Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting How many rounds do you fire to get ready for long range hunting???

I’m no long range shooter by any means, but last 3? Years that I’ve been reloading. I’ve gone through at least 1000 primers between 6.5, 270 and 06.
It’s helped me tremendously to outshot my friends at normal ranges and find my max comfort zone.

25,000

Bout right!

It depends on the shooter….

Do they have good shooting form (know how to setup / stand / lay down / …..)
Do they know & believe in their ballistics, and scope and can “run the rifle”…
Last - how much “trigger time” do you get a year, even if you have the top 2, if you don’t have any precision trigger time, you won’t shoot well.

Did you talk to any of them and interrogate them as to their reasons for doing so?
Did you point out the error of their ways?
Or are you just bitchin on the internet



I like factory ammo boxes, they are generally more compact than plastic boxes, I particularly like the old federal boxes that had 2 10 round soft plastic holders that fit well in a pocket or pack

Serious long range shooters/hunters don't just "shoot a few rounds to get ready".

Those who really understand and have a passion for long range shooting, tent to do it all year long and replace barrels every year or so depending on what their chambering's appetite for steel is.

As for the chuckleheads, who knows.

The number of rounds is not the point of learning to shoot long range. Shooting time should be spent learning how a certain gun and load works, over varying conditions and what input changes how the shot lands. Buying a preset up long range rifle and scope does not buy that experience. I have been using the same rifle for about 10 years, as time has passed and more rounds have passed through it( with care ) the predictability of where the shot lands has gone up. When I first used this gun a 400 yd shot was a long one. Since then I have shot game at ranges out to 700 yds. And at that distance, I was not guessing about anything, the outcome of the shot was certain in my mind before the trigger broke. This confidence comes from shooting over varying conditions at various ranges and reading the conditions properly. It also includes times where that knowledge tells you not to pull the trigger, because varying conditions, (mostly gusty swirling wind here ) make being about to predict shot placement impossible. Paper , steel and rocks are where you learn these things and save the animal targets for certain shots in predictable conditions. A lot of people do not have the patience to not shoot when they should not. The programs available for ballistics and accuracy of new rangefinders are all part of the exercise that improve the shot predictability. And all need to be work with and field tested to improve your shooting
P.S. you can run 100s of rounds down range. But if there is no thought put into each shot and things are not learned from each shot, you just just burnt powder and flung lead.

Nothing against long range shooting, I know many who are very competent long range shooters. Unfortunately they are heavily outnumbered by those who bought the equipment, watched the videos and have no clue.
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Couple that with bench only vs field and live target differences….

The short answer to your question is no, things have not improved enough to zero at 200 and get easy hits at 1,000. You still have to know what you’re doing and most people don’t.

The long answer is yes, things have improved enough to allow repeatable hits to a mile or more. We’ve been at war for decades in places where long-range shooting is important, we’ve trained a bunch of folks to get hits at long range, and governments have pumped a ton of money into private sector companies that create technology and gear for it. Individual shooters can also share information about it freely on the internet, so yeah, we’re there in terms of gear and knowledge. But again, most hunters should confine their shots to within 200 yards. Few them can shoot a decent group at that range, even from a bench, and even fewer have any idea of how to read the wind.

Three other things come to mind.

With the ammo market the way it is, people go to the range with the ammo they can find. Many stores have a two-box limit, so it’s hard to tell what shooters are doing just by looking at their ammo. Also, a guy zeroing a long-range rig at 200 yards with cheap factory ammo might understand his limitations and be planning to work within them.

In most outdoor companies, the marketing department has more pull than the engineering department, so a lot of new scopes look like long-range scopes even though they’re not. Some guys buy them just to get features that traditional 3-9s don’t offer: first focal plane reticle, illuminated reticle, the ability to dial, usable long-range reticle, adjustable objective, side focus, etc. Whether they need any of that is a different issue. They want it, so they buy it.

Finally, everything about manufacturing has gotten far more precise in the last 20 years, so rifles, mounts, optics, and ammo are far better than they used to be. A good rifle that has been set up properly might be able to make good groups at very long range with factory ammo—after all, very few military snipers get to load their own and they do just fine.

The main thing is that the shooters you saw were giving it a try. Lots of them quickly learn that reality doesn’t match their expectations. I’ve seen plenty of people shoot huge groups at 200 and realize that they need to learn a few things before they try to reach much farther.


Okie John

Shooting long range steel or rocks is a Hell of lot of fun, and a great way to stay sharp in the
off season, I enjoy long range shooting, and have many friends that enjoy long range shooting, as for the # of rounds i fire, i am not sure but would guess around 2000 to 3000, rounds per summer, out to 1800 yards, but i keep my shots on live critters under 300 yards, and most of my shots are 200 yards or under on game animals. Rio7

Castle Rock, I am not bitchin on the internet [bleep].. I wanted to know how long range shooting has changed since I fooled with it 40 years ago.. My pals were shooting wood chucks and deer at 700 to 1200 yards, probably before you were in diapers.. When people are getting ready for season, you don't interrogate them about their equipment.. Apparently you have no manners in life..

As for the others, it was my impression these guys were caught up in the long range thing without going through the amount of range time and serious shooting that is required for this type of shooting.. When I was in this type of shooting things were lots different, and my long range shots were cake for the new long range shooters.. Rio and others have answered what I thought was the issue, equipment doesn't take the place of practice!! Thanks guys, I have long been out of this game, and am too old to get back in.. But no matter the equipment, it still takes practice.. Thanks again..
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Proficiency absolutely still requires practice, but modern ballistic modelling apps, scopes, rangefinders, rifles, and bullets make it possible to get the vertical trajectory correct with much less trigger time than it used to require. Some of those same advances have made wind reading less critical (high-BC bullets are less sensitive to wind changes, for example), but there is still no shortcut around the wind, and that’s what really sets a practiced LR rifleman apart from a proficient SR rifleman who buys a bunch of the latest-and-greatest technology and expects to be GTG at
LR after just a few shots.

Just to address the factory ammo portion of the question , I will say that I have one particular rifle that shoots a factory load as well if not much better than anything I have ever been able to load for it . Must admit that it is an exception as the rest of the rifles I own much prefer my handloads. It is an early Ruger All Weather in 22-250 and by far the best thing I have found to shoot in it is the Winchester white box Varmint (40 round box) 45 grain load . At the time I was able to buy these they were the cheapest thing on the market . It puts them all in one small green pea size puddle at 100 and if I judge the wind right will keep them in a small tea cup to 500 yards . That's good enough for me . My scope on that rifle is a steel tube Weaver K12 . I don't shoot any farther than that .

Most probably not.

Your original post was assuming that people with decent scopes were long range wannabes, even though they were just at a range sighting in or whatever, you never conversed in any way with them so what led you to presume what you did?

I find it hard to understand why there are so many threads on here calling out other shooters for no apparent reason, when I am out and about and see people doing their own thing I think it is great, I would certainly not consider rushing back to my computer and starting a thread on the internet putting [bleep] on them

I didn't put anything on them.. I was merely asking if with modern equipment could people become long range shooters with little ammo expended.. I didn't rush back and start a thread, I have been thinking about it for several weeks.. Lots of changes in the long range game since I was really into it.. You were the only negative comment I had.. That tells me all I need to know about you.. GFY

You seem a mite agitated, having sworn at me in two consecutive posts here 😂

If you are genuinely asking if it is possible to do a long range load work up with just a few shots may I please direct yo to this
Why, yes it is

Factory ammo has improved consistency quite a bit, but not enough to depend on the MOA theory. Unexplainable things happen to accuracy between 200 yard 2" group loads not being able to deliver 3" 300 yard groups, or 4" 400 yard groups.

However, I've found that out of say trying about about 8 to10 different factory loads, there may be a couple of loads that will shoot 4" groups @ 400 yards. But, you have to actually shoot them to know.

I go to a range that requires you show a 300 yard test target with 5 shots in the bulls eye with no other holes outside of the bulls eye. to have access to the longer range area. I've seen so many disappointed faces from shooters who try their MOA 100 yard loads to find out the load may spread to say 7"@300 yards, so again you have to shoot distance to actually know.

Stray thanks again, that is what I was thinking.. Mostly nice helpful guys we have here.. Have a great hunt this fall..

At this point, this is where I'm at too.

This fall, elk at 330 yards, deer at 90 yards and Coyote at 525 yards. I wasn't left wanting more time behind the gun to feel comfortable.

It's amazing to me how many off-the-shelf rifles can shoot boxed ammo sub-moa these days. Seems in the last couple of decades we've come a long way in manufacturing.