Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Cost efficient rifle for practice?

Manny is very much SPOT ON here.

For years due to my occupation, I used a .308/7.62 and shot M118LR pretty much exclusively. I used it at work and I used it in competition as well as in the mountains and desert while hunting. For those not familiar, the M118 LR uses a Sierra 175 grain Matchking. Were there better projectiles? Sure. But when you shoot thousands of them from prone, from rooftops, from bipods/tripods, at work, then take them to the field hunting, you are extremely familiar with the drops, with wind calls, how they will do in mountain thermals, updrafts and downdrafts, etc.

You simply cannot replicate that familiarity shooting 3 different cartridges. I shot a bunch of various live targets with them, including deer, elk, and other things. Everything fell over dead.

Now that I retired from all that, I shoot 155 Scenars almost exclusively for .308s for the same reason.

I personally would shoot what you have exclusively and keep an old school data book of the conditions you shoot it in to record your notes.


By all means take advantage of the modern ballistic programs. They are excellent. But each time you shoot record the information on wind calls, come ups, etc. That way you have notes you can refer to.

This is an old note from shooting movers at 800, with an M24 and fixed 10. Not what I used these days but still useful for referring to.







Keeping good notes can also tell you when you may have an equipment or an ammo issue, such as when your gun was fine at 800, but you dial windage and elevation for 500 on a KD range and all of the sudden it can barely keep them on paper. Same lot of ammo too.