I hear what your saying bob, the human skill needed if those rifles worked as advertised would be finding an animal, having his stand still long enough to shoot. A couple years back I had a rifle that was just damn amazing. We killed 6 or 7 pigs with it at mile. But I have taken that same rifle on a couple hunts where I ate tags. Here are some things people forget about long range. Most animals move at dawn and dusk. Your shooting hours are much shorter at long range. Animals do not stand still. I rarely see animals just standing around in daylight. Usually if an animal with a little pressure on it is on its feet in daylight it has a reason for that and is moving. We do not shoot moving animals. Sometimes when you happen to see an animal standing around where there is enough light for a shot, the wind screws us. If the wind does not screw us, it takes time to get set up for a shot. Most times about the time you get set up the animal leaves. Even if your looking to take a long shot most of the time you see an animal you want to take he is not far at all. I do not know a soul that will back off to make the shot longer. Longrange is not as easy as it seems even given the extended distance. I would guess that I have been on 20 hunts out west with the intent of shooting a long shot if it presented itself. Most of those hunts my animals were shot at short range, or I ended up eating a tag. I have killed a goodly number of pigs at long range, a couple antelope, an elk or three. I have been a part of a lot of longrange kills, where I provided the rifle, and was the spotter, dialer of the scope, but longrange is never a cake walk. Then you have self doubt. I have set up for a large number of shots that I passed. If I do not feel as comfortable as I would taking a 20 yard bowshot, I will not pull the trigger.
Good post. But what we're seeing is technology that takes a lot of this stuff into account. The motion tracking software, thermal imaging, etc.
I used the Tracking Point as an example, but my understanding is there is other some other really advanced stuff in the works. I wouldn't be surprised to see it advance like many other gadgets....think evolution of the cell phone.
