Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting At what distance would you zero your .270? .30-06?

Jack O'Connor invented the "rule of three". Sight in any modern rifle 3" high @100 and your big game point blank range will be 225-350.
Worked for Jack, works for me BUT you must resist the temptation to "add a bit of elevation" as almost all misses are overshoots around here.

Find what works for you. What I've discovered over the years is that when closer shots present themselves <100 yards or so I want it right on the crosshairs. I used to site in 2-3" high at 100 but discovered the hard way that when an opportunity appears at closer ranges it normally requires a VERY quick shot and with everything else to consider (safe back drop, is it the animal I want, any lead if running, etc) the last thing I wanna do is to have to figure in bullet RISE too. I've either shot high or worse - spine shot taking out precious back strap!

With that said, a couple years ago had a confirmed lasered shot @ 495, one shot into the bolier, three four steps and down, no followup needed. My take (and experience) is that IF I'm taking a longer shot at 200-300+ I'm giving myself plenty of time to get prone and VERY steady, allowing extra time to take everything else into consideration such as wind, angle, bullet drop, allowing time for animal to stop broadside, etc, and adding a couple more inches by being sighted in at 100 is NOT a big deal.

I now stick with zero @ 100 for everything, all the time - seems to work better for me and have my stepson (newer hunter) learning to do the same. We practice often, out at least once or twice a month always shooting at 50, 100, 200+, and just yesterday we set up targets at 500!! Regardless of where you sight in, it's important to practice often and at different distances and learn exactly what to expect at each, and memorize your ballistics based on the range you decide to sight in at.

It frustrates me to no end getting to elk camp and hearing all the guys who go out once a year a few weeks before opening day firing a few shots using a sled from the bench at a hundred yards and calling it good because they dont want to practice any more with thier super-duper hard kicking magnums!

ditto on the magnums and also high powered scopes. a'int an Elk that ever lived that can't be killed with a 30-06 and a 4 X scope IF:

you are a hunter, not a wannabe sniper

you have shot the rifle from real world field positions several 100 times at targets at unknown distances.

200 yards.

It's esy to remember the trajectories......



Casey

I use to do all that sight in at so many inches over at 100.In find 99% of the elk I shoot are less than 100yds.For years I have set my .06 at zero at 100 yds. This year,one elk was at about 60 yds,the other was at about 80. Two deer were at about 70 yds.
Of course if you are always in the open country ,things would be different.
I was with a guy who was shooting a 300mag, miss a ram of a life time because he was sighted in at 3" high, shooting uphill, at about 100 yds. He blew one over right it's back and subsequently shot a smaller ram, and almost missed it the same way. Just barely creased it spine.

I'd much rather have my rifle shoot exactly where I am aimimng when I know that realm is 95% of my shots and then compensate for the other 5% than pick a random number and never have the rifle shoot exactly where I aim at any distance

I used to do the 2" high thing, but changed to 3" high for just about everything except for slow moving lever action rounds. The reason I did this is because I found I was actually shooting over with the 2" high sight in. This was pre-rangefinder and I wasn't able to judge exactly 200 or 300 yards and where I hunt it is very open. I had a terrible time with antelope. I started reading Bob Milek and liked the idea of being able to hold on the animal out to 300 or more yards. I started hitting more often than not and I don't bother holding low if the animal is 100 yards or closer. Their lungs are pretty big. (I usually hold for center of lung.) This year my antelope was a lasered 360 yards and I was shooting my 270 with 130 SGK. Held a little high on the shoulder and took off the top of the heart.

Schmidt & Bender has the solution...... AND it's FFP so it works at all "Xs" exactly the same.

I've been doing it like this for so many years I'd be a nervous wreck if handed a rifle that was zeroed much differently.I use the same rifles back here in the east,with the same sight settings,as I do in the west,have shot a lot of deer under 100 yards,and have had no problem holding on the chest and just killing them.

With hyper-velocity rounds and some of todays really slippery bullets(light weight X at very high vel,like 120-7mm at 3500,and 130 at 3600;and some Swift S'co's come to mind)3" high at 100 yards can give mid range that is a bit too high IME;so I hedge things a bit and 2"-2.5" up at 100 generally gives a 300 yard zero with lower mid range.This works ,too.

I should point out I lasered the distance after the shot.

Sight in dead on at 200 and memorize where your load is at 100, 300 and 400. Dead on at 200, my 300 win mag is 3" high at 100, 7" low at 300 and 20" low at 400. Got it committed to memory. It's all small potatoes really if you are shooting at an elks chest.

If you know the approximate range of your target, you'll know exactly where to hold.

First one hit him at 425 yards, second round at 438 yards.

It is easier to adjust 2 or 3 inches low for a 100 yard shot than it is to hold over 13 to 26 inches for a 300 or 400 yard shot.

Set your scope 2 inches high and you don't have to adjust anything from 0 to 225 or 250 yards, depending on the loads.

After 250 yards, you are going to be adjusting, anyway.
Learn your rifle.

A second solution is to have 2 loads or two sight settings.

I have a .270 with an aperture sight and a scope in a quick detachable mount. The iron sight is zeroed at 150 yards.
The scope is zeroed at 250 yards with 130-gr loads.
The rifle shoots 140-gr Hornady loads higher, so the zero is 325 yards.

For years now I have used a MPBR zero calculated for a maximum 3� rise for all my rifles. My philosophy is to be able keep shots in a pie plate sized group. Too much rise makes this more difficult. As E says, combine a 3� rise with shooter error and it�s easy to miss.

Rather than try to expand maximum range by increasing maximum bullet rise, I prefer to use a laser with chrono�d loads, MPBR�s for a 6� diameter target, and a drop compensating reticle (be it mil-dots or something else, my favorite being the Burris Ballistic Plex reticle). Coupled, of course, with verification at the range...

Or just get a BDC reticle like the Leupold Boone and Crokett and you will be good to go.

Well...geeez,someone finally said it........this just seems to make a whole bunch of sense to me.....while many of us worry about shots in brush at close range,what we fail to remember sometimes is that a 3" high zero at 100 with a 30/06 works out to about 1"-1.5" high at 50 yards;it also assumes that the shooter can hold MOA from off hand under hurried conditions while shooting at a buck that has a chest 18" deep, shoulders, vitals, etc.We do well to hit these at all under stress.

All of a sudden, that 3" midrise dissapears....you can prove it to yourself by setting up a 10" black bull at 100;shoot it offhand for awhile with a 3" high zero;the site setting will be buried in your group size...not many are such finely tuned machines that we can group MOA off hand at 100 yards....or 50 for that matter....

As Lee points out, I would rather "worry" about a 2-3" correction at 100 than a 7-10" correction at 300,or much more at 400.

Quoting Bob Jourdan in Precision Shooting,March 1999...."Ballistic Coeeficients for Big Game Hunters"...who in turn quoted O'Connor,who said....."only a sucker would sight in a 30/06 for 200 yards for hunting...."

Hey I didn't say it...O'Connor did....back off!

The Burris BP reticle does the same thing. Although I don't zero it the way they suggest, at 200 or 300 yards, the extra hash marks are plenty useful. In my .300WM with the 180g MRX, the second hash is 500, the third 600 - both right on the money.

Bob, right on.But my argument is why not sight in for dead on at 100 yds if almost all kills are at 100yds or less.
In my tally of about 38 elk, I can only remember five being in excess of that. One was with a .308, two with a 7mag and two with an .06. BTW. The two with the .06 were two cows at 347 yards( lasered the next year)that were standing next to each other and I had two tags. Three shots, from the .06. The load was a 220 gr Sierra RN,sighted in for 100 yards dead on.The first shot was low, I corrected and then dropped the two elk.
For me, it is far easier to compensate for those very few instances than to worry about high/low scenarios. Most of my shots are threading a bullet through blow downs or aspen thickets.

Contrary to this,my pronghorn rifle, a 6.5 Swded is sighted in at dead on at 200 as this is where most of my goats are shot.Usually at about 150 yds.

I also have a load of 180 gr Sierras that shoot dead on at 200 when my .06 is sighted in at 100 with the 220's. I shot that bull this year with that load at about 60 yds and it went a little high,still putting the bull down immediately. It could have gone wrong as I had usually loaded with the 220's and did a neck/spine shot. Guess 2" didn't make much difference at that distance though.

My theory is sight in for the distance on which your most likely shots will occur and compensate for all others. Long shots seem to all have the common theme of having a a lot more time to correct for distance than short snap shooting.

I've hunted and shot metallic silouettes with a .270 for many years. I sight them dead on at 200 yards. I tried the "2" or 3" high at 100 yards" thing and found it wasn't dead on at any useful range. I sight at 200 yards and shoot at ranges from 25 to 600 yards, 600 meters in sillouettes, and learn the trajectory. I work up handloads so they have as near as possible the same trajectory.
Sure saves me a lot of hassle when I shoot.
I've found that a laser rangefinder sure stops a lot of "I shot it at 400 yards" stories. We tend to over- or under-estimate ranges wildly with many variables like weather, light, air pressure, etc. thrown in the mix.

Know your game, hunting terrain, and likely range.

Sight the rifle in for a round number of that range: 100, 150, 200, 250

Practice enough to know how your rifle and loads shoot at any all all ranges where you may get a shot, using the zero range you have chosen.

Know your limit for hitting the vital zone, whether it is 3 inches, or 8 inches, from a field shooting position, and with a breeze.

Be able to estimate the range in all sorts of light.
Mark landmarks in advance when you are able, use a rangefinder when you can.

If you have target knobs on your aperture sight or scope, learn how to use them so you can avoid Kentucky holdover and windage.

saddlesore: I understand the way you do it and why...you know your country, the game,and where you're going,what you're doing...

me,OTOH,I have to travel for the best hunting.I'm in Central Wyoming this week,Maine or NH the next,Alberta or Manitoba looking over big swamps or pea fields,or down in some thicket one minute,and on a power line the next. I never know what a season will hold...I need to be ready for a lot of different stuff.....so I need a flexble, fast sighting system that serves in a lot of different places,under different conditions.

besides, I spend so much time and energy shooting year round on the range back here, that I'm accustomed to that way of doing things

If sighting in at some arbitrary fixed range works for you, go for it. I find it more useful to sight in for a maximum rise of 3�, so my zero points are rarely at some increment of 50 or 100.