Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Light-ish rifles from field positions -- post your results

Budda-Bing!

+1
More often than skill, sneakiness, or quality of equipment - being always ready and being able to shoot fast have made the difference in bringing home game vs. going home empty handed more times for me and my hunting partners than I can recall.

I can build rifles and study gear and gak all off season but always being ready to shoot quickly (even walking in our out of my "hunting area") has accounted for more meat than all the gak and gear put together.

Lots of folks are gear nuts these days but when it's kill time and you're fumbling around because you spent more time working drops from 800-1,000 yards rather than going through the motions of prepping to drop the hammer, this is where it falls apart quickly for internet hunters....

Greg I take it you have done this stuff a time or two????

Amen from the back row.....

Greg; well said.

Mental and physical preparation matters more than gear.

Gear can be good but you have to have used it enough for it to be intuitive.

Sounds like Greg has been on the front row to the show!

Milk jugs to 400ish.




Travis

Just curious, why jugs instead of steel?

Steel and milk/gallon jugs out to 450. A friend and myself shoot from sitting, prone and kneeling at this range. Out to 250 I'll shoot/practice standing shots.

To answer cast10K's question - I like to see the water explode on a hit. Not to mention this is West Texas, our next drought starts the day after the last rain.

Yep.

The big guys don't often stick around in the open long enough for a shooter to fart around getting ready.

Figuring out how to get into a stable position quickly....really trying to streamline the entire process of going from mentally recognizing "That's a shooter" all the way through pulling the trigger, has been the key for me in several situations.

Another thing I have been trying to work on is practicing in varied conditions, such as just before dark after a long day and I'm tired, in the snow and rain with numb fingers, or I'll do a bunch of push-ups or run to get the heart rate up, then shoot from field positions. Because those are the sorts of conditions one often runs into in the hills, and just like anything the more the training resembles reality, the better one will be when it comes time to do it for real.

Because jugs are free.




Travis

I think it's true what folks are saying about the ability to shoot quickly. It is much different than being able to shoot a nice group from the bench.

I shot the buck below this past Saturday. He's no great trophy, but he's a shooter for the area I hunt. Range was only about 100 yards, at a hard downward angle on the flat below the side-hill/bluff I was on, thick brush, limbs, trees. Buck was chasing a doe, I couldn't get a shot from the first position, had to sprint 20 yards along the side of the side of the bluff then set up as the buck turned to look up at me. 100 yards, straight on shot, very small window between limbs, hard downward angle, 6.5lb .308, maybe 3 seconds to make it (?). The blood on the right antler is from the bullet entrance at the neck jaw rather than the neck chest I wanted...but at the angle the shot was taken from it's a very small difference offhand.

Practice offhand is a lot more fun than shooting off the bench. That said, if game is much past the end of my barrel I'd prefer a rest of any kind. I think it's hard to beat setting up shots on all the game you see, does, small buck, etc...and pulling the trigger on an empty chamber (yeah, make sure it's empty). Choosing the right shot is a big part of making the shot.

I'd agree with most all of that. I love playing at long ranges and the gadgetry involved, but 99.9% of my hunting scenarios come down to how fast I can get on target inside of 200, with whatever support/position/rest is or isn't available in the time or window. I've been getting good deals on bowling pins, and I just hang them/use them like steel.....and more often at 50-150 yards, from improvised or off-hand, and I don't worry about groups, but first shot hits. Groups at longer ranges are merely to confirm my equipment and the nut behind the trigger/weakest link. I've never had to shoot anything made of meat much past 500, so 1MOA is more than enough, and 2MOA isn't too much, though I yearn for less.

I bet you've killed some big stuff....

Does resting on the bed rail of my truck count? Target of opportunity this morning. Was actually pulling up to my 300 yard marker for some load testing when I saw this yote trying to sneak out of the pasture. She wasn't giving me time to range her so I guesstimated 300, dialed in 1.2 mils and let her fly. DRT. When I got to her, I ranged my truck. 268 yards.

John

Heck yeah! Truck, fence post, fence wire, haybale, whatever....beats off handing anything far enough to think about. ATV seats are nice.

I always keep a 1 gallon jug in my 4runner when I hunt. Then after a day like today when I could only find animals that I couldn't legally shoot I can take out my frustrations by shooting the jug a bunch. My wife then tells me what a great hunter I am and we go back to the room and drink before dinner.

mike r

Paper is only to find out POI, everything after that is proven in the field. This is a Sightless pre-64 Featherweight in 270. I use the same ammunition I load for my other 270 with 130 grain BT bullets.

No need for weighing, annealing, powder and primer variations or hand seating the primers. Just full length resize, load up some IMR 4350 and go shooting.

This gun will kill as far as I want to shoot it...