Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics 264 WM: Goodbye Hagel, hello turret?

I have a M70 SG in 264 WM with a Leupold VX-3 4.5x14x40 on it. (Actually bought it from their Custom Shop so I could get glossy.) I've always been a fan of Bob Hagel and his philosophy of 3"-high-at-100-4"-low-at-300. Pretty straightforward. But, with doing more open range antelope & deer hunting, I'm regularly getting looks at well beyond 300 (let's say 500 and in). In rough terms, I need a 350 zero to be 4" low at 400. (That leaves me about 18" low at 500 and close to 6" high from about 150-200 or so.) Makes me think real hard about putting a turret scope on it.

Anybody else traded in their tried & true classic scope for a turret on an ol' standby cartridge like the 264?

Doing it right now. Ordered a LRTS and have plans to get a SWFA 3x9 also.

Easiest way is to order a cds dial from leupold. This would give you a relatively cheap way to "dial".

Bob's system works.

My coues wt rig is set 3.1" high at 100 yds and 4" low at 450 yds. (apogee is 5.2" @ 200 through 225 yds) While the scope has turrets I haven't used the elevation turret the last two seasons. It is a 257 Weatherby.

While Bob’s system works well, it still requires some shooting for experience’s sake. I’m sure you could load a few arks with animals that were missed by shooting high at ~200 yard-ish range. Inexperience or too quick of analysis says it’s ‘300 or so’ and I better hold right on the back just in case...

Trot, trot, trot, off it goes.

Easy way to lose an opportunity on an animal is to fiddle [bleep] around with a turret when the time is very short. Know your range, know your zero

I am personally a fan of Leupold as a sight it and forget it scope.

Dialing on the other hand.....

To the OP: The duplex intersection (the top point of the thick and thin portions of the reticle) of a 4.5-14 Leupold on 14x = 5.4MOA. With a 200yd zero, you can use that duplex intersection as a ~400yd holdover. It's not exact, but, it'll get you close enough to cleanly kill anything from a coyote to everything larger assuming you get the wind-call correct.

Turrets and the ability/necessity to dial has been one of the more helpful shooting techniques for me. I hardly ever shoot over the back of critters anymore (I've shot over LOTS of them), I hold the crosshairs where I want the bullet, not some imagined/estimated distance above or below where I think the bullet might be.

My hunting rifles are zero'd @ 200yds, all of them, independent of chambering. My typical hold on a critter is in the bottom 1/3 of the body and in line with the off-side front leg.

I don't believe the time I take dialing a turret when necessary will EVER be able to cost me as many critters as I've already lost to guestimating a holdover.

What bullet are you using?

horse1,
I think you have hit on the real issue of holdover, which is guessing your range. Using a good (and quick) range finder will cure many of the problems you have encountered. With practice, hitting a target at a known range is very doable. My 2 cents.
YMMV,
David

Pretty much took the range guessing out of the equation in '04 when I got my 1st set of Geovids. I ran the gamut of holdover reticles after that for 2-3yrs. I still shot over critters from time-to-time. Made the leap to turrets when a local club decided to have a 300/600yd F-Class league. It didn't take long to dump all of the holdover reticle scopes and swap them to elevation turrets on everything.

I thought the point of using something along the lines of the 264 was so you don't have to twist turrets?

Maybe it all depends on where one hunts and what critter he is hunting with a given cartridge. The Nightforce SHV 3-10 with the Force Plex reticle on my .338 Winny is zeroed for 100 hundreds is my favorite "gitterdone" Alaskan hunting set up. Most moose are shot well under 200 yards and big Brown Bear hunt the same moose in the same place I hunt. For me, having the bullet land where the scopes reticle is placed is comforting. The Kenton ballistic tape I placed on the elevation turret allows fairly quick dialing if I feel the need.

My 30-06 with the "set & forget" Leupold VX3i 3.5-10 with the B&C reticle is zeroed for 200 yards as is the Tikka Superlite 6.5 Creed with a SWFA 3-9x42 FFP mil reticle.

If one practices and can get first shot hits out to their self imposed limits then I can see a use for turret twisting in the hunting fields. But, here in Alaska the majority of the first shots at critters average a bit over 160 yards, this information comes from an informal survey I have done for several years on another web site with Alaskan hunters. One thing I have noticed on hunting shows and internet forums is, if one is a turret twister they often take longer shots then the "set & forget" hunters. Do they make more gut piles with fewer shots, ya got me.

Any time I can leave a scopes turrets alone is fine with me. I need to do some checking on what the many sheep and caribou hunters I know are doing. I can't remember any of them except for one that is a turret twister. But, they are gut pile makers.

If you use a LRF so that you know the correct range the next logical step is use a scope that allows POA = POI to be as precise. Most "dialing" scopes have reticles that allow you to visually place the POA to match the POI w/out dialing at most hunting distances. I am a recent convert and have found it to be easy and much more precise to use the new system after >50 years of using the old "close enough" methods.

Once you have proven your dope if you miss a 6" gong at 400 yards it is either your wind skills or your technique that are lacking. This is priceless if you wish to improve.

YMMV


mike r

I've got a 6x42 Mil x Mil SWFA on my .264. 200 yd zero. As Mike R. alluded to, you can do everything from the windshield and not have to fugg w/ turrets out to 600+ yds.

Sounds like a reticle with hold over points (Boone and Crockett or Rapid Z -600) would be just the ticket for you. Just practice at ranges to 500 yards and learn the corresponding ranges for your load and scope’s reticle marks.