Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Long Range BS

Interesting you mention this, as in a deer camp recently I asked that exact question to five guys. What is long range to you? All had different answers, from 400 yrds down to anything over 100. Long Range seems to be a very personal thing, and the definition varies by individual.

So now we cannot even agree on when something is far away? Egad. I prefer to get myself close to animals. I put as much value in the ability to stalk an animal as in shooting ability unlike some here apparently.

When your bullet starts dropping below the width of an animals body such as a deer then I'd say it gets out there I guess. Average jo out there with grandpa's 270 and a 9 power your still dead on a 200. Lift it 6 inches a 300. Past that and you have to guess a bit. Then the term long range might come in. I think anything past 4 is a tough shot, especially when you get some wind in there.

Killing an animal at 500 yds requires excellent shooting. Killing an animal at 50 yds requires excellent hunting. One of the thing's I've noticed about self described long range hunters is it seldom requires more than two shots, they never miss and they always go right to the spot the deer fell!

Spend 2500 on a decent scope and a good ol rem 700 in say 300 win and your gonna notice 400 is what 200 used to be. Then 600 becomes a tough one.

How much does taking a shot at 600 yards add to actual hunting when you could enjoy a stalk to within 200 yards? Is it some kind of bragging rights thing? I also see Antelope being chased by pickup trucks and shot on the run. Which is more sporting? And bullet performance is sometime compromised due to lower velocities. Circumstances have to be just right for me to shoot at a live animal 450 yards away. Light wind, good light, open enough to see the animal run a ways. Yes long range shooting is a more appropriate title for the forum.

This is the knowledge level of most that criticize Long Range Hunting or Shooting

Awesome

I don't disagree with you on the criticizing since there is such a spectrum of experience, tools, and firearms. If we're looking for a consensus (which I know we'll never get) of standard definition, I don't think that is so bad Rick. But rather than saying 400 yards (or point blank range of standard calibers such as .270 or 30-06 is a tough shot, perhaps some wording to say that you are into "long-range territory."

I know, one man's opinion. We know there is a broad range of variances in opinions.

PS - only two pages so far, I'm disappointed!

With single-shot specialty pistols: 14.5" 250 Savage XP-100 and a 15" rear-grip Black Widow - 25-284
Closest kill this year: 26 yards-put a hole in her heart (whitetail doe). One and done. Ran about 40 yards
Longest kill this year: 754 yards. One and done. Ran about 50 yards in counter-clockwise circle.
I over doped the wind, and was about 5" off of where I wanted to hit for horizontal, but the vertical was spot on.

For what it's worth, it took ten times the effort for the buck antelope at 754 yards than the 26 yard doe did. Nothing goes perfect all of the time.
Another doe I shot off of a tri-pod/No Arca rail (Rear-grip 14.5" 308 Winchester) was a much harder shot, since it was a on demand shot, I stopped here with a load bleat at around 225 yards. It was still much easier than the antelope buck at distance.

I don't care if you are a self-described short range, mid range, or long range hunter.
self-described means nothing.

There are poor hunters/slob hunters from in your face to way out there, with all weapon types.

The cartridges I use have more impact energy at 500 yards than what most of the short range dolts use , have at the muzzle

I take two weeks off work to go moose hunting, solo as always and take my time in setting up and am very selective and pass up a good number of bulls until I see a shooter or run out of time then take what I can, only one shot is ever fired

most of the anti-long range hunting, trigger happy fat old bastards can't shoot their shytty little cartridges with shytty bullets, And blast at the first animal they see on the side of the road or trail and call themselves hunters

That ain't hunting, that's wild eyed, spraying n praying until you hit it, after multiple shots, ya wing it and the chase is on, following blood trails and such stupid shyte, you shoot an animal with a rifle, it's supposed to fall the fk over and die, not run off

I know a couple old farts locally that think the .45-70 is the greatest moose killer ever invented, dumb bastards have maybe 4-5 little dink moose between them in over 50 years of hunting... Real hunters, lol !

Long range hunting is a financial commitment as well as a personal commitment. Joe average hunter as stated above with commitment only to shoot at 275 yards or so, but fears the 450 yard shot did not commit to equipment or training to make that shot.

As to stalking closer, Many have had less than an hour of legal light looking out with spotters and highX binocs whereby finding game at 700 yards and only being able to get within 400-500 yards from peak to peak. For the hunter equipped and trained (practiced) and committed to longer ranges, it’s really a piece of cake at 500 yards. No judgements should be passed for either the most confident or least confident, it’s all about personal limitations.

Excellent post. I have a story to tell on a hunter I met at the range a couple weeks ago. He has a tag that he needs to fill, and he said his shots may be 400 yards, but he said he's never shot at 400 yards before. We start talking and I ask how the rifle shoots, how it's zeroed, and if he hit the target he set at 300 yards. I had my target stapled to a box on the ground at 300 yards because I did not want him to confuse my target with his, plus I was getting my hold over for a shoot I had this last saturday. He said he didn't think he hit the target at all at 300 yards. He said his rifle was dialed in for zero at 200 yards though, but there was not a single bullet hole in the 300 yard target. He said he thinks the "wind pushed the bullet off the paper". I said, I just shot the target stapled to the box that is sitting on the ground. The wind had pushed the group over a couple inches, but it was still a 1" group. He said, hmmm you hit near the orange dot. I told him I was holding off just a little bit to account for the wind. He asked if I'd help him shoot the steel yote at 400 yards, and I said sure.

He said he did not know how to use his scope, but that it was a good one, he paid "a lot of money for it". A Vortex Razor LHT, that he said he paid over $1,200.00 for. I told him I'd just use the reticle for holdovers. They were labeled in MOA's. I said if you are zeroed at 200 yards, you'll have to use the hash marks in your reticle to hit the yote. He asked, "how do you do that", so I explained to him. At first he thought you held on the hash marks above the horizontal crosshair, and I told him, you need to use the hash marks below the horizontal crosshair. I spotted for him, and he tried different holds until he made a hit on the yote. He was excited, and I told him to remember the hold on the reticle if he gets an elk in the crosshairs at 400 yards. I told him to try to hit it again, using the same hold, and he hit it again.

Moral of the story: I can't believe how many guys I run into at the range that have absolutely no experience with their equipment. It's a lot of those guys that badmouth longrange shooters/hunters.

Like I always say, a smart indian uses a rifle.

Group size and POI is always relevant. Doesn't matter how far away your target is. It does matter how consistently you can hit your POA, or how close your POI is to your intended POI. You know that though. A game animal is different than a bullseye, in that it is more critical that you dispatch it humanely: 1 shot is the goal. A bullseye target is the same thing, but you may have 10 or 20 shots on target. When you are burning the X-ring out with every shot, you know the consistency is there, and that is extremely important. It applies to hunting, because it tells you that you and your equipment are capable. There's no guessing about it, no doubting it, and we know luck shots for damn sure don't count!!!

Shoot to 1,000, and 600 becomes pretty easy. We can go on....... In the varmint silhouette matches I shoot, they have a rabbit set at 600 yards. The majority of us hit it pretty consistently too. That's fired from the prone, with no rear bag. The only support you get is from your body. Very similar to how you'd be shooting in the field. We also use no wind flags, so you use other methods to spot and correct for wind. Trust me, if you can hit a rabbit at 600 yards, you'll easily take out elk vitals at that range.

Some time back I was having an issue with the computer, and mentioned it to my engineer son. He said,"The thing doesn`t do what you want it to do, it does what you tell it to do". The same with the rifle, it will do what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do. The operator needs to know the difference by learning how his equipment works. Most are too lazy to find out.

A good delineation would be the point at which "gadgets" are necessary, and Marksmanship and human skill become superfluous.

Like fishing with a fish-finder, is laser-ranging/wind-metering a bagged and bi-podded, dialing-scoped rifle really hunting?




GR

Relax Rick.
I'm saying the average weekend deer hunter.
I got a rig and a kestrel. I know what it takes to make a bomb. It's hard. But let's face it, you need to shell out some jack to consistently hit what the long range hunter call long range.
Long range e to a guy in New York may be 75 yards with a 45-70 and open sights. Long range to a guy in west Texas or Oklahoma where I'm at is past 4-500.

Do what ya want, just expect some dumbazz to find fault with it.

No matter what ya do.

That's worth buying you a beer..

Seems to me, most of the folks screaming about LR or dialing or what have you don't kill much either way, not the majority, but they spend more time reading about shooting or hunting than actually doing it..