Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting NRA Rag article....

Jon

Nice summation!

Jeff-- don't take this wrong, but it says a lot to me that you can hit with a 308 but not as often with an 06 and rare with a 338. You are improving as you step up in caliber and it indicates that you simply do not have the grasp of shooting and handling the recoil issues YET. That can come with time if you desire.

The big point here, there are times and places where an 800 yard shot would be a chip shot yet a 500 or even 400 would not even be thinkable. Heck I don't shoot as far as others, but fairly far, and I also often pass up short shots for various reasons. End note is I'm 200% sure IF I pull the trigger. That confidence doesn't come easily to most and to some never...

After having guided enough folks I have heard folks shoot at a deer at 100 yards or less only to ask after the shot .... did I get him(her)??? IF you have to ask that question, IMHO, you have no business taking the shot.

One other aside.... for really long or tricky shots.... there is often time to correct, fire off to the side, spot the shot and instantly correct IF needed and fire on the animal with total confidence...... I attempted the longest shot ever taken for me once on feral sheep, the guy had a new 7STW and wanted to see it work... I"d already shot a head shot at over 200 with my 300, a 550+ iron sight kill and so he wanted me to stretch the new gun out.... long story short we took the test shot off to the side of the sheep, somewhere between 950 and 1000 yards, just scratched the bottom side of a softball sized rock and I never got the 2nd shot off as the sheep started to walk off and it never was right again... But there are some methods.....

Jeff

I didn't mean to imply that ya'll were unethical. I re-read my post and can see where you got that, though. My bad! I just meant that using your first shot as a sighter is unethical in a hunting context- re-read my post and you'll see. Anyway, any true, practiced, long-range hunter/rifleman, which I believe you to be, would by definition know what they were capable of and pass on a shot that was unethical.

It would seem to me that MOST shots at say 700 yards would in that category (the don't-shoot category) in field conditions, though, woudn't they? Especially cross-canyon? Maybe others of you hunt in prairies with 700-yard shots and constant winds but that's not something I've ever seen so it's out of my ability to imagine it! :-) Everywhere I hunt that shot is cross-canyon and you can only know the wind from the shooting position and at the POI- but who knows what it's doing in between. Maybe that's my inexperience talking though.

Anyway I am partaking of the sport of long-range shooting myself, so I am fundamentally on your side here. And I have indeed extended my legit hunting range beyond which some folks would consider ethical so again, I'm on your side there too and that was a valid point.

I do run into the "700-yard shots are just not that hard" stuff on the 'Fire and elsewhere all the time, though, and I guess that's the main thing I was talking about. It goes against what I've seen. To use a basketball analogy, back when I could still play I may not have been the best player on the court, but I knew enough that if someone said they could hit a halfcourt shot first time, I'd say "I betcha!"

It's to that "energy" that I am offering my case of beer to someone who can show it to me in person! There's a lot of folks talking about those sorts of shots very casually and like you all, I'm not buying it. Hey, worst case is I meet on helluva shooter and get a lesson for the price of a case of beer, right?

I hope I'm not coming across as an a-hole. I'd like to learn from you guys, not piss you off!

-jeff

Jeff,

Just read your post. Interesting idea about taking a first shot off to the side of the animal!

I don't THINK that the caliber really has much to do with things, it's more the platform and amount of ammo/money I'm willing to expend. When I'm shooting .308 it is with my DMPS and I am perfectly willing to shoot 50 or more rounds at a session, run it hot, etc. With my '06 and .338, they are prized rifles and plus I'm shooting my hunting loads (Accubonds at full pressure) so it gets expensive in a hurry, and I really don't want to wear those guns out prematurely. The '06 has a Pac-Nor barrel (already wore ONE barrel out on it!), both rifles have Jewell triggers, and I like them just the way they are... so I tend to shoot way fewer rounds through them. That said for me personally a sporter-weight .338 Win Mag would not a be a good first choice for high-volume shooting strictly because the recoil does get tiresome after a while! My 30-06 on the other hand I can shoot all day and it never gets that way.

Here's a question: My DPMS in the picture will shoot (10) 155-gn Nosler J-4's into .85" at 100 yards. It loves those things. Since they are going roughly the same speed as my 225's from the .338, or 165's from the 30-06, it has also been a useful tool to get the number of clicks I need figured out in advance for those other rifles, using the DPMS as the workhorse then fine-tuning things on the other rifles. Anyway, question is, I really should try to find an equally-accurate load with 168-gn bullets for that .308, shouldn't I? They'll do noticably better in the wind?

-jeff

Jeff

Have not shot 155s since they are not accurate in any of my M14s... IIRC(and I don't shoot sierra bullets for mid to long range as their BC leaves a lot to be desired in match shooting..) the 155 has the same bc as the 168 and can be driven faster. If you want better wind bucking look at 175s and especially 175 vlds. When I still shot M14s I shot 185 berger vlds 600-1000 yards.

As to the comments about not shooting the heavier calibers much-- all I have to offer is I shoot 223 most of the time. I have absolutely no issue with hitting just as well with anything up to 338 Win Mag, the 338 RUM is a bit tougher.... IE I might be inclined to tense up some in anticipation... But bottom line is simply this, if you can shoot the 308 good, then its only you if you can't shoot the others as good. The others should be capable of bucking the wind better if the correct bullets are chosen... The only variable is accuracy of each gun, and frankly, matching the AR10 at .9 moa basically should be a chip shot for the 06 or 338. Last 338 testing I did had 225 tsx into .334 or something like that at 100 yards. Maybe .336? It was close to caliber size groups thats for sure.

IF I really wanted to shoot only for game practice( I shoot/shot competitively and just let it bleed over to a hunting rifle easily) and save a gun, I'd do 2 things. Have 2 same rifles exact OR get the hunting gun up and running, then get the BC of that bullet and MV and try to match it with a lesser/cheaper caliber to practice with. Can be done with jockeying the bullets available for BC and adjusting the MV....

IMHO, barrels are cheap enough-- and shooting one out takes more than a few rounds, so practice literally is cheap compared to what you have invested in the hunts....

Jeff

M14's! Love 'em. I have (2) M1a's myself...

I think a big part of things is the scopes. I have 2.5x8 Loopys on the hunting guns and the 6x18 AO on the DPMS...

-jeff

Jeff

I've shot iron sights since 1990 basically out to 1000. If you think you need a certain amount of magnification, its all in your head really. BTDT. You do need to see the target though, I own't argue taht, but you'd be surprised. I've shot out to almost 1000 a number of times in teh field at various targets/game, and don't recall ever using over 10x or feeling handicapped....

That does NOT mean that a good scope is a negative though, but on lots of days, I can't effectively(IMHO) use anything much more than about 16x. I do know a good F class 1000 yard shooter that shoots 1000 with a 48X scope.... don't know how he does it as I can't use 32 on a test scope many days due to mirage...

One way you can find out is swap scopes around the other way!!

I can tell you one thing, I've shot enough heavy bullet loads in the 308 up to 100 plus rounds a day and up to 240s..... to tell you it takes some doing to learn to ignore recoil.....

Right now one thing I don't like on my AR50 is the muzzle blast back into my face.... things like that you have to work around.

Jeff

Long range articles just induce the average nimrod to get into trouble and make the world all the more unsafe for those that might be hunting in the general area...

Because when the average nimrod misses the target at 600 yds, he thought he could hit, most don't know.. don't care.. where their bullet might end up going..

long range shooting articles and videos.. induce idiots to be more idiotic! and more dangerous to other hunters in the area...

You make a very compelling case but if I post something like that folks will throw rocks at me. You are of course 100% correct.

You don't need written words to make idiots do stupid things, they find a way all on their own.

Hey Jeff!

I did a little editing for brevity on your post; hope that's OK.

After hunting season this year I may sway scopes around. It would be interesting to see, for instance, what I could do on my 30-06 with that 6x18 Leupold... but I've got things pretty solid and predictable and working on my rifles right now and I don't want to mess with them this "close" to hunting season (hey, bear in less than a month!). I'm superstitious that way I guess.

A bolt gun in .308 can be fairly tiring after a while, I agree. My big heavy DPMS is a real pussycat. The thing I fight with that rifle is the trigger, which is the stock trigger worked on to bring it to 3 lbs but it ain't no Jewell, and the "sproing" of the buffer spring next to my head. That's disturbing some days, others not. But the recoil is negligable.

I bet one of these big heavy DPMS AR-10's in .260 would be a cool long-range messaround rifle!

Thanks for the advice. I'm listening!

-jeff

Jeff

Man-- you just hit a huge button for me in your last post.

If you hear the sproing of the AR10-- you are a far way from being close to perfect on your form and shots. If you are hearing that your subconscious brain is not where its supposed to be and you are not nearly shooting up to your capability!!
If I start to hear the sproing, I can write off that shot or group, its almost guaranteed!!

BTW I type so fast and am in such a hurry, my posts usually do need editing.....

Jeff

I don't doubt I'm a ways from my potential.

That's an interesting subject in itself. I know some days I hardly even feel the recoil of even my .338, and other days it seems like everything is whackin' me. There's so much going on with an AR with the bolt slinging back and forth and the buffer spring sproinging that I admit I am concious of all that to some degree. Not in a negative way; part of me knows all that is soaking up recoil! :-)

I'm a decent rifleman. I don't think i have it in me to ever be "great". I'm wired a little shaky for that. I practice a lot and that really helps.

-jeff

I just read the article, amazing that only 1 out of 30 folks could hit a 12" circle at 300 yards.....

From a REST!? And these were gun people, not random population?

That is appalling.

-jeff

I could hit a 12" gong with a mirror and the rifle over my shoulder at 300..........

I'd think most good shooters should be able to do the mirror trick, I suspect that there must be damn few good shooters in reality though...Sure isn't hard to hold a rifle on a moose some 400 yards off and take a picture with a digital camera at the same time leaning on an alder.....

Jeff-- you say you hear all that but not in a negative way-- but if you hear it, or see the brass ejecting etc.... you are not where you need to be. Trust me. I used to laugh-- years of shooting later I now know the ones that taught me were/are right.

Jeff

I'm gonna buy a hand mirror tomorrow, time to try that trick...

BH will spot for you.