Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What percentage of your shots on game are over 150 yds?

It’s a lot of internet jabber....

There’s places for a 30-30 and places for a long range ultra wizbang...they just ain’t quite the same places.

Geedubya: Over the last seven years ALL of my shots on Big Game have been WAY OVER 150 yards!
The average I am guesstimating is just a tad over 350 yards.
Leica Laser Rangefinder sure helps me along with my flat shooting Sendero in 270 Winchester and my Remington 700 in 7m/m Remington Magnum - both with LOTS of scope power.
Its tough these days to get shots at mature male Big Game Animals in mostly open country and public lands.
I prepare and am a VERY patient Hunter.
Been rather successful.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Mostly I hunt mule deer, Washington & Wyoming.

I'd say the majority of my shots on deer have been 150 - 350 yards.

A couple farther, a few closer.

Guy

5% or less although I hear there are new chamberings that will make me a 1000 yard shooter just by picking them up.

The first time I went out west hunting, I was sitting glassing a hillside. Thinking to myself that I could shoot across there if needed. Then I saw ants moving on that hillside which turned out to be a herd of elk. A quick rethink was definitely in order.

VG,
Long time, no talk.
Best to you and yours.
In no way do I denigrate folks that take longer pokes than I. I’d bet that should I inhabit such climes, I’d do the same.

Many times it seems I’m guilty of succumbing to the dreaded LCD (lowest common denominator). I’ve mentioned, ad nauseum I’m sure, that the nature of the terrain and flora are such that unless one has a known point of impact, and can not find blood within say 10 feet of that known point of impact, usually one’s quarry is lost to the temperature by day and the vermin that inhabit the night.

So although I get significant gratification when I hear the “whop” of the bullet impact on flesh, I get much more gratification when I recover said flesh and later on consume it.

Anywho, your mention your Leica Rangefinder. Even though I usually shoot at known distances(which I know because I ranged them) two things that are in my pack at all times when afield, are my Leica Binocs and my Leica range-finder.



An aside.
I figure I’m about as good at judging distances as the next guy, and under 200 yds, it does not present much of a problem. However stretch It out a bit……..
Anywho, I’ve made it to Montana, twice. Once with a bunch of guys on a group motorcycle ride, the second time on a guided elk hunt. The outfitter was based in Jardine and we hunted in and around there. For six days, I spent at least six hours a day if not more glassing Deckard Flat and over into Yellowstone park.










I’d pick out a particular landmark with my binocs, then range them with my Leica rangefinder. In that thin air, landmarks and objects that I would have guessed to be no more than say 250 yards would be 500 to 550 yds.

One thing for sure, it is a very different way of hunting that what I do here.

BTW, I too subscribe to the “5 P rule”…..

Best,

GWB

Very few, maybe 10%. But the ones on the long end are some of the most memorable, just like the ones that were on the short end of the scale.

I don't.


Okie Jon

Texas is a huge state and conditions vary considerably. I was lucky enough to spend several years hunting huge family ranches on the Edwards Plateau in the 1970s before feeders became the order of the day. That country is rocky and rough, but you can move over it quietly if you focus. Jack O'Connor's 270 or Warren Page's 7mm would be ideal there. The gentle rolling hills of pine forest in the east are a lot like the Carolinas. That's 30-30 country. The north central part of the state is open, windswept prairie, and you're back to Jack and Warren's rifles. I haven't hunted the Big Bend or the Gulf Coast but I'm sure someone here has.

And there are places like geedubya's, which looks like it has the best of everything. That said, let his place go several months without rain and still-hunting might be all but impossible.


Okie John

Doesn't hurt to practice and prepare for as many variables as possible. Hard to predict with 100% certainty what will make a difference.

Looking back at the last 10 years or so of mainly elk and sheep hunting- well over 60% of my kills have been over 300. I've only killed a few deer in that time, most of them were under 300. Even still, a handful have been at 300+.

One year I hunted hard all season trying to fill my elk tag. Had passed on my only opportunity, a split-second 35 meter chance, at a critter running straight away thru the timber. Not a shot I'm comfortable with taking, at least under the circumstances. Finally, late afternoon of the final day of season, was able to sneak to 302 yards of a grazing herd and got my elk. It would have been nice to close the deal earlier in the season, at 35, but for me the 300+ yard shot, over my pack, was a way higher percentage, safer shot.

I grew up deer hunting in 30-30 country and of my first dozen or so white tails, only one was shot at over 100. IMO, location/geography/topography are major influencers of how a guy hunts. You can see it in the comments on this thread...

If all my shots were inside 150 load development would sure be a lot easier. Do you bullets come out the end of the barrel when you pull the trigger? Yes. Ok, good to go.

I am not a true long range guy, I prefer my critters inside 300. However, it is nice when you feel confident enough in your equipment and your skills that when game shows up at 300-500+ you would still take the shot.

That prompted a good laugh...

During the 30+ years we lived in Alaska my guess is 50% were over 150 yards. And those were almost all blacktail deer except for one dall ram, black bear, and one moose.Since we moved to Tennessee we have not shot any deer beyond 40 yards.

For me 10%. I set up about 100 yards from where I think deer will cross with a rifle.

With a rifle, probably 75%. Hunt a lot of senderos, green fields, powerlines, valleys, etc...

I've been hunting one farm in north MO for 20 years with huge ag fields 600+yards long, and thin strips of cover along creeks and ditches. Most shots are over 150 yards, out to 350+. Or the deer are ambling along the thin strip of cover, and pop out at 20-40 yards. I went several seasons up there with the average shot at or over 200 yards.

My other hunting areas are more typical 70 yard average shots or so.

On my own property I'd have to try very hard to shoot over 60 yards.

Not many. I've taken a handful from 2-300 probably 6.. And one at just under 400.

Everything else has been 100 and less.

-Jake

Zero ....... which is fairly normal for this neck of the woods.

Two of 20 plus moose. In excess of 50 of 75 plus caribou. One elk of one elk right at 150. Two of 6 sheep (including those taken by wife and son under my direction), one goat of one goat, none of several black bears taken.

Easier this way than figuring percentages....

I'm 60. I started bow hunting when I was 14. I've killed 1 or more deer a year most years since then and have never shot at a deer beyond 60+ yds. It mostly has to do with the areas of Michigan's National Forests that I choose to hunt. I would some day love to shoot an animal at a distance greater than 150. I do shoot at distances to 300 yds but never at game.