Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Must.... pry.... harder...

The ol' bean seems to be allowing me to shoot once a week (not twice!) so that's what I've been doing. Conditions were good yesterday... meaning I'm caught up on shop work, and the athlete kid was off at a track meet and wasn't needing shuttle service after school... grin... and oh yeah, it was reasonably calm out and only raining
a little. So off I went to my 500-yd spot.

This spot has a plate at 450 yds that is relatively easy to get to for maintainance (repainting, rehanging, replacing) and I'm still working my way back to form so I've been focusing on it lately. I have a 600-yd plate that's been compromised by logging that I need to go retrieve and set up in a different spot... 600 yds is my real goal in hunting rifles. For this Imaginer 600 yds is a challenge in a hunting context- meaning first-shot hits almost always. 450-500 is pretty much in the bag as far as just hitting a vitals-sized plate.

Anyway, yesterday was fun and my 7 WSM, 7-08, and '06 were making the plate go "whop!" with brutal regularity. I drove over and repainted it a couple times so I could track group size. With cold barrels I was right around 3/4 MOA or better... which certainly doesn't suck, but my goal is to regularly print half MOA at those ranges so... it ain't enough to just PYCOTC, sometimes you gotta pry HARDER!

If anyone around here (Eugene area) wants to PYCOTC and whack steel, let me know, I've got several spots set up out to 800 yds or so, and I go up all the time. You get to Elmira, I'll drive from there... This 500-yd spot is great for gaining (or regaining in my case) confidence and skill at mid-ranges; it's got fun stuff to shoot at from around 250, to 500 yds. In my experience it's around 600 yds that chit gets squirrely fast... at least for me & my hunting-weight rifles. That makes it interesting-- and the next goal-- but sometimes it's just nice to hear the steel plate complain.

Crown Royal bag full of lentils is THE cool rear bag... lol...

Looks good. That second pic looks like A-Max splatters...

My rear bag is a suede draw-string sack I got in a shwag bag at a golf tourney, filled with socks 'n' beanz Makeshift rear bags are the bees knees!

Good to hear you can shoot the big guns again...

I filled an unmatched sock from my dresser with air-soft BB's, and sewed up the end. Works great.

Looks fun! Tough to do here on the wrong side of the country.

I know what you mean. No opportunity to shoot that far for me. I do wonder at the apparent difficulty of shooting at something from what amounts to as close to benchrest stabilty as you can get, at known distances with equipment that makes it all as easy as possible {rangefinders/scope turrets} and calling it marksmanship ? Seems like heavy reliance on modern technology as a substitute for old fashioned hunting/stalking and marksmanship skills to me. I mean gosh, we used to kill woodchucks at 300-400 yds. with .22-250's firing old fashioned "low BC" bullets from a sitting position off homemade shooting sticks with no rangefinder or "turret twisting" and we hit the damned things pretty damned regular by guess and by golly. Maybe I'm all wet but I'm kinda underwhelmed by tales of hitting 6" targets at 500 yards from a sandbagged, prone position with the best of rifles/rests/scopes/high BC bullets. YAAAAWWWWN !! Now stand on your hind legs and vaporize a row of apples from 75 yards offhand bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, without missing a beat and I'll start paying attention. Now you're talking something I can relate to as a valuable skill where I come from !

Jeff is that your hand or is a Yeti holding the ruler for you?

Blackheart are you a full time debbie downer or is it just a hobby for you?

Long range shooting is fun, different and challenging. So is offhand shooting of any and all kinds. Just because Jeff-Os shooting styles arent "impressive" by your standards doesnt give you the right to come in and toot your horn.

After that did you guys hop in your Model Ts and go watch Babe Ruth play?

Thinking the same thing.

And we call them "Sasquatch".

I suggest you try a slingshot or if you want to evolve a stick and string.
Why are you even shooting modern smokeless powder? That's not hard.
You better not be using a scope.
Cheers

How did you measure those 300 and 400 yard shots?

I found that most guys that used to make those 300-400 yard shots were really shooting about 150-175 yards and thought they were doing something.

I have yet to take someone to my 600 yard range and the first words out of their mouth not be "[bleep] that is a long way". Most will not even shoot for groups beyond a 100 because they know they can't do it.

Dink

Yes we do.... . Good to see you out shooting again Jeff...Looks like you're nailing them too.....

Well, you're full-o-shchit in my case bud. We shot those distances by paces along level ground in those days. My paces measured 110 per 100 yards repeatedly on a football field so I trust them pretty well. Shots of 150 - 200 yds. are the territory of .22 WMR and 5 mm Remington mag in my world. I did that over and over hundreds of times {257 paces was my best one shot kill with the 5mm on a chuck}. Even stretched the .22 LR to 150 paces many times and shot one crow off a fence post at 220 paces with a Ruger MK I 22 LR target pistol. Pardon me if I ain't overly impressed with many of the hero accomplishments spoken of here.

I was thinking the same thing.....I'll agree though that it takes quite a bit of talent and skill to shoot good groups offhand at any range.....I love shooting long range and do take critters that way when the opportunity arises. The unit I put in for last year was a known long range shooting opportunity tag (as I call it)....Many different types of hunting, but shooting for fun and practice can be from any range in any position....as far as I'm concerned...I wish I lived closer to Jeff: I'd be all over those 600 yard plates as often as I could.....

As a matter of fact, two of the four deer I killed last season were done in with an iron sighted T/C Hawken shooting patched RB's over 75 gr's of Goex FFFG.

You killed Jimmy Hoffa and invented compound interest too right?

Whats next, a zipper pull down contest ?

About 95% of my practice is done offhand because that;s what is important to my styyle of hunting in my terrain. I have a 2.5" diameter steel spinner 65 yards from my back deck that I practice on constantly offhand. I maintain the ability to hit that spinner 9 out of ten shots offhand religiously. My best on that target in recent years is 78 straight hits without a miss.

I can't help it if most of you [bleep] can't shoot today. Leave your crutches {benchrests/rangefinders/turrets/ treestand shooting rails} behind and practice and maybe you won't be so goddam pathetic. KEEEERIST, I see thousands of target pics posted here showing tiny little groups fired off a bench. That shows what your rifles can do but damn [bleep]' little about what the rifleman can do.