no amount of time spent at the 100 yard rifle range will prepare you for the reality of a shot at a live animal. When we have elk in the field, they look like huge animals, but in the scope that kill zone gets mighty small. Just sticking a rifle out the bedroom window and resting it on the sill isn't good enough. I need something soft to prop the or the binos to give a steady hold. In the field a jacket or backpack would do. Without an accurate idea of range and exact knowledge of holdover beyond the PBR of the rifle, a hunter is doing no more than lobbing bullets in the general direction of the game the way I did on those doe.

Some folks should obviously have shorter limits than others. Any normal shooter over the age of 12 understands that a rest is required for shooting any substantial distance accurately and should know the trajectory of their rifle. Most folks practice new longer ranges with targets, rocks or maybe varmints thankfully but there is always an exception. Unlike a 120 lb whitetail the size of an adult elk allows you to hold a body height above or less at out to 500 yards and hit the vitals depending on trajectory and sight in distance of course.

If you pull a trigger 6 times a year and think 100 yards is a long shot 200 might be your limit. If the shooting range on your farm or ranch is 1200 yards and your back yard picnic table is a shooting bench that limit could be pretty far out. The 12 year old grandson will be limited to 300 yards this year but he is already hitting targets farther than that now.

Be sure to know your zero. Going from the low lands to the high country will raise your zero a number of inches..... depending on the elevation

Tend to agree with this. If you can do it, do it. If not, don't.

Guy

Last fall a local girl, about 12 or 13, got her 1st elk at over 600. She obviously had practice on long shots. She used a bipod and her dad was spotting and handling the laser. He had her pretty well dialed in. I don't know what kind of scope she used.

300 yards with any modern round should be a chip shot as Elk are pretty big and a rifle sighted 2-3" high at 100 will be within 3" at 300 for any magnum round. But my range estimating ability goes out the window when I am first in new territory. I 'll guess and then use a range finder and often am up to 200 yards off. I like the hold on hair or don't shoot philosophy as when I add Kentucky windage on top of poor range guesstimate things can go wrong pretty quick.

I subscribe to the pie plate theory or however far I can maintain a six inch group 100% of the time. Factor in being winded, heavy breathing on your scope a little Bull fever and range limitations get shorter and shorter.

300 yard limit is not to restricting imo. i've been fortunate to kill lots of elk in the last 40 years, and have never shot one farther than 300-350. last years elk was 266 yards, no problem for my 308 win. stick with what you know and are comfortable with. you won't second guess yourself after the hunt ends.

Yes. And moving animals, unknown ranges, time pressure on animals heading into the timber to disappear forever, variable winds, steep terrain, those times you bumped your scope while hiking or riding, less than ideal rifle rest, unfavorable lighting, and again, Bull Fever.

Every single shot I've ever fired at an elk has been dramatically more difficult than at the range. Others might have a different experience, but in the real world there are usually multiple factors that make a hunting shot tougher than a range shot.

Want to explain this? It's not computing for me. What rifle/bullet combination at what MV?

I am using a M98 in '06, with 27 inch heavy barrel which I use on caribou out to 500 yards. My limit, not the rifle's, since it gets right at 1" 3 shot groups at 300 yards. With a really good rest. That's where I have it zeroed for also, but with those Hornady Superperformance 150's at a purported 3,000 plus fps, there is more than a 3" difference between 100 and 300 yards. I lost the iphone with the data on it, so I'll have to reshoot come August. IIRC, it's more like 9 inches.

Back to the OP. My advise is to take the advise offered by many above, as it suits you. I have always sighted my rifles in( the M98 recently excepted) at 200. That's a dead on gimme shot on decent sized game from muzzle to 300, assuming you can use a rest at longer ranges, and preferably at any range.

A range finder is an excellent idea if one is pushing the outer limits. And has time opportunity to use it. My rule of thumb is to get one that exceeds your allowable shooting distance by about third, as the advertised rating is for reflective targets. Not much game is reflective. I carry a Leopold 800si (note 500 yard self limit).

I don't use turrets, I do use "Duplex" crosshairs., which, before I got a range finder, I did use on occasion. Before season, I'd put up targets of "average chest depth" of the animal I was hunting, and look at it at 100,200, 300, and 400 yards, tho my shooting limit was 300.

Here is a rough "field guide rule of thumb" for longer ranges. With a 200 yard zero, most BG hunting rifles will be 7-9 inches low ot 300. So let's use 8 inch, an inch isn't going to make a difference in most cases. At 400 yards triple the drop from 200, at 500 double the 400. The formula is 2/3/2

So bullet drop for a 200 yard zero at 3,4, and 500 yards will look like this: 8, 24, 48. Again, this is not precise, but good enough for most rifles. Checking your actual drop at 300, then applying the formula will get you even closer. Shooting those ranges works even better, even if you don't go beyond 300 as a self imposed limit.

Knowing the average depth of the body cavity of the animal one is hunting gives one a quick , again rough!, guide to where to put the crosshairs on those ones waaaay out there, with just the equipment in hand - a lazer range finder, and the rifle scope. The Duplex cross hairs serve the same purpose, tho much rougher than +/- one yard rangefinder.

I've killed exactly one elk, and hunted them twice. I do have close to 70 caribou down tho. The .260 with 140 gr bullets was zeroed at 200. The opportunity came at an estimated 150, no rangefinder at the time, I knew she was within the "point blank" 300 yard range, however, and didn't even bother "computing". For a rest, I could only jam-brace my left arm between two birch trees, and fire one-handed over that. Hold on hair.... Bang. Flop.

Probably this one-handed technique isn't a good idea with a heavy recoiler.........

Here is a benchmark that may help, or may spook! Last weekend. I was check-sighting a forend-tip pressure-point bedding job on my .243 (covered in other posts).

I am claiming about MOA accuracy for two 3 shot groups. Actually they both went a bit over that, but less than 1.25. Firing was a measured 109 yards.

My "bench" was two daypacks in the back rack of the snowmachine as a fore-end rest, with the stock heel resting on the seat. I was kneeling in the snow, shooting one-handed. I could get a pretty good hold that way, but I noticed my heartbeat was moving the crosshairs beyond each side of my target point. Verticle was much less. Target point is a 2.5 inch black bullseye on 8.5x11" copy paper (I make my own), with a one inch white circle within the black. So I was getting an estimated 4" side to side scope-hair variation from my heart-beat alone. I had to anticipate....

Not much to "prove" a gun's accuracy, but not bad as a "pretty good" test of field -use practicality.

As Ron White would say "That's a valuable piece of information".

I'd shoot the thing on caribou to 300 yards now. With a rest.

Guilty of using the last line. Your "range, drop, and hold" is spot on,and as succinct as I've ever heard it put.

" Going from the low lands to the high country will raise your zero a number of inches..... depending on the elevation[/quote].

Not really - unless one is going waaaay out there at 20,000 feet.

I just did some quick research. Between 0 and 20,000 feet the chart shows a difference of 3 inches in drop at 300 yards ..Presumably all other factors were equal.

That ain't gonna matter squat at 10,000 feet and 300 yards. or 500. It is not elevation that counts anyway, but air density, which is dependent on air pressure, humidity, bees flying by , butterflys in Mexico and all that other nonsense which only becomes important if you are a precision long range shooter, or some idiot shooting at elk 1,000 yards away. Or a SF sniper. The air pressure at one particular spot isn't constant anyway, so worrying about it is not just meaningless, but just plain silly.

For a 300-500 yard shooter on reasonable sized big game, it doesn't mean squat, Sight your rifle in at home, check it on location if traveling, and go hunting.

Strong wind drift and steep angle shooting are somewhat more important than "elevation" differences. Wind drift probably more so than slant for obvious anatomical reasons. The chart I looked at shows a 45 degree "slant range" at 300 yards will result in 5 or 6 inches difference in POI (IIRC) than the same horizontal range. At 500 yards slant range, it is more like 18 inches, so it becomes far more important past 300 yards. Up or down doesn't matter- the bullet is affected by gravity over the horizontal range it travels. It will hit high, so aim a little low, say just below body mid-line at 45 degrees and 300 yards.

Or lower still if you are an aorta shooter.