Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Leupold CDS or LR Duplex

No houses or greenfields out here bro......just lots of wind.

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Smokepole, the distance at which shooting at game becomes unethical is, IMO, determined by the wind, atmosphere, shooting light, stability, etc, not how badazzz a guy's gear or imagination is.

I hear that.... here's a view from one of my treestands....



I absolutely concur on wind and timing dictating ethical shooting distance. This is why I'm an advocate of actual field shooting.... the best way to know how all the variables add up... is to shoot in the wind, and schitty light, and rain, and from various positions, etc.

Good judgement comes from bad experiences.... and bad experiences come from poor judgment. Better to stage the poor experiences and apply lessons learned..... than to find out the hard way.

Some people would have a heart attack if shown what a real 400 yards looks like. The same person after being edumacated might abruptly switch their opinion to 400 being some miraculous distance that nobody can shoot at. Still others will regard 400 as a rather easy shot, quite makeable by anyone that bothered to develop that moderate skill level.

When told about long hunting shots you have to figure out which guy you're dealing with. One guy's unlikely is the next guy's easy, the next guys fantasy and the next guy's BS story.

Most of the deer/antelope I shoot are between 150-250 yards away.

Practicing at 350-450 makes the shorter shots much easier.

If someone wants to get tactical and snipe deer that's fine provided they aren't using live animals as target practice and bragging rights.
Backing up from an animal just to make the shot longer is retarded but I'm sure a few sniper dorks have done just that. The sharpied up yardage sign for the hero shot is beyond funny but whatever.


Main thing is realizing personal limitations and then sticking with them in the field.

I'd agree with that. I'm not sure what you mean by "badazzz gear" but I can tell you that "badazzz gear" will make a difference in the right hands.

Only if the wind allows.....that's been my point all along.

Agree SamO, 100%

The wind might not allow me to make a shot that another guy can easily make. If you take bullets alone as an example of "badazzz gear," the right ones drift less, and in the right hands tend to drift where they're supposed to.

The LR duplex works. I took a cow elk at 380yds with one,it was as easy as splitting the distance between the dots.

Then I began to shoot quite a bit more, and started to go up into the hills to shoot at rocks and such.

Then I found that the dotz are a great hunting tool, for plinking it leaves a bit to be desired.
Then I had a M1 installed on a VX-ll 3-9, worked great for 4 or 5 shots, then return to zero was more of an approximation.

Switched to SS scopes with .1mrad turrets and a MilQuad reticle.
Game changer. Able now to correct misses accurately, and dial up and down all day with actual return to zero.

For a pure big game hunting rifle, dotz just plain work.
For the hunting rifle that gets shot all year at all manner and size of targets, turrets and matching reticle win.

Once again, only if the wind allows. David Tubb can't do it every time in wind, nobody else can either, including Hodnett and everyone he's trained, from many countries. Nobody consistently dopes mucho wind, ever, no matter what equipment or bullets they have.

But if you shoot a lot, at the same distances you commonly take critters at, the wind becomes a lot less difficult than you're making it out to be... Especially with a reticle that matches your turrets, coupled with a solid zero....

Tanner

This.

Turrets are more precise and "funner", but where I hunt, shot presentations on bucks are often quick, even at longer ranges, so I just dial up to 9-10x max power and wait. If you know the approximate ranges of landmarks, the dots will let you connect on vitals pretty fast. We hunt wide pipeline ROW's around here and good bucks are often just strolling across, maybe pausing for a second or two to look around. Have to be ready and be quick. In open country, I could see a turret being used more often.

JG, I was shooting a new rifle the other day at 400 yards. Tried to get out of the wind(doing load work-up...) so I went to a spot down in a fairly deep creek bottom.

Wind at my shooting position was R-L quartering towards me. When I walked out to check the target the wind was swirling in the opposite direction.

I notice the same thing once in awhile if I have surveyors tape placed near the target. No way in hell to accurately predict it on certain days.

Shhh Tanner!

We were about to find out how much it costs to hunt there and see some pictures of somebody else's deer mounted in their den...

David

Great point on the wind flags, and once again SamO, agree 100%. I'm not worth a crap as a wind doper. Gusting/swirling 20+mph wind will make a fool out of the best of the best. Take away the wind and it gets rather easy, even for me.

Leupie 6x42MQ....

so with dots, a little wind.... and a tweener yardage.... you have no part of the reticle on the target?

Gap shooting dots AND wind sounds like a super way to make hits....

Dots may be a little faster..... but just like IDPA.... you can't miss fast enough to win. It ain't about making the fastest hit.... it's about making the right hit.... unless you're gunning an ÜBER Mag and have Hack to back you up...

No part of the reticle is on intended point of impact.

Dot's are just a reference point for hold over.

Shoot with them enough and they become even easier to use.

Things get too complicated horizontally otherwise we would have sideways dots.... lead is where practice comes into play.

Running shots and wind require more than twisting turrets.

I practiced and practiced out to 550 yards in the month before hunting 2014. It took 3 rifles: 260 with IOR, 260 with Leupold CDS, and 7mmRM with Sightron SIII. The 7mmRemMag won.

I hunted for 5 days using a Leica 1600 rangefinder and a Sightron riflescope with turrets.

Then I filled my mule buck and antelope buck tags both at 50 yards.

In 2015 I will practice at long range again.
My favorite scope is a Leupold CDS VX3 3.5x10x40. I have a number of them. If there is anything better than that scope for hunting, it would be wasted on me.

Rocks are pretty simple too.... practicing with one makes it much easier to pound nails with one.... but it still doesn't make it the right tool. Practice with a BDC turret makes it very easy to hit stuff.... even in moderate wind... and it's just as fast when practiced up.

If dots are simply for holdover..... and you have no "horizontal dots".... how do you A: KNOW your hold is correct?
B: KNOW where the bullet is aimed?
Close enough is usually good enough.... till it's not.... but hey, Hack has spare time and a .44.

You are absolutely correct on the running shots and wind.... but I've shot with 100's of guys in the wind..... and I'm headed out today in 10-15 MPH rainy winds to do it again. I've never, in 40 years, seems somebody legitimately practice running shots, especially with a high powered rifle. Do you?

How many guys that run turrets EVER advocate taking a running shot that requires use of the turret? I've read thousands of posts on LRH right here in my dozen plus years on the fire... and I don't recall a single account of someone taking a 450 yard running shot after spinning dope in the turret. But more than one guy with "dots" has made that incredibly low percentage shot.... so that's ethical?