Thread: 2 STAGS IN ONE WEEK

Hamish is correct that people do miss, but the reason for the miss is impotant, and how the shot was set up.
If you have a wild guess about your trajectory for a 475m shot you are probably going to miss, and you might get lucky and hit it on the 4th shot.
But people like Hamish, craigc and myself, don't take a wild guess.
Before I go shooting at animals with a new set-up I shoot my amuuntion over a chronograph to get the velocity. Then I go somewhere I can shot at targets out to 600-800yds to check where my rounds are actually hitting. I use all this information to make up a drop chart or to enter the info into my ballistic ap. I have also checked the adjustments on my scope right out to 25 MOA of adjustment.
My shot shot set-up would be, range the animal, check the angle of the shot, check the barometric pressure and temperature. Use my wind meter to get a wind reading where I am, and use that to estimate the wind between me and the animal (this is the hardest part). Then enter all this data into my ballistic app to get the information to dial in to my scope.
Then I can aim straight at the animal where I want to hit it, much easier than aiming above and estimating where it will hit. This all takes time to do, but if the animal moves off before I get the shot then so be it. Yes I have missed animals like this. Maily because of wind, or a shit trigger pull. But if I miss with the first shot, and didn't see where the round went to be able to make a correction, I don't fire a second shot.

This all sounds really complicated, but can easily be learnt in a day or weekend. If you live near christchurch i will happily give you some pointers. Long range shooting is a lot of fun, but you do owe it to the animals to do it right.