Originally Posted by HuntnShoot
For me it was the widely available ballistic calculators, cheap LRF, cheap chronographs, somewhat accurate ballistic coefficient numbers, and bullets designed with relatively high BC that changed everything.

When I was young, 400 yards seemed like a ridiculously long distance to shoot at anything I wanted to hit consistently. The new tech paradigm allowed bullet drop and wind deflection to make sense to me. Before that, it was a cloudy, mystical thing. Now, quarter-mile shots at animals are a gimme, as long as the wind isn't a mystery. It still blows my mind when I think about it, how easy it is to ding 6" steel at the longest ranges I shoot now, because I didn't even know how far across-the-canyon was when I was younger. Cool stuff.

+1 This essentially sums up everything I was going to write. I might also add that really good custom barrels are alot more common now, as are really accurate, relatively inexpensive factory rifles.