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#53260 02/23/02
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Heard from a guy on another forum about shooting deer at long range. Now, I'm thinking 400 yards. NO! 500? Hah! He's talking over 750 yards! This is a sport?!
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<br>When did deer become a bullseye on an oversize benchrest range? For crying out loud. If you got these sniper fantasies, then join the freaking military!
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<br>The idea of hunting is to get as close as you can, not shoot from the next county. You try to be a part of the environment, you blend in. YOU BELONG THERE. Deer are a precious natural resource, and deserve to be treated with care and respect.
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<br>I've been hunting for over 25 years, and in that time, I've lost two. Both times, it took a few days for the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach to pass. I just felt horrible because I knew those deer would suffer a lingering death. If you don't get that same feeling on loosing one, do me and the deer a favor and shoot paper.
<br>7mm


"Preserving the Constitution, fighting off the nibblers and chippers, even nibblers and chippers with good intentions, was once regarded by conservatives as the first duty of the citizen. It still is." � Wesley Pruden


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Now 7m/m old bud calm yourself or you are going to rupture something. I happen to agree with you but not every body does. There are some that can shoot deer in the next zip code and do it right regular I am sure. What we got here is one of those can/should issues. Just because you can do a thing should you do it? This gets into ethics and most every body has a slightly different set that was put in them or they adopted. If you and me was raised different does that give us the right to call foul on somebody else as long as what they are doing is legal. We ain't going to do it and we might not appreciate any body else doing it either but we can't stop them or hinder them. Just got to live with it don't we?
<br>BCR


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DON'T go to Saeed's Site and read the Match King thread,it would snap you. Over 1000 posts on it,thus far.............


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7mm
<br>I mostly agree with you. Our grandparents were bringing home the meat on a regular basis with inferior guns because they could hunt. Not because they could shoot. Many people today spend so little time in the woods that they have no idea how to hunt. For them, the ability to shoot at long distances is needed if they plan to bring any meat home. Others are good hunters and good shots and do a little of both. Of those that I know who regularly take deer at extreme ranges, they do it often and talk very little about it. They certainly don't try to get others to try what they are doing. They also pick and choose when to shoot at long range as to increase their chances of a clean kill. I have found most(not all) of those talking about shooting long ranges couldn't tell the difference between 350 and 700 yards.
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<br>Personally, I try to get as close as I can. I have yet to feel the need for a shot over about 450 yards. I have had the oppurtunity to shoot at much longer ranges, but never felt I had to. For me the killing is really secondary. The hunt is what I crave.
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<br>I just hate to see those people who get the latest "flat shooting laser beam" and think they can now shoot at stupidly extreme ranges. I have seen their injured deer left to rot because they weren't going to walk that far to see if they hit it if it didn't fall before their eyes.
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<br>I myself prefer to target shoot at the range, and hunt the animals.


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It just galls me, because I was raised on "speed beef", usually procured through "less than sporting" means. Venison was and is a very big part of my diet. Seeing them go to waste, even road-kill, bothers me. Kinda like just taking meat out of the freeezer and tossing it to the 'possums.
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<br>At that kind of mileage, I seriously doubt that shots are followed up, and if they are, I doubt the deer is hit hard enough to be nearby. I don't see anyone (even SGT York) shooting that distance and not loosing quite a few. Not many guns without a lanyard carry enough umphhh at that distance to guarentee a clean kill. None that I want to stand behind, anyway.
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<br> I have killed a few deer that had been hit and lost. Most of them had gang-green poison throughout and were just wasted. Gang- green or starvation dragging your guts behind you is no way for any creature to die, much less a deer. I found one last year with the jaw shot off. It was trying to get to its feet when I walked up on it, but was too weak. I really felt for that deer.
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<br>I guess to me, it's a "willful waste makes wasteful want" deal. You only have to tag the ones you take out, and that's a shame. Some guys don't care if they crpple 10, as long as they get one, and that aint right.
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<br>Do enough hunting and, sooner or later, you're bound to loose one. I realize that as a fact of life. Why push the odds?
<br>7mm

Last edited by 7mmbuster; 02/23/02.

"Preserving the Constitution, fighting off the nibblers and chippers, even nibblers and chippers with good intentions, was once regarded by conservatives as the first duty of the citizen. It still is." � Wesley Pruden


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I come at this subject from the angle of hunters' ethics and the inherent, inevitable imperfection of marksmanship and bullet placement, where I'm completely at odds with a friend of over thirty years who thinks that shooting AT deer from 1,000 or more yards WITH A SINGLE-SHOT is sporting.
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<br>NO ONE can be 100% certain that he can without fail put his bullet where it must go, at super-long range, to kill cleanly. Even bullets with "adequate" retained energy at those ranges, punching through deer at even shorter ranges and with "perfect" placement, often let deer escape over the ridge or into the brush and out of sight.
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<br>Out here, "long range" typically means from one side of a canyon to the other. Putting a bullet across that space can take less than two seconds -- but GETTING over there to find and follow a blood trail can typically take hours. The help of a partner to stay where the shot was fired, to guide you with a two-way radio, is against the law in some states (still is here, I assume). But without it, shooting at a deer from such a distance is (IMO) utterly irresponsible -- you can't be sure you'll know the right spot to be looking for sign when you get over to where you think "there" is.
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<br>No one owes it to a game animal to shoot it. But once you shoot it, you owe it to that wounded animal to finish it off as quickly and as humanely as possible. It is simply not sporting, in any sense of the term, to discard or ignore this responsibility as a fundamental decision in adopting a hunting method or procedure.
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<br>And yes, I do shoot prairie dogs at 500 yards and possibly farther -- with a powerful rifle and cartridge that blows 'em to tiny pieces with any hit. Game animals and varmints are different categories that require different responsibilities of the shooter. I don't ignore a wounded gopher or prairie dog -- I finish it off ASAP if I can.
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<br>I once watched from a distance, with binoculars, as my "sporting" friend, who hunts only with single-shots, stayed seated in his pickup when a doe he'd just wounded with a .270 humped-up and ran into a coulee. He'd hit that doe with solid placement in the lungs. I doubt that she went much farther than 100 yards, if that far. He went to another spot and shot another deer. When this one fell, he drove over to it and THEN got out of his pickup. I'm sure he doesn't cross any canyon and try to trail any deer he wounds from 1,000 yards away, on another mountain. I know he doesn't always kill with only one shot.
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<br>I have to wonder how many other long-range deer-shooters (a) always kill with one shot, (b) get a second, finishing shot into any deer they've only wounded, or (c) bother to cross the canyon to find and follow the trail of wounded deer that they can't finish-off from their original shooting positions.
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<br>I have my doubts.


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Well, I should know better than to step into this pit, but when has that ever stopped me before?
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<br>First, let me say that I rarely if ever shoot at a deer over 200 yards, this, in spite of the fact that I often hunt with a .308 which is quite capable of placing the shot and killing one at 500m, since I regularly shoot steel rams at that distance with it offhand, and with a rest it will easily hold under a MOA at 500m. And, I often have a laser range finder with me in the stand. Why do I restrict my shot's range, because personally, I prefer to KNOW, beyond a reasonably doubt, that when I pull the trigger that animal is dead, and pretty much near the space he was occupying. Have I missed my aiming point, yes, the animal moved as the shot broke, etc, but, luckily, I have not lost one yet. But it could happen, for sure.
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<br>All that said, if someone has the equipment and knowledge to shoot animals at extreme ranges, I feel almost certain that their recovery rate is at least as high as the average hunters, and probably a good bit higher. If they approach it carefully and with the correct equipment and practice, I say, more power to them. Shooting across canyons, with the attendant poor chance of recovery would not be ethical IMO. But, shooting at a running deer in the brush at 50 yards isn't either, to me, and it is done every day during the season by many who would condemn the long range shooter. Boggy had it right, as usual, we might not do it, but condemning someone else's choices, solely on the basis of distance, is not with good cause IMO.


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I am the person 7mmbuster is talking about.And yes we do shoot deer at range's that other people may find unethical.I limit myself to 1000 yard's.But I do know people that have cleanly taken deer and elk at over double that.What most people don't understand is.That we don't get out our gun's and shoot a couple of shot's at the range and go hunting.I shot over 1000 round's last year at different range's from 400 to 1000 yard's.I shot in different weather condition.No wind.Light wind.Heavy wind.I have drop chart's for different alitude's and tempature.I also have chart's for wind.I know where the bullet is going.And any deer up to 1000 yard's is in real big trouble.I am sorry some people do not agree with the way I do thing's.I just came over here to state my case.Good Day....Boyd....

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My $.02: There are few people that can even come close to a deer at these ranges. Most of the folks I run into in the woods couldn't hit within 20 feet of the animal. Those who consistently can, know what they're doing. Is it sporting? That's in the eye of the beholder.
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<br>Now, the topic was also introduced here of following up on your shots -- that's a whole other topic that is where my BIG beef lies with many hunters AND it has nothing to do with the range the animal was shot at. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "hunters" tell me of taking a shot and missing. I almost always ask if they went to the spot the animal was at and WAY TOO MANY times they say, "well, it didn't act like it was hit..." This pisses me off to no end!
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<br>So, off the soapbox, if a guy is willing to follow up on a 1000 yard shot, then more power to him. Usually a hunter can get far closer in the terrain that I hunt, so if you are going to check for blood after the shot, why not take the shot closer?
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<br>To me, this topic is quite similar to censorship. Who will the person be to decide what is acceptable and what isn't??? Correspondingly, wWho will be the person who decides what is too long and what isn't???

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There are FAR more people that do it than you think.For one thing we never hunt alone.I normaly have three guy's with me.And as for following up shot's.We know where the bullet is going.Have you ever seen a bullet arch into a deer at 1000 yard's?With the optic's we use you CAN WATCH THE BULLET from the time it leave's the barrel until it reach's the intended target.So when we hit a deer or an elk or a bear at long range.YOU KNOW YOU HIT IT.There is no doubt about it.The only thing that is different from what I do.And the person sitting in a fence row waiting for a deer to walk out in the field to feed.Is that I'm shooting a longer distance.That's it......You have stated you case.And I thank you for being truthful.I have taken people with your same thought's hunting one time.And they were hooked.It is not for everyone.But with pratice and the right equiptment.It does become quite easy.

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The older I get the less sure I am about any thing. A few things have held true however. It is more about how you take a deer (plug in your favorite critter here) than just taking one. It is more about what is fun and satisfies you than just putting meat on the ground.
<br>I don't think I am fit to tell anybody else how to have their fun as long as they observe the laws and common decency.
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<br>Some find their fun by using a lazer guided bullet from the reverse slope of a hill and killing a deer way to hellengone over there.
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<br>Take it the other way and there may be some who think the only way is to drop on one's neck from a tree and stab it to death with a self-chipped stone knife.
<br>It also just seems to be human nature, right or wrong, to believe that the way me and my friends do it is the only way it should be done. Much as we might try to be fair about it we kind of look down our noses at somebody who does it different.
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<br>Also it seems to be that there is a powerful tendency to think that because I can't do a thing nobody else can, or should attempt to, do it either. Now when we stop to consider that we know it is wrong but it is there just the same.
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<br>Hunting is a personal deal. I have never considered it to be a contest save between me and what I was hunting. It isn't between me and any body else just between me and the animal. Contests, to my way of thinking, should be on the target range not on the hunting grounds.
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<br>Now the only person in this world that I have to live with is me. I don't take extra long shots on game animals because there are too many variables that I have no control over for me to be comfortable with it. Too much chance to wound and not recover and nothing I could do about it in reality.
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<br>As I said I have to live with me. You have to live with you.
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<br>Enough philose-- phylis-- phelisep-- BS for one morning.
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<br>Selah
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<br>BCR
<br>


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To take a chance,(play), with a living thing as a target, when there is NO need, is asinine.
<br>Bring your charts, equipment, expertise and money. We will draw from a hat the day and time for you to shoot at a paper plate at 1000 yards, $100 a shot ten shots, move between shots. That way you have something to loose besides a spent round. -- no


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Boyd,
<br>I have watched guys doing what you do and have to admit to being impressed. I also appreciate the fact that you would state your case without resorting to emotion or acidulent verbage.
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<br>I have found, more often than not, that those suggesting that something is unethical have a big bunch of bones in their own closets. Most often they seem to be hung up on sour grapes.
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<br>Not to suggest that anyone here would do this, but it always makes me wonder when I see the preachers coming out.
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<br>Why don't you come around more often? I suspect you might have quite a bit to add to our discussions on a lot of topics.
<br>best to you
<br>art


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need one.Do you know that a 8 inch group at a 1000 yard's is a big group.Do you know that the World record in the Heavy gun class is 3.151 inches for ten shot's.Do you know the light gun world record is 4.534 inches for ten shot's.Do you?I did'nt think so...For one thing the kill zone on deer is around 15 inches.Not 8 inches.As for taking your money.I do not need it.If you have a probablem with what I do.That is fine by me.I have been through this before...................Sitka Deer.I have been around people like (need one) for a long time.Yelling and name calling will not get it done.I will not resort to such thing's.I also feel that I don't have to prove myself to anyone.You have seen it done.So you have an understanding on how thing's work.People who talk like (need one)don't have a clue.

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Art, -- I too think Boyd has much experience and could add to the campfire which has nothing to do with his ethitcs or priorties. Yes, I do judge when I have been hunting and shooting for many years and see what happens to the best of shooters and game in the field. There are too many things to go wrong with a long shot and a living thing on the receiving end. Play with paper, take responsible shots at game period. I don't trash my camping spots either, or leave ruts in the pasture or mountains. We need to police ourselves and someone needs to stand up and be responsible, the animals can't speak for themselves. Who am I to judge, A HUNTER. -- no


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I think the only question here is: Is it hunting or just killing? Actually to me deer are just long legged rats ( is that sacrelegious) But I have to contend with about 25 of the buggers all winter destroying everything they can reach.I have no doubt Boyd can do as he says. I saw similar shooting way back in 58. A close friend use to shoot whiteail with a .38 Norma MAg at extreme distances. I couldn't for the life of me reason why someone needed such a big cartridge for a 150 lb deer I don't have any problems with this, just don't call it hunting.


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Boyd:
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<br>I am glad you dropped by too and would love to hear more of your methods and equipment. If you would, why don't you start a thread on them under Big Game, or Rifles, etc.
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<br>Boggy,
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<br>I am continually amazed at the understanding of humanity contained in and the readability of the homespun wisdom you post. I think your last post should be required reading in every hunter education course.


"When we put [our enlisted men and women] in harm's way, it had better count for something. It can't be because some policy wonk back here has a brain fart of an idea of a strategy that isn't thought out." General Zinni on Iraq





















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need one.Yes you may judge.But what you are trying to judge you have no understanding of.Yes thing's can go wrong.But they can also go wrong at 50 yard's.I have watched a deer for three hour's before a shot was taken.Why did I wait?I did not feel I could make a clean kill.There are some Long range hunter's that will take a less than IDEAL shot.But there are ALOT more short range hunter's who will take a shot at a running deer in standing timber at 100 yard's.And I'm sure you are one of them.When I shoot a deer at 600 yard's or 1000 yard's.I KNOW where the bullet will go.There is a Long Range Video on the market that was Made by a good friend of mine.Alot of people with your way of thinking have watched it.Most of them have changed their way of thinking.You must first have an understanding of something before you can judge it.Just my .02

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saddlesore.Just don't call it hunting?What is hunting?Is HUNTING 20 guy's running through the wood's yelling.Chasing deer from their bed's.And make them run for their lives.For them just to run by someone at full speed while they are being shot at.IS THAT HUNTING?For some people it is...Is a person sitting in a blind waiting for a deer to come to the feeder a HUNTER?Some people think so.Is a person sitting in a tree stand waiting for a deer to come down the trail a hunter?Is a person sitting in a fence row watching a field and waiting for a deer to come out to feed a hunter?Let me know what your answer's are.......

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Boyd, welcome to the campfire, first off. I don't agree with you, but different viewpoints are always welcome here. That's why this is the best sight on the web. We don't all agree, but we can always disagree without getting personal.
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<br>I just can't see NEVER loosing one at that distance. You've said you've seen guys who didn't know they hit one at 100 yards, but you always know if it's hit at 1000. Must be by ESP. Yes, I've hit deer at 100 yards that didn't act hit. But checking after a shot is as much a part of shooting as taking the safe off. Many times I've killed deer at ranges of 100 to 300 yards, and literaly had to circle around to find them in the weeds or snow, even after watching them drop. But you never fail at more than 3 times the distance? I just have trouble accepting this.
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<br>As to differnt methods of hunting, ie driving deer, baiting deer, and so on, that too is up to the guy doing it. I, myself do mostly still hunting, or by setting in ambush at a spot I know to be frequently used. I just don't enjoy driving deer, and baiting is about as ethical as using a light. But, again that's me talking. The truth is I don't care how anyone does it, even with a light, but you owe it to the deer to do it cleanly.
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<br>I know some bow-hunters who ae very good shots at 50 yards, but will not shoot beyond 35 yards, because too many things can go wrong. I use a 30-06 and a 7 mm Rem Mag, and I practice out to 300 yards. Here too I seldom shoot beyond 200, because there's too much margin for error. I use a flintlock, and can consitantly hit at 100 yards, but again, I don't feel comfortable shooting over 60 yards.
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<br>I apoligize if you feel that I have flamed you. That was not my intent. But I believe that when you pick up a weapon to hunt something, you owe it to that something to do it as cleanly as humanly possible. You're welcome to come down to Bedford and we'll hunt the moutain, and I'd love to try the long range shooting, but I have a real big hang-up about using deer as targets.
<br>7mm


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