Furthest hunting shots?

[ZeroJunk]

Why do gun forums have such an inordinate number of know it alls ?

 

[suzukisam]

sorry for the spelling errors trying to cook dinner while typing on my laptop... doing too many things at once...

and no I don't have a "range" I practice from hunting positions, a picnic table or mobile shooting bench. I also don't claim to shoot 1000 yrds, however I study people who do and I try learn whats needed to make those shots... I'm good consistently to 400-450.. In the last four years my skills have gotten much better.. I put a lot of range time into being a consistent shot... and I have doubled the range that I can cleanly and effectively take game.. I don't currently shoot past 450.. however I have watched many people who do.. john burns shoots those distances regularly and has a very good instructional dvd set on the nuts and bolts required to do it, from gear, handloads, bedding and free floating...

I don't advocate hunting at that distance unless you can prove you can make the shot.. you start with paper, then move to varmints, then to small non trophy game and then large game.. I don't disagree that the potential to wound game is high, and thats why it is a discipline that many will never perfect, but to say that perfecting the art of longer range hunting is inhumane is false. Animals typically do not move in 1.5 seconds enough to matter, the bullet will get there before the sound of the shot will.. and part of long range hunting is watching the animal and observing it's demeanor...

Claiming that someone is ego maniacal because they have put the time, effort, and money into a rig and the practice to make clean kills at any given yardage is demeaning to a persons hard work, and requires a degree of ego in and of itself...

There are many keyboard snipers.. but to assume that everyone who engages in this topic is a mall ninja is frankly rude.... many of us respect the skill level needed and work toward that, though we are not there.. and many people come to this forum to seek help and wisdom from many who have skills that they do not yet posses, and cutting them down is not nice... and you seem to have the skills to shoot at those ranges, your wisdom would be better served by teaching and not criticizing...

 

[tarosean]

Why do gun forums have such an inordinate number of know it alls ?

Its across all internet forums. The correct terminology is Dunning-Krueger effect.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

again i wll ask why just deer and elk. How many of you guys preaching against shooting deer at 400 yards would shoot a praire dog at 300? there about a 1/3 the size of the kill zone of a deer. If you done any dog hunting you know you sure cant shoot at the vitals of them and some crawl off and die. Why do you get on your high horses about deer but not them. If a guy had to consistantly hit the vitals of one of them youd have to limit the range to under a 100 yards. Betcha they feel pain just like a deer. Some people need to do a reality check. Hunting is killing no matter what your hunting and about any animal you shoot feels pain. If you cant deal with that maybe you should find another sport. That been said i too do believe in killing as quickly as possible but feel i can do that at 500 yards as well as most hunters can at 200. But i do kill animals and am not so blind as to claim im doing it without hurting them. I would think that if you looked at the definition of ethical it wouldnt allow you to kill anything. Im about sure that any anti hunter would consider all of us unethical. Thats why i truely feel that ethics are a personal thing and you shouldnt judge someone else by your own ethical standards

Sorry Lloyd I missed that post somehow and I see no one answered your very valid question so I will. As far as P-dog hunting, the many times I did it, I was using my custom .220swift loaded up with some 55gr V-Max bullets and cooking off at a mere 3845fps. One of 2 things happened for me with that combination. 1- I hit it ANYWHERE in the body and it blew up. 2- I missed it. I've never seen one "crawl off and die" from this combination nor do I expect I ever will.

Yes there is a certain amount of pain and cruelty to ANY form of hunting unless you can make a brain shot on each and every animal you hit, be it in firearm or archery. The point that I and MANY others are trying to make here is, why take a chance at shooting ANY game animal at distances beyond 400 yards. I say 400 yards because that is a distance that a bullet, from most all large game hunting cartridges designed for longer range, can travel quicker than an animal can step out of the kill zone. It is also a range to where the wind will not play a HUGE factor in a 9 to 14 inch kill zone radius. You speak of cruelty and for us to get off our soap boxes, where I say, from my double stacked soap box , lets try to take some of the cruelty and pain OUT of hunting by limiting your shots to a range that the wind and animal behavior will not play such a large role.

Why risk gut shooting an animal when it is so simple to get within 400 yards. As I said earlier, I have over 40 years hunting pretty much everything edible on 4 legs and I have always found it easy to get well within 400 yards of any animal on earth. So my question to the long range "hunters" is this. If I can do it so easily, why can't anyone else? It's not rocket science. Our ancestors damn near wiped white-tail deer, Bison, and Elk off the face of the earth and they didn't have all these super duper scopes and heavy magnum rifles. There also weren't near as many hunters in the field either! They seemed to be able to get within range for primitive weapons and damn near wipe the species off the planet. What is the true purpose of long range field shots on game other than ego boosting? "I practiced at 1000 yards for 2 years straight and I can shoot that animal at 1000 yards all day" Good for you, glad you practiced and I am glad you enjoy long range shooting. What I am NOT glad about is those people out in the field taking shots on LIVE animals under hunting conditions and thinking it is just like the range. IT AINT!

 

[41 Mag]

So, you have a better facility in which to test bullets than the bullet manufacturers?

To answer your question, as far as a facility goes, no. I have enough common sense and education however to work through enough variables to come to a valid conclusion to a problem. When I initially started testing bullets I was in my early teens, and testing to me at that time simply meant shooting them into some type of media from which they could be recovers and examined. This was usually water jugs or wet news paper, set up in some sort of order, that allowed me to see what the penetration would be. While this is FAR from lab spec testing, it is still widely used by many to test loads and obtain results.

When I got my first Contender it was specifically purchased for a handgun only hunt. As such, I wanted to be able to use a bullet capable of reaching the firearms max potential. As you mention folks spewing ad nauseum ballistics, yes these have to be considered. If you haven't learned this then you need to go back to the books as it is a VERY important part of developing a load. I worked up my load procedure, then using the velocities I had gathered from this, I looked at the available bullets. From this I chose the ones I wanted to work with, which to me would give the most reliable chance of expansion, within the velocity range I could attain. From this I started load development with three different bullets of different manufacture. I contacted these manufacturers and ask what their testing had shown for the velocity ranges from which I had. When they could not answer me, I was left with no choice but to use my own testing. This testing quickly allowed that the very best bullet for the intended purpose and to the intended ranges was the 140gr Nosler Ballistic Tip. It proved time and time again at ranges from 50 through 300 yards to be the most accurate, and most reliable in expansion at he velocities I was able to use with the 14" barrel. They preformed flawlessly on the doe I shot at a lasered 283 yards, from a prone position resting the handgun across my day pack. This was the absolute closest I could get to the deer after an hour and a half stalk through the scrub brush on the property I was hunting.

Now, I do not know how you go about testing if you do at all, but when I work on a specific load I usually work on every aspect of it for well into a years time before I am fully confident in it. I do not simply pick a particular bullet based upon someone else experiences and call it good. I do not take my hunting lightly, nor will I go into the woods with a rifle I do not feel is up to my expectations, and I do not adhere to the pie plate sized dead deer criteria that most seem to accept. If my rifle won't shoot at a minimum of 1" or better at 100yds I simply don't use it, and I prefer this to be 200yds or more. Believe it or not, simply the way I am.

This has ZERO that's NOTHING to do with ability. It doesn't matter if you can hit coke cans at 1000 yds. All the ability in the world won't help the man behind the trigger control the uncontrollable: Wind and animal movement.

Your absolutely right, but you leave out the part about conditions being perfect, and the animal being relaxed, and undisturbed. While this might be hard for you to fathom, they do stand still, and do so at times for extended periods. While you are correct they all have the ability to move at any given time, they also have the same ability to stand there just as well.

To deliberately hunt animals that are far away makes no sense, and your own little sarcastic remarks won't change my mind. By the way, do YOU have a 600 yd. range available to you? I do, it's about 200 yds. from where I'm sitting right now. And having used said range, I fully understand long range shooting and more important the effects of the elements on long range shooting. Why don't you state your credentials?

You're like so many others on the internet who quote, ad nauseum, ballistics. I said it once and I'll say it again, there is no one bullet that is perfect at 100 yds. and 1000+ yds.

Posts like the one above from waffen should be considered by every hunter who thinks he needs to lob bullets at animals on the distant horizon.

I personally do NOT deliberately as you put it, set out to shoot any critter at an extended range. I do however deliberately practice out to ranges much further than I usually shoot them, and if I AM hunting in an area which i do on occaision where the ranges could easily exceed some specific range limit, I will use my own judgment as to whether or not I and the equipment I have with me at the time are capable of making the shot under the specific conditions present at the time.

One other point you make above, your right, there is no one particular bullet which is perfect for every situation, and this is why I test the ones I feel are going to be the best to determine if they actually are or not, under the velocities, that I will be using them at. Without doing this, there is simply no way to know for sure. Even if it isn't some lab on a White Sands testing facility, it is still better than some uneducated guess. With out testing the performance of a particular bullet, you might as well be guessing at the velocity of your load based upon what the book says it is.

 

[T.R.]

I grew up in Park County, Wyoming where antelope outnumber people. I totaled yardages of all the 'lopes I've taken and did the math to come up with an average distance. 275 yards has been my average shot for pronghorn antelope. Unless very gusty winds are present, my 243 Remington rifle is first choice every time.

My longest shot? I was prone on the side of a large butte overlooking a band of 'lopes way out there. The horizontal crosshair was placed so that just a whisker of sky was seen above this buck's backline. At the shot, there was a long pause and then I heard the bullet strike flesh. The animal wobbled a bit and fell over. I'd estimate the shot at 375 - 425 yards. Ammo: handload featuring 85 grain Sierra Game King bullet. 243 is a KEEPER!

TR

 

[AKElroy]

The longest shot I can recall was on a blackbuck cull @ 450 yds. I was using a Win 7mag, leupold 3x9, 165 gr sierra gameking. It was windy, and the buck fell at the shot. When we approached it, it was evicerated at the gut shot, and suffering badly. A follow-up from my .38 put it down. My foolish pride at wanting to take such a long shot resulted in a suffering animal, so I limit my shots to 300. Most are within 100yds. The longest shot I have taken since was last year, 280 yds clean. That is about as far as I plan to go on living things.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Four (4) yards. Ooh sorry. You asked for longest shot. Less then 100 yards. I'm a hunter. I stock (creep up on) the game animal. Favorite rifle? 1949 Winchester model 94 in .30 WCF with open sights.

 

[ZeroJunk]

Its across all internet forums. The correct terminology is Dunning-Krueger effect.

Explains it perfectly doesn't it.

 

[suzukisam]

Bushmaster- I hunt all over missouri... our deer are like roaches just drive an atv through the woods and you spook out a deer... all we need to do in MO to get a deer is a minivan and an interstate and they'll jump right out in from of you... in the middle of metro kansas city they will literally eat off your patio... I was doing some rot repairs on a customers house a couple months ago and as we were standing there talking a small buck walked up 20 feet from where I was running a skill saw....elusive little creatures...

 

[Ankeny]

It takes time and effort to know your drops at distance, and then practicing to get them fine tuned, and learning your limitations as the conditions vary.

That's the problem, too many LR shooters extend their abilities beyond their limits. Then again, that's true of a lot of hunters at even moderate yardage.

 

[Clark]

In 2008 I got my first deer. I got 4 deer that year between 400 and 500 yards standing broadside feeding.

A month later I tried for my first elk at 625 yards.
76 elk were walking towards me.

I fired all 13 rounds I was carrying, and managed to get the herd to turn around.

Oi, did I get yelled at back at the truck.

Three years later I figured out that elk walking at 625 yards require some leading.

I now try to avoid shooting long range at moving targets.

I now practice every year at the beginning of hunting season at 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 yards.

I have switched from 270 wimpy loads with a short barrel to 7mmRM hot loads with a long barrel.

I no longer use hold over. I adjust the scope elevation turret for each shot when hunting.

Here is a pic of a 4 foot piece of cardboard on a 30 foot high hill that I target practiced on in Oct 2011.
The 600 yard groups were a little bigger than I wanted.

 

[pbrktrt]

To date a lasered 412 yd on a 5-point fat Mi buck. 18 ft up in a very comfy box blind and a great rest. 270 Win just at back and broke the spine. Down and out.

 

[sKunkT]

All of my rifle kills were all within bow range for me, with the exception of my longest which was 75 yards. I feel comfortable shooting up to about 200, but have never hunted anywhere with that opportunity.