Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 1 1/2 high at 100?

I use a 200 yard zero
then use 1st dot at 300
2nd dot 400
big post for 500
so far i have hit every shot from 200- 400
that being an 8 inch steel plate
will practice the 500 yard shots this summer...
6x36 Leupold dots..i like this scope

That's the way we have been doing it around here since before I was born.

I have not killed a lot of elk, but I did get a bull this year, at 325 lasered yds with the STW zeroed at 300. I just held dead on.

I would rather hold down a bit at 175 yds than hold over at 325 yds.

I have killed a bunch of deer with an old '06 using the 165 gr ballistic tip at 2900 fps mv.

The chart taped onto the stock read: 100 yds: +4; 200 yds: +4.7; 300 yds: 0; 400 yds: -11, 500 yds: -30

That trajectory never prevented me from killing a 2 inch tall ground squirrel at 175 yds, let alone a deer or elk.

I like spot on for 200 yards, and that is how I zero the current love of my life a 7mm Remington Mag and 150 gr Fusions. I then made up my own chart by shooting from 25 yards out to 400 yards. I was working out in California and there was a really great rifle range I could get to on the week ends. Here in CT, the shooting is not long, most shots will be well under 100 yds. Most will zero spot on for that distance. My neighbor who is new to hunting and shooting zeroed in a 30-30 Marlin for that, and collected his two deer with it with out much fuss. The way I have my 7mm RM sited with those fusions, I can just hold on the lungs and just shoot to dam near 300 yards. If I hold on the back, I can map good solid killing shots out to 350 yards or so. And that is a long shot for a guy who dose to shoot the distances a lot.

I like dead nuts on at 100.

Temp and altitude make big differences on drops and part of the reason for various disagreements on the 'Fire

I've sighted all of my rifles in 2.5" high at 100 yards for quite a while. It puts most of them dead on at 25 yards and for a 270, dead on again at 250 yards. I don't get many 100 yard shots, mainly under 30 yards in the timber or 200 yards plus in a meadow.

Aiming low on an animal is so counter-intuitive that it just doesn't work in the real world, IMHO. If that's the way you do things, more power to you. I'll stick with my 200 yard zero and dots.

Long ago I ran across an idea to remember drop. With a 200 yard zero, if one remembers his 300 yard drop (in inches), the 400 yard drop will be roughly 3 times the 300 yard, and the 500 will be twice the 400.

This comes pretty close with the general 243,270,'06 type rounds.

There's nothing counter intuitive about it. You just have to know your gun, know your trajectory, and know how to judge range. Of course, now days they have these handy things you carry around on your belt which take all the guesses out of range estimation.

I guarantee, it is no harder to aim five inches below a four ounce rodent at 175 yds, than it is to aim 7 1/4 inches over at 300 yds.

One has to consider where one's game is most likely to be encountered. In the area I have hunted since I first went with my folks at five years of age in 1960, the vast majority of our shots are over 250 yds. In this country, a 300 yd zero makes good sense.

From what I have seen of the wetland forests around Portland Or, (for example) a fifty yard zero would be more appropriate.

With items like the 25/06-120,270-130,7 mag-160, I like 3" high at 100.Such zero puts me POA at 275-300 yards.

A top of the back hold will easily drop a bullet into the chest of deer sized game at 400 yards.From 20 feet to 300 yards hold center of chest.On elk, you are still holding on hair.You can shade slightly at 175-200 and still kill neatly.

This is fast,very uncomplicated;and very useful when a big mule deer buck is slithering through oak brush,distance constantly changing,across a canyon,or a bull elk is moving through screening cover and turning 200 yards into 400 in seconds;or a rutting whitetail buck is hustling across a cut line at 300 yards.

It also works in the woods at under 100,since you are about an inch high at 50 yards, if that...

You might overshoot a coyote at 175 if you don't hold low,but I don't care about coyotes when hunting BG.

This can be modified somewhat with faster stepping magnums or very high BC bullets at magnum velocity,which seem to show more mid range;or for varmints....again, different ball game.

Dots and turrets take over past 400....for me,to that distance or less,they aren't needed.

Esox357,
I'm probably a little different than many, but this has worked for years for my wife and I. I suggest to run a ballistic program for your particular combination. Find out what gives you a 300yard zero.For my wife's .338 Win.Mag. and my .375AI this equates to 4" high at 100 yards, 10" to 11" low at 400 yrds. This means for big game "hold on hair" out to 400 and bring home meat. the biggest problem that we occassionally encounter is that on small targets,coyotes,fox,ect. you must be vigilant to be aware that at around 180 yrds. your trajectory peaks out (approx. 6"),and over shooting the target is easy to do!! This sight-in works well for us. Good Luck with your decision. memtb

I used to sight in my hunting rifles 3" high at 100 yd., but went to dead on at 100 because I never get to shoot farther than that while hunting.

I sight all my hunting rifles 3" high at 100 yards.Where I hunt shots can be in your face or way out there...

As long as I am aiming at hair,I am fine out to atleast 400 yards+ with my major hitters and and 22" drop an Elk gives you from the spine down to the vitals!

Jayco

i zero my 300 rum at 100 but turn the turret up to 3 inches high at a 100 while hunting, which has me dead on at 330.

For me it depends on what kind of critter I am shooting at.
For varmints the over/under needs to be smaller that 3 or 4 inches.
Yours might be different.

My deer rifles are dead on at 100. The farthest shot I've ever taken was 125. That was with my .450 Marlin and the stars had to align just perfectly for that one. I think it was the only spot in our little chunk of the Adirondack park where you can even see farther than 75 yds!

Most of them have been between 25' and 40 yds.

I hunt deer almost every year in the east and the west and things never work out the way you plan...

My last mule deer buck had to be killed hard crossing on the run at about 80 yards with little time to do it,after he had been jumped off a buck brush flat.

Then I got home, and after poking around in thickets all day took a stand on a power line and killed an 8 point that lopped across a power line at a bit over 300 yards,chasing a doe in heat.

The western deer was killed at eastern ranges,and the eastern deer at western ranges.....but both were killed neatly with rifles zeroed 3" high at 100 yards;the 270 with 130 Partition down 3" at 300, and the 7 Mashburn with 160 Partition hitting POA at that distance,which made the 300+ yard shot easier considering that the buck was across that power line very quickly, with not a lot of time to kill him.

Up in Northern Maine I heard a volley of shots up ahead on an abandoned logging road that went straight up the ridge through a big cut...I got up ahead and found a somewhat shaken young guy from PA with a scoped 30-30.He said this pretty big buck had snuck behind him in thick stuff(too thick to shoot at about 30 yards),and the buck paralled the road,staying iin cover,and then popped onto the road at about 250 yards.

He had "heard" that all shots in Maine were close in thick stuff so brought his 30-30 (instead of his 30/06),zeroed POA at 100 yards.He stood almost no chance to sort all this out and the shots I heard were him hitting under the buck which naturally got away...wrong cartridge,but even more wrong on the zero,and what could have saved waives of dissapointment because the success rates in Maine on any deer run about 10%,never mind a 200# plus mature buck.

My biggest Maine buck was shot at 300 yards;2 of the biggest mule deer I have seen in the last 10 years or so,were at 30 feet,and maybe 60 yards.

I've forgotten having pre-conceived notions of how and when an animal is going to show up,because you just never know.

The biggest mule deer I ever saw I could of killed with a load of 6's to the back of the head. I thought about doing just that, because I damn near stepped on the deer whilst pheasant hunting.

Scott they hold tighter than a person would think...especially the grown up ones.

Either that,or they will react and move out if they detect evil intent at very long distances...I have moved them out at over a half mile and 1500 feet higher....I know because I moved them into a friend as I climbed the mountain....never saw them myself.

One of those bucks mentioned at like 30 feet or so, only went out after I fish hooked back through in bedding cover.....he let me walk right by the first time I went through.At that,I stood in one spot for maybe 3 minutes or so and shuffled around before his nerves broke.He was BIG!

I tend to also use a low zero, my shots generally run 20 to 70 yards. In the last 20 years, only two have been right at 100 yards, and one was 236 yards.

The rest have been powder burn to about 70 yards, and I shoot 3 to 4 deer a year.

2.5" high at 100 gives me a MPBR of 285 yards.
If I can see 'em, I aim right at 'em.