I shot this morning at 430yds. I did both holdover and turrets, to see if there was really any difference between the two. according to JBM, 6.7moa on the turret, or 28-29 inch holdover. Same rifle for both. No wind at all. 162amax out of a 7saum.
My target was a smaller shoe box, that would hold kids shoes, with a piece of blue tape in the middle to give me something to aim at. I hit the shoe box on every single shot (shot a total of 12 times), with both my holdovers and using the turret. Because I'm not used to holding over, it took me twice as long to pull the trigger, as I was trying to get some sort of reference for 29" With a little practice though, it'd be nothing for me to speed up the process though.
My last 3 shots with the turret resulted in a sub 2" group, with 2 of the shots touching. I said enough, and put the rifle away for deer season.
Calvin hit the nail squarely on the head with his comment on "some sort of reference".This is completely true dealing with a shoe box or some other small target at 430 yards;and the fact that he likely was zeroed lower than for example, I'd be likely to be zeroed with the same load,so had to deal with more drop.
The key issue with hold over is that,with a BG animal(anything from a pronghorn buck -15" through the chest;to a big northern deer of either species-18"-20" through the chest,to a bull elk,where I always used the figure of app 32" to figure this stuff out,
the animal itself provides that frame of referencethat Calvin was looking for but had to sort of "guess at" with the shoe box.Which is why I have said before that you are not "holding in thin air" with the "holdover";you have a very definite point of reference on a BG animal,and gravity is constant.
Zeroed 3" high at 100 yards with a 7 mag and 160 gr bullet at 3100 or so,a guy is about 3.5" high at 200,dead on at 300 yards(similar loads from 270's and 300 mags behave about the same). At 400 yards such a load is down about 10".On a buck deer,a slight bit of daylight between top of back and crosshairs will give a center chest hit;on a bull elk a high shoulder hold will give about the same results.Point to this is that you always have this same point of reference,and why, to 400 yards on BG animals,this sort of system is fast and flexible.
Obviously if your target is a 4" dot at the same distance of 430 yards,a precisely zeroed scope with turrets will pull you right in;and ditto on a varmint rifle where the target is a woodchuck or some other small animal.But it's different when hunting BG animals.
Another point when hunting BG is that if you used a fixed 4X or 6X (say)for a lot of your BG hunting,and shot distances to 600 yards with it,you developed a very definite "feel"for how far away animals were because you were always dealing with one magnification,as opposed to being able to jump around as one can with a variable(this may not be as important now as it was for many of us prior to introduction of reliable rangefinders). You also had consistent reticle subtension that helped with bullet drop and ranging animals; this is good stuff to know if the rangefinder quits or it is otherwise impossible to get a reading, as happened to me last year at 340 yards.
Zeroed the way I suggested with a 7 mag,and a fixed 6X(or say a 2.5-8 set on 6X) Leupold,your 500 yard aiming point is the bottom post of the duplex; so even holdover guys use the reticles to help them,and is part of the reason some say the turrets are not needed to 400 yards or so.
This all becomes very intuitive after a lot of hunting and shooting,which is helpful at times.One big-bodied 5x5 bull elk was peeling through the oak brush,running from another hunter.I ran to get into the best possible position,plopped prone and a quick glance and a peek through the 4X told me I was dealing with 450-500 yards.(Even if LRF's had been available, there was no time to use it.)The bull stopped and turned, quartering on and I gave 18-20" of holdover(300 Win Mag-180 at 3125),hit point of the shoulder,which dumped him;his head was still up so I held slightly above the base of the antlers,and the second shot broke his neck.It was over in about 10-15 seconds because it had to be done in that time frame or not at all....like Dober says sometimes things happen fast up on the hill.
....a good guy with turrets would likely have pulled it off as quickly.I dunno; we didn't have them then....
Today you can mix and match both systems to suit you.
