Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Who Is Actually, Regularly, Shooting at Game Over 400 Yards?

The current hype and hunting cartridge development appears to advance this "600 yard" hunting mantra.

But are hunters, as a group, actually, regularly, implementing it?


Understand the physics and technological advancements that make it possible.

But factors like wind, movement, and time-of-flight have not changed.

Nor have the principles of marksmanship.


So, asking out of curiosity.

Because for me?

400 yards is way the hell out there on a game animal.




GR

I don't, but know of a group of guys in OR doing it on a regular basis.

Can’t see over 300 in the place I hunt. That is my limit anyway

Shot a common reed buck in South Africa 2019. PH ranged him and said he wouldn’t hold much longer. He made an elevation adjustment on his 300 WSM I was using and said hold dead on. He dropped at the shot and I asked how far? He said 420 yards, I told him good thing I didn’t know, he said that’s why i didn’t tell you before the shot. First and only shot I’ve ever taken at game over 250+ yards.

I'd venture a guess that fewer than 5% here are regularly shooting game at 400 yards.

Let's talk 400 yards which is pretty far for me given my circumstances.

I remember your strong opinion about how BC is not a substitute for marksmanship. I don't believe anyone would argue against marksmanship, but BC can truly be an aid to whatever marksmanship there is. Aiding in dealing with wind in particular.

I just ran a couple of "deer appropriate" loads through a calculator. One was a typical 308 load firing a 150 grain, flat base Interlock at 2800 fps. The other was a 6.5mm 143 grain ELD-X at 2700 fps. I selected a full value wind of 5 mph. At 400 yards the 6.5 had just over half the drift of the .308, with 4.6" vs 9.1".

Not nearly as many as people would think.
A 270 WCF with a 130 bullet does real well point blank to 300 yards and has for decades.
With alittle English 400 yards is not much of a issue.
You have to shoot it to know what it's doing. Practice.
All the clicken and dicken blastic reticles etc I find to not be of much use at normal hunting distance
Which I consider to be 400 and under.
dave

Mathman
Both of those loads will kill a deer at 400 yards with a center hold

Certain hunting dictates it and then there are the internet and youtube stunts.
There are times when you just can't get closer.

I’ll take the wind slipping advantage myself when I can.

We all hunt in different areas so there is no one great answer in my book. I’d bet our group in western Wyoming has a fairly long average on our shots. Public land and other hunters abound. Sometimes it’s either have the capability and cartridge or pass which is fine but I like to have the capability to make clean shots to 600…..


And Dave, you don’t hardly have a rifle/bullet combo that isn’t pretty slick to at least 400 on any hooved animal and you use pretty slick bullets in them too

Yes I do.
And did so 30 years ago to

The last two big game animals I killed were at 670 meters and 460 meters. I usually prefer to know yards, but my hunting partner has all his lasers set to meters because he trains military personnel from time to time.

I've killed several whitetails at 400+ if that's where they happen to be. I don't seek shots over 400, but I'm capable and my rifle is capable so I won't hesitate if conditions are right.

I'd say 80% of the shots I take on game (not counting varmints like prairie dogs) are under 400.

Over a lifetime of big game hunting easily95% of my shots have been at 200 yards or under.

Here where I hunt locally, I have taken a fair number of animals at 400 yards. I prefer closer, but feel confident to that distance or a bit farther. Elk because of their size and the country I hunt, have been taken at that distance a number of times. For about 15 years after my retirement in 1999, I often hunted in the eastern states for whitetails. My favorite spot was an old strip mine. I could set up my .300 for long shots, and kept something like a 7mm-08 or .300 Savage in hand for close shooting. Fairly often I took a buck near 400. But not over. But those days are over and the old heavy barreled .300 just rests these days.

I might have pushed out past 400yds a time or 2.

If you don't feel like you have a very high probability of making a good shot don't take the shot.

I have passed on many shots closer than 400yds for varying reasons. Distance is just one of many variables.

I shoot jackrabbits and ground squirrels at 400 yards. ha ha.. Do quite a bit of practicing in the 400-600 yard range and up to 1,400 yards. Just getting back from a shoot where 800 was the furthest shot on a chuck sized target. The shoot today requires you to have to dial for different distances from 276 yards to 714 yards and its timed. 5 shots on 5 varying distance targets in 2.5 minutes. If you don't practice shooting at distance, I'd say don't take shots over your comfort level. Everyone here, should know what they are capable of. A deer or elk at 400 yards is a damn easy shot under ideal conditions. It can also be a damn hard shot under less than ideal conditions. That's when I would NOT pull the trigger... Practice tells you what you and your equipment are capable of. No one else can pick a predetermined distance for you. I've taken deer at 6-700 yards. All 1 shot kills..

I don't miss this canyon very much. The deer could see you from 1/2 mile away. I always called it my "long range" tag...

I've killed exactly 2 whitetails over 300 yards and one over 400 in 45 years of hunting and over 200 deer killed. Last season I took a piebald doe at 270 yards and that was by far my longest shot in the last 25 years. I killed 5 other deer last season and all were inside 65 yards with the closest at 17 yards. Most of my hunting is done in the timber and by far most of my kills have been between 10 and 80 yards.

Locally I've only taken one whitetail over 300 yards. 95%+ were 200 and under. Last few years I've taken more with cast bullets under 75 yards than with jacketed at any range. I have taken one antelope at 400 ranged yards and one at 375 with the 100 Interlock in my 257 Roberts.

I have taken some big game at over 400, out to around 550--several before laser rangefinders appeared, when I'd stolen from previous gun writers (especially Elmer Keith) how to use a scope's reticle--or even a front sight--to provide a pretty good "measurement" of range as long as I knew the approximate chest-depth of various animals. It worked well, but a laser works better, unless of course it doesn't provide a read-out, which is why I still keep up with my reticle-ranging.

But haven't shot one over around 350 or so for a few years, mostly due to not doing as much "trophy" hunting. So far haven't been tempted to stretch the range to 400 when making meat. But will also point out that anybody who shoots enough smaller varmints at longer ranges to consistently hit them over 400 won't find killing deer-sized game much of problem. Remember one day under somewhat unusual prairie dog conditions where I killed 9 of 14 at 600-650 yards with a 1-12 twist .223 Remington using 50-grain Ballistic Tips. If you do that sort of shooting regularly--especially with a big game rifle, which I've also done--400 isn't a problem on a pronghorn.