I've been reloading and shooting for a long time now, over 40 years. But in the past I have mostly shot at 100 yards for load development. I know what kind of havoc wind can play at longer distances. I live in Wyoming and calm days are rare. That hasn't been an issue in the past because where I've hunted is in the thick timber of the Sierra Madre mountains of southern Wyoming. I've never shot an elk there at a distance of more than 75 yards. But this past year I retired and moved to NW Wyoming and there's a lot of places to hunt here where shots could be longer.
I doubt I'll ever have the skill or confidence to shoot at anything you guys would consider long range, but I figure the experts here can help me understand some things. If I can get comfortable at 300-350 yards, I'll be happy.
Yesterday I took a .270 Win to the range. It's fairly new but has averaged about 0.7 moa at 100 yards for six 3-shot groups with a load I've come up with using 130 grn TTSX bullets. At 100 yards I got a 0.625 group. There was officially a 12 mph crosswind but the range is located between earthen berms and the wind swirls and gusts inside of them. At 200 yds the group opened up to a bit less than 1.5 moa and at 300 yards to a bit over 2 moa.
Would this be considered normal for these conditions? Also, the variance of the groups at 200 and 300 yds were as much or more vertical than horizontal. That kind of surprised me, but is that normal as well?
