Long Range, Precision Book/training material advice

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I am about to jump head first into a really nice rifle/scope capable of accuracy at very long range (1200yds with the right load) and I want to find some reading material to get me started so I can get the most out of my range time.

It will be a 308, not the best 1200yd round but all i have heard is what a great learning round it is, and who doesn't need a 308 in their safe?

what book(s) have provided you all with good lessons/learning/information/resources to assist with long range precision?

A quick google search reveals several by Bryan Litz which I recognize as a Subject Matter Expert,

have you used any, what can you recommend?
 
litz' work is great, but very deep in the area of ballistics, which is where you should spend about 5% of your time if you want to get any sort of proficiency. the vast majority of competent long range shooters understand probably less than 10% of what is in litz' books. ...which is not to say i don't recommend them. but it's like if you said you wanted to learn to drive a car, and somebody handed you the engineering specs for the alternator, when what you really need to know is where the gas and brake pedals are and how to fill the gas tank.

my advice would be to watch tiborasaurus rex videos on youtube, which iirc are called sniper101 even though they have little to do with sniping and are just a good basic instruction in precision rifle shooting and gear.

the first 40 or so are great. but rex comes from the school of "tell them what you told them in the last episode, then tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and the tell them what you told them" so if you cut out the music and everything but the "tell them" part in the middle, you're looking at a solid 20 minutes of content per video. i understand he has around 100 videos now, but i haven't watched the latter ones
 
by the way, i don't have a 308 in my safe. it is a good round because the barrel will last a long time. however, it has more recoil than most people prefer these days. a 6.5 creedmoor would probably be a better choice.
 
thanks for the responses, and yes the 308 has fallen out of favor compared to the 6.5 offerings for good reason, but the 308 still hits harder at 500 yds and I want to be able to hunt with my new rig, which for me means whitetail to elk. where I MIGHT elk hunt tags are difficult to say the least, and IF i get the chance, i want it to work. granted most shots will be 200yds and in, but in the event I can't close within 400yds on a bull of a lifetime, I want the terminal performance of a 170-190 grain premium bullet over a 140 grain bullet. those 140's are slick and penetrate well, but they don't deliver the same energy until you get outside the reasonable hunting distances.

that and my wife would freak if I had to buy ANOTHER rifle to hunt with :evil:
 
a 190g bullet may be better than a 140g bullet. but i'd say the potential difference in shot placement is more important than the difference in bullet weight.

take a 185g bullet at 2400 fps and at 400 yards, you have 41" of drop and roughly 3" of drop per 10 yards. and 13" of wind drift with a 10mph wind.

compare that to a 140g bullet at 2850 where you have 26.5" of drop and only 9" of wind.

so if you think that elk is at 390 yards and it's really at 410, your 140g bullet will be 2" closer vertically to where you were aiming than the 185g.

and, if you have say, a 5 mph error in wind estimating because you're shooting over a canyon and you can't read mirage that well, your POI is another 2.5" closer horizontally to your POA.


that's a relative number. in absolute terms, with the 6.5 that's 3.6" versus 5.5" with the heavy 308. chuck hawks says a deer has a 10" vital zone, and an elk a 14.5" vital zone (heart lung area). so the radius of that (assuming it's round, which is doubtful) means the difference in a hit and miss on the deer, but the elk is big enough that you're still inside the vital area.

of course, that assumes a perfect center aim. add a wobbly position off shooting sticks or leaning against a tree or something, and all sorts of other errors like not knowing your exact velocity, etc... it can add up
 
Watch the videos on precision rifle series events. They are good in that they show a lot about what goes on in competition. Shooting accurately is a small part of the game. Like most things competitive, the biggest game you play is the mental one. Prepare yourself to be prepared for the shots.
 
That's a pretty slow moving 185g, Taliv. The 308 Win is more than capable of velocities in excess of 2650fps. 2650fps and a BC of at least .521 would put you within 2.5" of vertical and 1.5" of horizontal correction. To me, that's splitting hairs. The .308 would also have the energy and impact surface advantage over the 6.5mm.
 
yeah, i guess it is. i was trying to be conservative on both of them.

edit: i'll leave it to the op to work out his own calculations
 
I went down this road about 25yrs ago, and since I'm a bookworm myself, I have accumulated a few thousand dollars worth of literature on ballistics, sniping, long range precision, etc. What advice I would give:

Your best investments in a long range shooting education are:

  • 1 MOA to Sub-MOA capable rig

  • Spotting Scope (complete with spotting partner)

  • Laser Rangefinder

  • Kestrel Wind Meter

  • Notebook

  • Ammunition

  • Gas to and from the range

  • I'm reticent to add it - but a shooting school or course for proper positional technique, like the NRA Basic Rifle course, will give you the technical foundation you need. A 3/4 position mentor would trump a short school or course though.

Get these things in one place, get to the range frequently with STRUCTURED PRACTICE, and start punching.

Books are great, and I LOVE reading more and more about my hobbies, but I can say two things about all of the books I've read on long range shooting: 1) There's nothing in the books which can't be found faster and easier online, 2) also nothing in the books which can make more impact on your shooting than live instruction or live practice.
 
Interesting comments on how good different caliber bullets seem to do when fired from cases whose parent case was the .308 Win. And including that one, too. Here's a realistic comparison of several calibers from that case:

.308 Win; 3000 round barrel life for best accuracy, most recoil for all bullet weights which cause more bore axis movement while the bullet's in the barrel which makes it the hardest one to shoot accurate. Moderate wind drift for all bullet weights.

7-08; 2500 rounds of barrel life, less recoil for all its bullet weights so a little easier to shoot precisely. A bit less wind drift for its same bullet weights.

.260 Rem; 2000 rounds of most accurate barrel life, less recoil so much easier to shoot accurately. Better wind drift for same bullet weights.

.243 Win; 1500 rounds of best accuracy barrel life, lest amount of recoil so easiest to shoot precisely. Good wind drift for bullet weights.

They all are capable of shooting all bullet weights inside 2/3 MOA at 1000 yards properly tested for most of their barrel lives with good hardware (rifle and ammo) and software (the human) involved with parts selection, assembly and shooting.

Put your money into the barrel first, then the action, then stock and the least amount in the sights. All the money in the world spent on a scope will not make a 1000--yard 1.5 MOA rifle at best shoot any better. Scopes do nothing for accuracy, just aiming; fixed power scopes are more repeatable than variables anyway.

Best book I know of on this subject is: http://rifleshootingbynancy.com/index.html

Her rifles and ammo are put together by the person who's won more matches setting records along the way as well as building rifles and loading ammo for all four people in his family that also excel in winning and record setting.
 
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So my rifle is going to be a custom action (american rifle company Mausingfield), cut rifled match barrel assembled by one of the top smiths in the country, so yes it will be capable of a whole lot.

Maybe i am stubbornly locked into 308, i am ok with that. If i decide 308 is limiting me i will order a prefit match barrel and have 2 calibers where previously i had one. If i find my way into serious big game hunting ill get a new bolt head and prefit 300 wsm or 7wsm barrel,

I am going to look into some of the resourcesl mentioned for sure, i will eventually take a class, and i currently have no shooting buddy/mentor but i can work on that.



Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
Good attitude to have - barrels are consumable. By the time you really get in the groove at 1,200yrds, you'll have burned up the first barrel on the rifle (and spent THOUSANDS of dollars on ammo, above the rifle cost), so having a new tube spun on for $500 really isn't as big of deal as some folks make it seem.

Going with a 308win, give yourself enough barrel to get your velocity high even with the heavier pills. My "long range learning rifle" ~25yrs ago was a Rem 700 in 7mm Mauser - not a whizbang laser cartridge, but more than up to the task of letting me develop my skills out to 1,600yrds.
 
Never heard of a Mausingfield until you mentioned it. It won't hold a barrel and shoot bullets any more safely or accurately than a used Win. 70 action.

And the Win. 70 action with its internal box magazine will be more accurate than anything using detachable magazines; unless you've got several then found a few that shoot to the same point of aim. That's what top ranked folks shooting the most accurate detachable box magazine rifles learned in the 1960's. Several had to be tested to find a few that shot within 1/4 MOA of the same zero.

And if best accuracy is your objective, your 'smith will fit all barrels to .001" less than SAAMI minimum chamber headspace after the bolt face is squared up with the chamber axis (receiver barrel tenon thread axis). That way, best accuracy will be had with both new and properly resized fired cases. Prefit barrels seldom, if ever, meet that requirement.

Why .001" less than SAAMI minimum? Well, new bottleneck rimless cases are typically .002" to .004" less in case headspace than the SAAMI minimum chamber headspace so they'll all chamber easily. The less new cases have in head clearance (space between bolt face and case head when the round's fired), the less their heads will be stretched back upon first firing. Case heads will then be very square from the get-go and stay that way throughout their lives. Accuracy will be optimized because there are no out of square case heads on reloads that cause the barrel to whip out in the wrong direction before the bullets exit.

As you're using the .308, start out with a 28 to 30 inch barrel,, then set it back 3 inches after 3000 rounds; it'll be like knew all over again. Get one with a 1:12 twist and you'll be set to go with bullets from 168 to 190 grains; if you also want to use 150's too, get a 30 inch barrel. If you want to use 200 grain bullets as the heaviest, get a 1:11 twist that'll do well with bullets from 175 to 200 grains even after it's set back 3 inches.

You mentioned 1200 yards; a bit of a stretch for .308 Win cases at safe max pressures in cooler temperatures. If you'll shoot in temperatures below 60 degrees F, you might consider the .300 Winchester Ultra Magnum. Probably the most accurate large case shooting 30 caliber bullets a bit faster than a .300 Win Mag will but without that crazy belt to deal with when reloading for best accuracy. All at the expense of only about 1200 rounds of accurate barrel life. But have the 'smith chamber it about .004" short of SAAMI chamber headspace minimum; SAAMI spec new cases for this cartridge are shorter than others in headspace
 
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