Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting .277 Matrix Bullets... wow!

Right on!

Congrats KDK!

Thanks, OT! I have next week off also, and plan to hit TriCounty at least three times.... Maybe I'll run into you there.

KDK,22 yrs back my new wife & I honeymooned in Tahoe also,and in May .We even fished for lake trout & cought a few,wife got the biggest.congrats man.

Doder you might find a nice Guchi back pack to match that stock.LOL just funnin ya,I like it!!

RS

Sounds good - living the goodlife working days all week and about time to PMCOTC! If things work out, you can shoot my 270!

Dober,

I would think those times are good. I will test it from the knees and see... We run it like Bob said- standing up, wearing pack, rifle shouldered or in one hand, scope set to lowest power- time starts and you race to get into position and shoot. As I told Bob in a PM, we ask our students one the first morning of class how long they think it will take them to spot and animal, range, setup and hit at 350-450 yards. Almost all say somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds. Some even swear they can do it in under ten. We tend to use a range under 400 yards because it is where most hunters think they are capable. I've heard the "sometimes those ______ trophy bucks/bulls only give you 5 seconds to get on them and shoot" hundreds of times by some really successful hunters yet we have never had a single person break 20 seconds with a hit on the first try. Only a few under 40 seconds. When that timer comes out people suddenly aren't as good as they thought they were.... grin



Our standard for passing after two days is 30 seconds. Really solid shooters will go 15 or so. The best will consistently do it in 8-10 seconds (by best I mean national level 3- Gun competitors with a background in LR shooting)...



Some factors that will help with speed-

* Fixed power scopes
* FFP reticles


Some factors that hurt speed-

*Variable power scopes
* SFP reticles


So the fastest scope types for medium distance shooting should theoretically be a fixed power with such magnification as to allow close in shooting and distance work (Leupold 6x anyone..?) with a calibrated BDC or mil dot reticle or a scope having a FFP BDC or mil dot reticle and with the power set between 4 and 6x while hunting. I say theoretically because as I've stated before we've seen with dotz that it takes a second or two for people to be visually comfortable lining up the reticle and target when not at flat numbered ranges. IE targets at 300, 400, 500, etc. yards are very easy with BDC reticles, but the guessing of where to hold at between ranges (say 470 yards, etc), and especially with wind thrown in, means that people take time making sure the hold is correct. I actually find that across the board I am faster getting hits dialing (elevation) rather then holding.



I will try to get some video of a couple of us running the drill in the next week or so....

Yeah that'd be cool, get some video up if you get the chance.

Are you talking one shot or getting 3 shots off? I thought you'd originally meant getting 3 rounds off? It'd be a good drill to do both.

Now that I'm over my stiffness from my sod laying party I'll get back out to the range and run it again. Though I don't shoot off a pack much anymo, as I normally shoot off a "cheater" (bipod) when I go long.

As well, when I'm in open country where I may be shooting long I never carry my scope set on the lowest power. In the "dark timber" you bet, but out in the open I generally carry it where it's gonna be when I go to shooting.

One of the things I've noticed about people thru hunting with them and from my guiding days (Montana, Wyo and Sonora) is that some people are what I call "natural born killers" and some are not. The "NBK's" were the kind of people that as soon as game was spotted they were into the mode of find a place for a rest, and get off a shot. These people had practiced hitting the turf enough that they knew which piece of ground would give them a good rest (right angle to shoot from) and which wouldn't. When they hit the turf they were on the trigger. The ones that didn't have that instinct would be gawking at the critter, asking the guide what it's G2's would go or what the spread was (this one more so, even though width's only 15% of the total)and when they hit the ground they'd squirm around trying to find the right position. These people would look for one fast knock out and generally were very good at it. If they had gear to work with they knew how to deal with it immediately. No fumbling around with a pack, often times I'll shoot with the pack right on and practice doing so as it's gonna take me a short bit to get the pack off. And honestly many times that nano second or two is a make or break. If they're clicking the good ones do it as second nature. If they're running "dotz" or such they've practiced enough that there is no thought. Simply range and kill, and that's one of the things that I like the best about dotz. As long as one's practiced enough to be taking shots at long range then all of this should be 2nd nature. No dicking around, just dropping the hammer and doing so very quickly.

400's a good range to work with as it begins to challenge the shooter and the round a bit. I've long said that all shooters and rounds are equal to 300. (obviously there's some diffs here though).

Clocks, timers, chronographs, LRF's and such are all good as they do tend to keep people honest. One of my best friends likes to say that until he got a LRF he didn't know how many of his kill shots were actually 300 yds vs 450...grin

Heckola, we even carry a clicker (counter) for when we shoot gophers/prairie dogs/chucks etc as it's really easy for 50 pd morns to be 100 without a clicker....

We'll have to agree to disagree about which is faster the dotz or the clicking. As long as I've got enough dots to make do I'll have to say that it's been my experience that ranging then grabbing a dot has been faster for me than ranging, clicking and then dropping the hammer. Obviously there's one less movement with the dotz. So, it's gonna be faster as long as the one doing the shooting has shot enough to be able to instictively read between the dotz and not have to think about it. Or at least that's been my experience. And of course a lot of this depends on target size. If we're talking small targets then as ones shooting inbetween the dotz (like 370 yds) then one will be a bit more accurate with the clicking. But, if the target is sizeable IE small big game like deer/lopes or big game like elk/moose then one can get kills easily without having to be quite so precise.

Lastly, I'll say that a good man who's intimate with his rig will do well even if he's doing the old 3" high and holding over. I killed a ton load of chucks to 600 yds with such a system and did it with ease once I understood the holds. And one can do this very quickly,so to 400 yds I sure wouldn't dismiss what a good person using hold over can do.

Lots of ways to skin this wabbit, and the good thing is that it's all fun.

Hope to see the vid.

Shoot straight!

Dober

One other thing I'd add, is that I feel that there are very good tactical guys who aren't the best game shots and that not all good game shots are also good at the tac game. Same goes for the benchers...

Dober

Form, I'd love to see some clips too of how you guys get it done. I am going to try and take some video next time I'm out and post it up. Should be fun and a little critique never hurt anyone!

I'm a bit late coming into this one, but great thread. I just started shooting a 270 Wizzum, after a couple years with a plain ole' 270 like Jack shot.
I did shoot a fair pile of the 135 smk's out of that rifle, and most of those between 500 and 750 yds. They shot great, but when the wind started getting stiff and gusty they got blown around at the longer ranges. I'm fireforming Norma cases currently, and the rifle is shooting 1/2 to 3/4" with a starting charge of 58 gr H4350 and 135 smk's seated snug into the lands. The magazine of the Stiller action seems long enough I believe I could get even the 165 Matrix to kiss lands and still feed. But, first things first.
I'm using a S&B with Hollands ART reticle on my LR 7 mag, and a NF 2.5-10 with the R2 reticle on the Wizzum. I like to dial in corrections for varmints, but the MOA type reticles I'm using are pretty handy for a quick range and shoot. I am also using the G7 LRF and have it set to give corrections in MOA. It's making for a pretty fast system.

This thread is an interesting read!I would like to see the vids myself and watch how some of these faster shooters can dial and hit that quickly.I can imagine these guys are on auto pilot after a lot of practice which is what it's really all about.

I am guilty of quoting the 5 second thing when it comes to time constraints on some animals, mostly because it has happened to me,but have to qualify it because it has occured mostly under closer circumstances,when I either moved an animal out,or they appeared very suddenly.Mostly this is in mixed cover,or where terrain allowed an undetected approach to pretty close range.It is also attributable to the habits of bucks old enough to be called "trophy class".

Mostly the shooting involved off hand,but a couple where a guy had better drop to the sit,and touch off because there was no time for any more than that,ground cover being too high for prone,and lots of screening cover or terrain.

Under these circumstances I would say that another drill worth looking at is dropping to the sit,unaided by anything other than your rifle,and hitting that 10-12" circle against a clock....forget the pack and everything else.200 yards or so seems a reasonable distance.

I can think of three large mule deer at 80 yards and under, one at about 30 feet,and of which I killed one.But could have killed the other two except I made the rookie mistake both times of worrying too much about the fine points of their head gear, even though I knew right away they were "big"....each was out of sight in a bound or two,and there was no second chance.And for sure this was happening in that 5 second time frame.More like eastern grouse shooting than western BG hunting as we usually picture it.

I can still see the crosshairs on those big bodies,and on both those hunts that was my "chance" on the kind of mule deer I came for despite 10-14 days of hunting,and I came home empty both times..... but I guess we are just not meant to kill them all.

This is interesting and food for thought....especially among theoreticians who think fixed power scopes are for golf......Mmmm.

Brad that Whizzum would scream with the Matrixes!

Bob, another drill we used to do quite a bit was to shoot at 6" paper plates @ 100 yds and run 3 rounds and see how many hits we could make and in what kind of time.

Dober

Dober we have done pretty much the same thing,at 50 and 100.Three down with a bolt gun and cut loose with the clock running....it's also lots of fun with a pump 30/06.

Isn't using a pump cheating?

At least it was an '06, rather than that nasty old .270...

KDK that is the exact point!

Back when I was guiding for bruins I did a short bit of work trying to see what I could run faster. A BAR, a 760 or a good bolt gun. I could run the 760 the fastest and the bolt wasn't far off. Most all work was done at close range. I'd thought about a 870 but didn't like the fact that it ran out of range if I needed to go a bit long.

(I'd had 2 different bruins get after me so it got me thinking about carrying while guiding is what started this)

Dober

Good stuff on the drills, emphazising first shot hits but also a correct follow through and the ability to place another hit in short order. To many times I see guys "admire" their shot and have seen multiple pigs get up and disappear when then did a bang-flop on the first shot (almost all high shoulders that missed spine) and guys were busy dishing out a high 5 and telling everyone how great a shot it was.

If I am culling I will put one solid shot into the chest of each piece of bacon and move to the next target. If I am filling a tag as soon as touch off a shot my follow through is not complete until I have another round in the chamber and back on target for a second shot if necessary.

A common LE sniper training shot was a single head shot at whatever range, usually 100yards or closer, followed by a second body shot on a seperate target to simulate taking down two hostiles. Par time was 3 seconds with the first round touching a 1" circle and the second round on an 8" disk. Shooting a braked .308 from a bipod a solid time for me was about 2 seconds but we had a guy who would commonly break about 1.5 and his bolt was simply flying. The key to a rapid follow up shot is to not dick around, when the crosshairs are on the target the trigger is pressed without hesitation, the goal was not to hit the exact center of the 8" disk, just to hit it anywhere. To many guys were going way over time to make a pretty center hit on the disk.

Gunsite was one of the first to articulate the training goal of getting an acceptable hit as fast as possible rather than taking more time to make a perfect hit.

Exactly! Well said.