Tanner is right on the money with his standards, that's definitely a good guideline. The point that I was trying to make was the mental aspect. I have seen people miss at ridiculous ranges, like 80 yards quite often. All the practice in the world won't help, if you can't keep your head on your shoulders. A few years ago, a friend of mine drew a sheep tag. He practiced and trained all summer with the same gun that I used on that Elk and was more than proficient to 500. We found a band of nine rams, 2 of which were tanks. We scaled the mountain, played the wind and 3 hours later were 80 yards from all of them. He missed the biggest one, at the shot they started milling but didn't leave. He jacked the second shell in and touched it off straight in the air! Couldn't believe it but they were still confused so he had time for a 3rd shot.The big one was standing broad side at about 100 still.I told him to kill it, heard the last shot go off and the big guy trotted off. He yells"I got him", I look around and sure enough there is a dead ram. He focused on a younger ram that had big bases and lamb tips looking down at us from a ledge above us and thought it was the big guy.To his credit, he was still very happy. To me being able to make an ethical kill shot on an actual game animal at any range is about 20 percent practice and equipment, the rest is in your head!
