Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting 1000 yd. Shooting with .270 win.

I've seen lots of folks that thought they were good; until they laid down prone from 1000 yards and tried shooting a M1874 Sharps rifle shooting 720 gr. all-lead cast bullets using 116 grs. Swiss 1F blackpowder using aperture sights front and rear! Most KNOW SQUAT about aperture sights because most of the younger generation doesn't know anything but current scope usage and couldn't even hit the mainframe on which the bull is hung in the below photo; this after much instruction on sight usage and proper position! Most of the 'super-duper' cartridge shooters today don't have to worry much about holding elevation once a zero is established however that doesn't hold true shooting bullets that are only leaving the muzzle at possibly 1350 fps; 3200 fps is a lot easier! However with a black powder cartridge rifle...it's a whole new ball game to the extent that not only is wind a major problem but the wind also plays a huge part in holding the right elevation. Most modern shooters would embarrass themselves to the point whereby they'd have a sore foot from kicking stuff around for their embarrassment! Here's a group I shot a while back with my C. Sharps M1874 Sharps from 1000 yds. The overall diameter of the black bull is 44"; the diameter of the inner plate is 20"...same size as the 10 ring on the NRA LR Palma target. I dropped 3 shots off to the right however had I made a windage adjustment all would have been back toward center. When I am testing a load I don't care squat about what the horizontal dispersion is because basically what I'm looking at is the amount of vertical dispersion! This vertical averages about 8". There are 10 shots here.



Excuse me! I said I dropped 3 rounds off the 10 ring plate but closer examination shows that one of the two at the upper right 'nicked' the edge of the 10 ring so I only dropped 2 off the 10 ring.

My range on a cold morning! This was taken from the 1300 yd. line with a Canon camera at 17X.