Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting What is your definition of 'long range'?

What do you look for in order to be sure that an animal isn't going to move in the next 1 second? (The approx time of flight at 600yds)

I only kill a few deer each year & I don't bow hunt, so I may not see as many as some of you.

It is always so easy to find one example to prove ones point. An exceptional reader of animal body language had the unique experience of seeing a Bull Moose and how it reacts to being bit on the nose, and then can extrapolate that perhaps once in a human lifetime event to the ethics of LR shooting. Just wow....

I once saw a Moose Cow look and then ignore me from perhaps 70 yards. Therefore, all Moose Cows will probably give you a look and then go on and ignore you. That is my one experience. Wow....

Their ears, eyes, neck and shoulders, looking for thictchenes the same as I look for on a young horse to know if he is about to spook. Nothing and I mean nothing is 100% but this stacks the odds in your favor very highly. If an animal keeps looking in one direction, yo7 can rest assured there is something in that direction that has its attention.

Bow hunting it is important to know when to draw the bow and when not to draw by reading body language.

In theory.... the risks at long range are greater.

In theory.... the risks of shooting at moving animals is greater.

In theory.... we should all shoot enough, and hunt enough, to discern for ourselves when the risks are mitigated to an acceptable level to break a shot.

In reality... dipschitts abound, and animals get wounded... at all ranges.

G5...I’m sure I would recognize you immediately in a crowd of city dwellers. You’d be the guy mirroring my expression of “WTF” and “Dismay” on your face as you try to navigate through these idiots. And, a slight print of a firearm on your hip that only those who’ve carried forever would notice...

I’m finally back to my Redneck home...What a relief. 😎

TOF depends on the round but I just looked up one of my favorites and it's 0.65 seconds to 600 yards.

But to answer your question, I look for the obvious--what has the animal been doing for the last 30 seconds?

I could always hit the fastball but off-speed stuff gave me fits.

Question to the posters who feel taking a shot at a distance you have determined is unethical...

Is your opinion based on what you’ve seen on tv? Read in a magazine/on-line? Maybe you witnessed this in person as a spotter, or were you the actual shooter with an unfortunate outcome trying to harvest an animal at a distance beyond your abilities?

Whatever the answer to the above. You likely arrived at this bias from determining your own limitations under hunting conditions after a failure, now making them everyone’s limitations.

Objectively, these are your limits-Your realities, not mine, or others...When you try masking your failure, hiding your truth behind animal movement, then equating it to automatic wounding for everyone...

This proves your lack of experience on a range shooting distances that caused a wounded animal for you. I’m assuming a lot here about you...As you are assuming a lot about others. Fair to say we are both wrong in our assumptions. 😎

In college I got to have batting practice against an ex major league pitching coach. I couldn’t hit much of anything he thru.

I started shooting PRS so i’ll Have to change my thoughts on this - did the OP mean game vs paper?

You're the one doing the extrapolating. You introduced ethics. I avoided ethics and said so. I merely told the tale. Do with it what you want but own what you do with it. Animals move. Sometimes they move when we don't expect them to. Deal with it. It is reality. Movement may not be likely at a given moment but the possibility is reality. On any shot any of us take we try to reduce the odds of a miss as low as possible, at long or short range.

It is curious why a significant percentage of long rangers are so defensive. This started with a question (that seemed defensive or sarcastic) about how fast an animal can move, as if that is a stupid topic when one is shooting at the animal. Since my reply about how fast this old animal can move, all I have said is that other things being equal, distance reduces odds of a hit and I agreed with someone that no one can totally control nor predict wind nor animal movement. That is mere reality. Reasonable people agree, do what they can to improve their odds and take their shot. Good for them. Defensive folks call it idiocy and being judgmental.

Will add that the level of civility, common sense and relaxed discussion of reality has advanced enormously beyond the last time I ventured near any long range thread. With a number of people here it is now possible to actually discuss the miss factors and odds in making a long range hit, how to overcome them, and do it rationally as a problem to be solved rather than as emotional tenets of a faith. I scale back my comments about long range cultists, sincerely and with apology to the many here who shoot long range without the emotional trappings. You are becoming a majority compared to a few years ago. That is good to see.

FWIW I killed an elk at at least 690 yards one time but do not consider myself a long range hunter, though I like to have as many tools as possible available.

In all honesty I think the comment about taking shots at animals "moving at animal speeds" was a stupid comment. Because I don't know anyone who takes long range shots at moving animals. Yes it's true that stationary animals can move, but an undisturbed stationary animal is not going to all of a sudden decide to move, accelerate from a dead stop, and move very far in 0.65 seconds.

Having said that I can understand why some decide never to take such a shot. I just can't understand someone jumping to the conclusion that anyone else taking the shot is "unethical."

While I'm far from the best shot around, I do practice on clay pigeons at 600 with hit rates about 40 when the wind cooperates, That with multiple rifles.

I've also shot and shot at quite a few moving animals including a few antelope and a lot of coyotes. Given that experience, I'd rather take my time and shoot at a relaxed elk at 600 yards than one running crosswise at 100.

Like I said the tale was a one off example and shouldn't be the basis of an opinion re LR hunting. Ethics? That is your position when you keep on about how the LR shooters are gut shooting animals and use a one off to defend it.

My thoughts are if you have the skills, I don't have a problem with the ethics of it. The reality is the good LR shooters seem to have minimal problems with animals moving at the shot. Something you have little basis to disagree with since you don't play their game. And that is the definitive reality....

You also add on your "The LR shooters refuse to admit line" which is wrong at best and BS at worst. Which would be another reality....

Addition: I would find little joy in shooting an animal at 600 yards. Have shot them out past 300 and didn't find any joy in it either. Doesn't mean those who can and do so don't.

LOL, I try to run a poker face with sunglasses on and no direct eye contact , but holy DAMN f they could read our minds, and Yessir, in a good headwind appendix carry bulge is slightly visible for those in the know, glad as hell You're back home too!

I have killed elk at long range and have found four elk gut shot at long range by others. I speak from experience, and despite your apparent inability to comprehend what I actually wrote, have not once questioned the ethics nor said that anyone should not shoot animals at long range. I HAVE expressed the reality that the possibility of a hit somewhere different than intended goes up at extreme range, and that includes gut shots. You keep extrapolating comments about physical facts into the arena of ethics. That's you, Bro, not me. Is your conscience bothering you?

SOME long rangers, not all, are so defensive about the subject that they instantly jump to the conclusion that anyone who dares ask or comment about wind, animal movement etc. is attacking their cherished long range hunting.

You are reading in what is not there. If you make up what the other person says, you don't need anyone else for this conversation.

Add to that 0.65 seconds, the average time for the brain to make the decision for the finger to pull the trigger and the finger to act....now we’re approaching that 1 second. It is not “just” bullet flight time that should be factored in! I’m “not” opposed to and will take a lengthy shot on game....but all possible factors should be recognized! The biggest factor, for those of us that are human.....we “can” screw-up! memtb

While confessing our sins, I had a whitetail "jump the string" when I shot it broadside at 40 foot range with a hot loaded 6mm Remington. Through the thrown up scope I saw its muscles start to bunch under its skin so I hurried my trigger squeeze to rib shoot the buck through a 3 foot wide hole in brush. By the millisecond of time it took for the sear to break, I called the shot as a hit through both hams, where the crosshairs were by the time the bullet left the barrel. That's where I hit it. (OK, you may rag on my reaction time.)

On a buck rattled in and facing me at 50 yards, I shot as it started to move. The bullet plowed a furrow through hair the full length along one side, hip to shoulder. During my reaction time, the buck had turned 180 degrees.

The simple truth is that we do all that we can to reduce risk of a bad hit, do all that we can to insure a good hit, and then pull the trigger and take our chances -- at any range. The miss factors to overcome increase geometrically as range increases. Fortunately the technology for long range accuracy is phenomenal, but it is not meat in the freezer till we find out if the bullet went where we intended.