He and I think much alike. I am not one that never shoots past 100 yards, but I like to shoot close. I like hunting!
I am a good long range shooter and I fire out to 1000 and even farther fairly often. I don't shoot game out there however. Could I hit them? Yes. (most times) But to me, it defeats the reason I hunt in the 1st place.
I can shoot to 500 yards and not leave my own land. I can shoot to 750 by going on my neighbors land, and I have his permission to do that. I can drive only 20 minutes and fire out to any range I wanted to (2400 yards, but I own nothing that could be useful that far out)
I can and I have made some very long shots to kill game when I was a younger man, but I grew a brain and decided to stop pressing my luck for NO reason at all. In 50+ years of hunting, in many states and in several countries I have NEVER ONCE felt a true need to fire a shot at ANY game animal past 500 yards. Honestly, in the last 20 years I have not even had a passing feeling that I should shoot past 600 but one time (which was last year at a bull elk, WHICH I MISSED because I have never done ANY practice with that rifle past 450,) and I had just finished it 2 months before the season. I knew better and I should have let the elk go. Thankfully I missed it clean and didn't wound it or the task of getting it out of there would have been bad. It was bad enough considering my wife had just killed her bull from the same heard and the dead elk was in one of those places you have nightmare about the pack-out.
But in the last 26 years of so I can recall killing about 8 head of big game out past 500. In that same time I have averaged 8 head a year I guess. Some more and some less. So 8 is a realistic average. That's 204 head. As you can see, shots past 500 are quite rare for me and shots past 800 are non-existent. Why? Because I can ALWAYS get closer then 800.
Some say "there was this time that bla bla bla---- and I HAD TO shoot at 900-1400 yards". Well I guess my understanding of "HAD TO" and theirs are different. I HAD TO shoot X far when it was a war. But in my past-time of hunting, starting when I was a kid and now going into my 57th year of hunting, I have never"HAD TO" shoot that far at ANY animal. Not in any state at any time or in any country or under any circumstance. NOT ONCE! Yes I have done it, but I am not going to try to justify those shots as necessary. I would say I was young ------------and that I have grown up more ---------------(mostly)
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I encourage shooters to learn to fire accurately at long range and I feel marksmanship skills at ranges from 2 yards to 1500 yards are worth the time and effort to lean proficiency in. But that skill is to fight wars with, and defend your country, town, county, family friend and allies with. Not to kill game with. Game animals deserve more respect then enemies. We don't care if a wounded enemy is hit in the guts or hips.
So I think I would truly like your old stubborn friend. He and I would enjoy hunting together because we both like to HUNT.
Last year I fired 10 rounds at game and I hit with 9 of them, and I killed 6 head of game. I missed with the only scoped rifle I used last year. ALL other kills were with rifle with iron sights and ALL other shots hit. One deer was hit once in the chest, one hit to the off-side leg (cutting the chest hair and breaking the leg), and one killer to the head. All other shots with my iron-sighted rifles were perfect hits and all others were one shot kills.
1 Antelope doe with a M99 Savage in 300 Savage at about 150 yards. Peep sight, one shot.
1 Antelope doe with my 6.5X54 Mannlicher at about 12 yards. Open sight, one shot.
1 Antelope Buck with my M95 Winchester in 270 at about 35-37 yards. Open sight one shot.
1 Buck Deer with my 8X57 at about 140 yards (usually scoped, but I had the scope off for the fun of hunting with the standing iron sight ) one shot.
2 Doe deer with my M81 Remington in 300 savage. Open sight. One shot on one and 3 on the next of which 3 were hits.
And one missed Bull Elk at about 640 with my new Mauser 9.3X62. I never fired a single round past 500 with that rifle and so I guessed the trajectory would be the same as my old 7.62 match load from my Marine Corps days. It was close to the same, but not close enough. That was with a 5X scope. Clean miss.
My miss on my Bull was 100% my fault for firing with a rifle I was not practiced with, at that range and I would not have fired if I had not been asked to my 2 friends and my wife, right after she killed her bull. Is that an excuse? No! 100% my fault. I should have just said no, and gone after some other bull. So now I can't say I have never missed an elk. Up to that shot I could. My perfect record on elk is now destroyed for violation my own "rule" and I claim 100% blame for it
Last edited by szihn; 08/07/20.
