Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Vent about new long range guys

Don't worry, I'm not all that worried about the $100 (though it would help with gas money ), I just thought it sounded like a fun challenge and might make for a fun day...if I can get away for a day.

I haven't been down to Eugene in about 10 years, back when my brother was finishing up his PhD there. It's a fair pull and would make for a long day there and back with some shooting in between, but it sounds like fun. I'm pretty booked up until around Thanksgiving time but maybe around then I could get away for a day. Thanks for the invite.

Oh, and don't confuse me with any record holder or champion. I'm just an amateur.

Mebbe you should keep a copy of the recent VHA Magazine handy and show 'em the picture of Gritter's 2.295" 5 shot group at 1000 yards. Then the picture of his gun. Guessin' they won't have the time to read the article...or the money to buy/build the equipment.

Ya know none of us shooters want money, we just enjoy dinging the target!! Jeff

PS wanna really confuse the idiots that think they got it going on? Give em some homework, give em a standard caliber, Like 270, 130, and then sighted in at 100 yards, ask them where to hold on a 476 yard shot, in an 18mph wind from 2 oclock....

What elevation? Which 130 grain bullet? temperature? velocity?

I was wishing you lived closer
I'm not a champion of anything, it wouldn't pay for the gas, don't have a rifle, but I would bring several XP-100's.
I'm content with the first shot thing, and yes, it would be a lot of fun

What barometric pressure and what phase of the moon...

Yeah... that one trips up almost everyone in my hunter safety classes... Gets them to think at least. I hope.

Most folks should think, how many ranges go past 100 yards, maybe 200 max? Most folks yacking have never even shot at the specified ranges...much less looked on a computer to calculate drop. AND they don't tend to worry about wind at all, just how FLAT the gun shoots....

How many folks have I guided and came back to pick up, and a few shot one at 300 yards in a norther and are kinda glum, they hit a bit far back or foward... of what they thought they should. Ask em if they factored the wind the answer will be what wind? ALmost every time.

JEff

What's a Kestrel?
Another common mistake is someone factors in the wind but they don't have a means of measuring it #1 and #2 they give it a full value (regardless) even if it is a head or tail wind.

Truth be known, I still make mistakes in the field, but I working on minimizing them.

I'm completely confuzzled by wind at longer ranges. Period.

There's a vast body of knowledge, some of it instinctual and some of it of the "book larnin'" type, that is necessary to acquire before anyone can legitimatly shoot beyond 400-ish yards with standard hunting equipment... IMHO. That's just based on what I've seen from myself. I'm a decent rifleman but I really hit the wall around 500 yards. At least as far as first-shot every-shot hits.

In conditions where wind didn't matter for whatever reasons, say really long heavy bullets or just no wind, things would get a lot easier with that variable removed.

Most important is the field time and that's the hard one. If I still lived in New Mexico... long distance practice would be easy. It's a production here in Western Oregon. I have to carry my steel plates down into this clearcut canyon by hand, and it has to be a clearcut or you can't see squat, and clearcuts are NOT fun to walk around in! And I just heard a vicious rumour that someone else shooting at my plates (bastiges!) was told that it isn't BLM land after all but is timber company land (it's checkerboard ownership up there) and were asked to stop. I'll shoot until they ask ME to stop but that may mean I have to huff all those plates and stands BACK out of there!

Anyway... I'll stop whining...

-jeff

I don't see the kestrel reference right now, BUT I have 2 of them, they are digital wind speed meters. I learned a LOT using them, what winds I shoot in, what ones I don't. For example I won't shoot till its calm or the wind is in an increasing cycle, I cannot see the letoffs as well as I can watch it pick up speed... steady winds are ok but generally wind is in cycles and either speeding up or letting off, timing those cycles is a major component in match shooting..

I wouldn't even think of starting a shot without a wind rosette for values....

Jeff-- if you had match shooting background things would make much more sense... you see I wanted to learn to shoot perfect scores at 600 with an AR... it took a number of years and rethinking of how to learn things, along the way you realize you can't go with just raw data from a few things, you have to learn to anticipate wind and its related issues and problems, and what makes it worse or better.... One of the best things you can see is a mirage in boil when you are ready to shoot....

Jeff

Also turrets or MOA reticle in combonation with turrents makes shooting beyound 500 yards much easier than the BDC type reticles........

rost,
I was being silly.
I try to have my Kestrel with me all the time when shooting or hunting.

Long week, longer Friday, missed that part.....have a great weekend!

Long range shooting story from the old gun store days-
Regular customer comes in after elk season- shoots an open sighted 300 Savage in Model 99-
Customer says, " I killed my cow at EIGHT HUNDRED YARDS this year!"
Trying to act appropriately impressed, I said "Wow! You must have had to hold a LONG ways over her!"
"Yup" he replied. "I had to hold almost 8 inches over her back."

But notice the "almost". He was such an awesome rifleman, that he was able to hold the requisite seven and a HALF inches over her back, with his buckhorn-sighted rifle! 8 inches of holdover, like you or me might have done, would have resulted in a wounded and lost elk.

(Buckhorns are pretty useless for major holdover from what I've messed with anyway)...

-jeff

It must have been 8 inches at his front sight... not 8 inches over the animal....

Which brings up... I used to ask Dad forever how far to lead a dove... he'd say feet, I'd lead in feet, which was at my front sight..... when it should have been communicating in common language like 4 bird lengths in front etc.....I finally learned that leading them in feet at my sight instead of at the bird I was like way otu in front and answered why most dipped really bad I was shooting in front of htem, way in front of them..

Jeff I had the same problem..My grandfather told me the same lead as your dad told you..I was leading them the same as you and I was WAY out in front untill I figured it out

Ain't life funny in that we have had some of the same mistakes!!

I'm a rifle shooter basically. Transfers well to bow and pistol. Really sucks for shotgun and shotgun gives bad rifle habits.. Guess its why it seems like it takes a box of misses come dove season to get to where I half way have it figured out.. Dog sure stays pissed for a while...

Jeff

I'm good with an upland shotgun (mine's a FW Citori) and good at "grabbing" off hand shots at deer. Those are strengths that are similar; you slap the trigger when the brain says "NOW!". These attributes can be a negative for precision rifle work, it's true!

-jeff

Yep, slapping the trigger is a no no. Plus I'm used to trying to get perfectly still shots off, isn't a plus on fast rifle shot either, though one I did recently went off wobble and all, in the middle, very quickly.. right after I thought, hmmm I better shoot before he wheels and is gone... damn the rest...