"Minute of Mule Deer" and Shot distance

[nrpate05]

I have good rifles (Howa, Weatherby) and good glass (Leupold) and use good factory ammunition (Barnes). I have a 10" gong that I setup once the rifles are sighted in. If I can't hit the gong 9 out of 10 times I know that I'm past my maximum range. So far, my max comfort range is 300 yards. Sure I can hit 400 a decent amount and 500 every now and again. This certainly doesn't mean I will be shooting at a critter at these ranges. Unfortunately I don't get to practice at ranges much past 200 yards very often as most of my shooting takes place on National Forest and its tough to find places that give that ability. All the fire bans in CO this year don't help that either. When you've found your comfort range, you'll know.

 

[Pelican]

I don’t use group size to determine how far I will shoot at an animal. I use the am i 100% confident the bullet will land where it needs to on the first shot. My limit is 400 yrds and only under ideal conditions. Having shot a lot of paper out to 800 yrds I know how hard it is to always make the first one land where it needs to, every time, at long range. I also hunt with traditional archery equipment, so a 6 inch group seems reasonable which is all I can consistently achieve at my max range of 25 yrds.