First attempt at “long range” shooting.

[cahunter805]

Nathan
Keep at it buddy. The more you practice many things will become routine and easier for you. Looks like you have the bino program pretty close.

It might be hard with your current bench/rest setup but practice your natural POA( Point of aim). Setup on the target and get your crosshairs on the bullseye or whatever you are aiming at. Get comfy and then close your eyes for a few seconds. When you open them your crosshairs should still be on your POA. If they have drifted off reposition your rest/body to align it better. With some practice it becomes easier also.

Also be sure to follow through with your shots. Many people tend to lift their head to see the bullets impact or look for dust. Stay on the rifle and try to see the hit/dust through your scope.

 

[88man]

My girlfriend was hitting a 20lb propane tank every shot this weekend practicing for her antelope hunt at 750yrds. with a 7mm LRM with 180grn bergers

On the none long range stuff basically inside 500yrds don't over complicate things.
I recommend a 300 yrd zero
at 200yrds you will be high maybe like 5 inches
at 100yrds like 3.5 inches high
then typically less than 12 inches low at 400yrds
then less than 24 inches low at 500yrds.

All depending on bullet weight and speed but this gets you very close for in the field shooting up to 500yrds.
If your gonna plan on shooting farther than 500yrds then (High BC bullets- low SDV- sub moa accuracy-) are recommended and lots of practice, good scopes and trust and familiarity in the system you are gonna use.
But I really think the results are gonna be best if you understand and are very familiar (lots of practice) with the system.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

The largest effect wind has on a shot is at the muzzle. For half a century I just threw up a fistful of dirt. This year I decided to go high tech and bought the WeatherFlow that is designed for hunting. The WeatherFlow is bluetooth to Strelok Pro on the phone. $15 for Strelok Pro and 85$ for the WeatherFlow. Point the meter into the wind. Get the wind direction and speed. Then point the phone (the GPS) in the direction of the target and recalculate for the windage hold. What I do is walk through the area and take periodic readings in the direction of where a shot might be. I also bounce the RF off of trees or rocks to get a feel of what the windage should be at different ranges. That way if it is a hurry up shot I know what the holds are going to be beforehand. Of course the ideal situation is that you sit down, take readings, spin the turrrets and send the round. Unfortunately, that does not happen very often.

I am interested in this comment. Physics would tell us the opposite, that the slower a bullet is traveling the more susceptible it would be to wind drift, thus the further from the muzzle the greater the effect the wind has. This is also what is reflected in the ballistics charts for my rifles.

 

[Gila]

The long range shooting experts recommend 100 yards sight-in and so do many scope vendors. The reasoning behind it is that the holdover will always be high, even at close range. I sight in at 200 yds since most of my shots are 150-300 yard quickies. If I was shooting beyond 450 often and spinning, I would sight-in at 100 simply because the calculations at longer ranges are more accurate.

 

[Gila]

I am interested in this comment. Physics would tell us the opposite, that the slower a bullet is traveling the more susceptible it would be to wind drift, thus the further from the muzzle the greater the effect the wind has. This is also what is reflected in the ballistics charts for my rifles.

Yes, do keep physics in mind. Another way to put it is that the closer the bullet gets to the target, the less effect wind has on the trajectory.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

Yes, do keep physics in mind. Another way to put it is that the closer the bullet gets to the target, the less effect wind has on the trajectory.

Perhaps a picture is more effective. This represents a consistent wind along the entire path of the bullet. Does this jive with your thinking?

 

[Focus]

Question for the long-range shooters on the forum.......how many of you can achieve a first-round hit on a 2 MOA target at say 700 yards? Since this is HuntTalk and not CompetitionTalk I would assume we all place a lot more value on getting a first-round hit on our target than a competition shooter or someone just out at the range ringing steel. While I also understand that in a lot of long-range shoots the points for the first round are often times set at a higher point value than subsequent shots, there's also a lot less moral and ethical risk involved in a first-round miss (or "bad" hit) plus there's no risk of your target running into the next county, wounded and dying in a canyon or someone's private property.

The largest effect wind has on a shot is at the muzzle. For half a century I just threw up a fistful of dirt. This year I decided to go high tech and bought the WeatherFlow that is designed for hunting. The WeatherFlow is bluetooth to Strelok Pro on the phone. $15 for Strelok Pro and 85$ for the WeatherFlow. Point the meter into the wind. Get the wind direction and speed. Then point the phone (the GPS) in the direction of the target and recalculate for the windage hold. What I do is walk through the area and take periodic readings in the direction of where a shot might be. I also bounce the RF off of trees or rocks to get a feel of what the windage should be at different ranges. That way if it is a hurry up shot I know what the holds are going to be beforehand. Of course the ideal situation is that you sit down, take readings, spin the turrrets and send the round. Unfortunately, that does not happen very often.

So you take all that with you when you're hunting? And do all that prep prior to firing a shot at a critter?

 

[Focus]

And for the record, the Idaho club I shoot has shooters that CAN make that shot routinely (I'm not one of them) and some of them are hunters, but they've sunk a lot of time in at the reloading bench and at the range and know their process intimately.

 

[Focus]

And (I'm almost done)....I agree with MN Hunter, mtmuley and BrentD (among others) about wind calls, wind knowledge and windage adjustments everywhere along the bullet's path and not just at the firing point.

Trajectory is easy.

 

[ImBillT]

I am interested in this comment. Physics would tell us the opposite, that the slower a bullet is traveling the more susceptible it would be to wind drift, thus the further from the muzzle the greater the effect the wind has. This is also what is reflected in the ballistics charts for my rifles.

The push the wind applies to a bullet in the first ten yards effects the entire path of the bullet, while the push applied by the wind over the last ten yards only effects the last ten yards. The closest flag is always the most important flag. Every flag has meaning, but the magnitude of the wind’s effect on a bullet becomes progressively smaller as you approach the target. A flag at the target only tells you if a wind change might be working toward you.

When I shot HBR, everyone brought their own flags and most shooters had quite a few. A benchrest match looks like a sea of wind flags. It’s good to be aware of your neighbor’s flags out of the corner of you eye because you can see a wind change coming before it gets to you. It also helps you know if your condition is likely to come back within your remaining time or if you need to hit the sighter and start shooting a new condition. It’s a disadvantage to be on the outside edge. In the F-Class matches I shot there were typically only two or three flags total and they were along one side. It was better to be on that side, because during a switch, the side of the line 50yds from the flags was much more likely to get caught off guard than the side shooting nearest the flags. It was only at my last match or two that I realized that I was going to have to start using mirage, and the dust kicked up by other shooters to improve my wind shooting any further.

The wind nearest the shooter is the most important, but all but the last little bit of it matters to some degree.

 

[ImBillT]

Perhaps a picture is more effective. This represents a consistent wind along the entire path of the bullet. Does this jive with your thinking?
View attachment 114831

A lot of that movement is the result of force applied at the very beginning. If you had a giant gang of fans 100yds long blowing 20mph and shot at 1000yds, at 100yds the drift would be exactly what you would expect from a 20mph crosswind over 100yds, but at 1000yds, while the drift would be less than if the wind was blowing 20mph across the whole range, it would be DRAMATICALLY more than the 100yd drift. The bullet is now moving in the direction that the first 100yds of wind pushed it, and it will continue drifting that direction.

 

[Gila]

Perhaps a picture is more effective. This represents a consistent wind along the entire path of the bullet. Does this jive with your thinking?
View attachment 114831

The effect of the wind not the actual value. There are factors that affect windage besides wind speed and direction. To give you a hint, that's one of the reasons why the Army snarfed up the .300 prc.

 

[ImBillT]

2MOA at 700yds on the first shot. Today I almost certainly could not. 3MOA at 500yds and proper preparation(tuning the new load, getting adjusted BCs instead of trusting advertised BCs, accurate MV, sighting-in in dead calm conditions, making sure the scope tracks the way the box says it does, or correcting for it as I just put a new scope on the rig, knowing where the marks on my reticle actually line at various powers AFTER I FOCUSED IT FOR ME. If you change the focus, those distances no longer exactly match what the box says) and yes I could do it. 2MOA at 500 wouldn’t be a big stretch. I know a few folks that could do it with no problem at all. They used to shoot at clay pigeon match where they had five shoots and five clay pigeons at various long ranges that were undisclosed until the match was over. Two of those clays were usually the little 1.5”ish ones. I never went to that match as the entry fee was quite high.

 

[Gila]

Question for the long-range shooters on the forum.......how many of you can achieve a first-round hit on a 2 MOA target at say 700 yards? Since this is HuntTalk and not CompetitionTalk I would assume we all place a lot more value on getting a first-round hit on our target than a competition shooter or someone just out at the range ringing steel. While I also understand that in a lot of long-range shoots the points for the first round are often times set at a higher point value than subsequent shots, there's also a lot less moral and ethical risk involved in a first-round miss (or "bad" hit) plus there's no risk of your target running into the next county, wounded and dying in a canyon or someone's private property.

So you take all that with you when you're hunting? And do all that prep prior to firing a shot at a critter?

I already bring the phone so all that is needed is the weathermeter. You can pop it into the ear phone jack or just hold it into the wind. I take readings periodically as I am walking through the area. I use the phone to get to my waypoints anyway. I'm always bouncing objects off the rangefinder as I go. I really don't have to do anything just point and shoot. I might take a last minute range reading but that's about it.

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[MinnesotaHunter]

I understand what you were getting at now. Accumulated lateral inertia along the flight path. I am not sure how much value is going to be gained going down this rabbit hole any further.

 

[cahunter805]

Hitting a 2MOA target at 700 first round from a shooting bench on a shooting range or even prone is something most proficient LR shooters can achieve especially with custom rifles and hand loads.
Hitting a game animal at 700 from field conditions with some added buck fever is a whole different thing.

 

[HighDesertSage]

Hitting a 2MOA target at 700 first round from a shooting bench on a shooting range or even prone is something most proficient LR shooters can achieve especially with custom rifles and hand loads.
Hitting a game animal at 700 from field conditions with some added buck fever is a whole different thing.

No, not really. You just go through the same sequence. If you know your rifle you can makes those hits pretty consistently.

 

[cahunter805]

No, not really. You just go through the same sequence. If you know your rifle you can makes those hits pretty consistently.

I fully agree with you. Practicing from field position and conditions is what I should have added. I think a lot of people don’t practice from uneven ground, with an elevated heart rate and controlling the breathing, etc....

 

[ida homer]

You don't need an app, hand loads, a chronograph, zero stop or any of that bullshit to put a hole into 18" wide elk lungs at 400 yards.

Those are typically flat brimmer suggestions from utards.

Baseball sized groups at 400 yards is typically a simple process. Reaching out to someone you know personally with experience is the best way to walk
you through basic ballistics and shooting processes.

You'll get dozens of conflicting replies on Hunt Talk to truly gain anything. You will end up more confused than when you started.

 

[mtmuley]

You'll get dozens of conflicting replies on Hunt Talk to truly gain anything. You will end up more confused than when you started.

True. mtmuley