Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles leupold boone and crockett reticle?????

Installed a VX-L 4.5-14x50 with BC reticle on my Montana 300wsm. I have used a Zeiss 3-9x36 for years and shot animals out to about 350 yards without a problem. After getting the scope I read that I need to shoot at 500 yds and make a large dark circle where my bullets hit and change the power on my scope until the 500yrd mark on the reticle touches my impact area on the target. This will be the power I will have to be at if I want to use the BC reticle for long shoots. I get it! I just was wondering if you could do this on one of the shorter range points and still be calibrated corectly. Five hundred yard ranges are no where to be found near me.


Thanks John

Then you don't need that scope. Send it to me and I'll send you a nice 4x Leupold...?

then you probably have no business taking a 500y poke in the field at an animal

Agree with the previous two posters;if you cannot shoot 500 yards to verify POI,then forget it.Relying on the technology without live-fire verification is at best a guessing game.

John,

You could do similar kinds of things at 300 and 400 if you wished to have it set up to those ranges as max....just a thought.

Dober

John,

Those are nice scopes! Drive to the desert, bring your range finder, set-up a 500 yard shot, and have at it!

What range can you shoot at at your facility?

You might try just shooting the main reticle at 100 and sight it in for that and then see where the two lower reticcles shoot at 200 and 300 yds. With a 300WSM I don't know as I would even worry about it. A 200 yd zero should work pretty good at 300 yds yet with 180 gr bullets in a 300WSM.

I have one on my .06 and haven't used the B&C yet. All kils have been with the top reticle

My 3.5-10X40 Leup. VXIII with B&C reticle has a secret power: whenever I take it hunting I get a 90 yard shot.

jim

+1 on Todd's comments. Can't shoot field positions to 500 yards for practice, don't shoot a game animal that far.

Thanks for all the comments. Went to a 200 yrd rang Friday and sighted in dead on at 200yards with a very tight group off sandbags. The extra power is nice compared to my Ziess but I really not sure if the leupold is that much brighter considering this size. I did find a place that I can shoot at 500 yards abpout two hours from my house. Just got off the phone with cabellas and ordered for more boxes of Winchester Accubond 180 grain bullets (seems to group the best in my rifle). Im going to shoot in different positions starting with 300 then 400 and then 500 yards. When I stop getting good groups I will know my range. Hunting unit 67 in Colorado for Elk and Im hearing we may have some long shoots.


John

If you prepare for those 500 yd shots, you will have a 90 yarder. Happens to me every time.

The answer to your original question is NO. You have to wring it out and see what it needs to be dialed to.

I will say that IF you shoot it at 200 and dial it in perfectly. You are far better off than not having that reticle at all. When I got my first one, I dialed it in at 100 and 200 and then took a poke at 400. I put two rounds almost touching center of the bull. I happened to "quess" correctly at the proper diamond to use for my rifle (30-06)

The way I zero the B&C, is to zero it using the 400-yd crosshair, shooting at a 400-yd target. Oh, with the magnification cranked all the way up. A guy can't be fiddling with his magnification in the field.

I think if you do this with your 300 WSM, you will then find that you are fine at 100 yards (1"-2" high), and that your 200 yard, 300 yard, 450 yard, and 500 yard aiming points are all just peachy.

I've done this for several different calibers. It works fine if you are shooting minute of vitals. If you want to get more picky than minute of vitals at those ranges, then I dunno. Use turrets.

I think there is a real risk of shooting over animals at medium range if you are sighted in too high in anticipation of a long shot (BTDT, got the t-shirt). So I use the B&C reticle slightly differently then Jeff does. I sight in on the first tick mark down being dead on at 300, then I double check my mid-range height to make sure it is not higher than I want. Only then do I start working about where the other aiming points on the reticle hit.

I use my B&C and similar reticles with a laser range finder and a trajectory table (memorized for the rifle in use). On the far side of 300 I get really picky on the situation, and sometimes choose the get closer option. I have done a lot of range shooting to 400 yards at Gunsite and other places.

Once I shot a single target with the same aiming point from 100, 200, 300 and 400 yards, and found I had a half-minute of right windage bias going. Not easy to see at 100 and 200, but very obvious at 300 and 400 yards. Interesting what you find when you test these things.

jim

utah708, that's the basic idea. We agree.

What I was trying to say was, you can drive yourself batty with a B&C if you start with a 200-yard zero and THEN proceed to the 400 and 500 yard stuff. Much easier to zero at 400 yards (with the 400 yard crosshair of course) and then work backwards from there. It should be fine at 500, and your 100 or 200-yard zero will sort of "be what it's going to be" if that makes any sense. However, what it turns out to be should be fine; about 1.5" high at 100 yards with a 300 WSM, I'd guess.

MAN that's hard to explain! Hope that was a little better.

HunterJim, I'm envious that you have a shooting spot where you can even see a 1/2 MOA wind bias and seperate it out from the background "noise"! :-)

I suggest you listen to Jim and the others.
First of all, you must shoot at the ranges where you are likely to take game. Particularly the longer ones. Hold over, resetting the POI of your scope, or picking the right dot/hash mark/ or alternate duplex on a reticle is the easy part. Shooting will also teach you what positions you can use to get results. When I shoot those distances, I like to rest my rifle over my pack. If you use a shooting sling, by all means test your skills with that.
The other, tricky part is reading wind. At 500 yds., and sometimes even 300 yds., you'd better know how to compenstate for it. Practice is the only way I know how to develop this skill.
Ditto on zeroing the rifle and checking the mid range height of impact. Missed a few coyotes due to that.
That scope should give you far more low light performance than your Zeiss. Keep in mind that you need to use it at the higher magnification to get this performance. Just because the image looks brighter at 4.5X does not mean you can see better. Try it at 7X-10X. E