Result of a bit of chin music
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Result of a bit of chin music
That's pretty much my take on it. The guy's a newbie, shooting deer when you first start out means everything, and shooting at longer ranges is probably an achievement too, well done 7mm rm!
Having said that, verification of bullet trajectory is 'essential' for longer range shooting. To do this, you're first gonna need a tall piece of cardboard, and if you're zeroed at 200 yards/meters, set your target up at 400. Have your target placed near the top of your cardboard and fire (obviously considering your firing zone). Now don't just fire one round and say 'good, I know where it goes', fire 3 - 5 because you're wanting to try an gauge your group size as well. Greg Duley touched on the 6" hillier zone, which is a vital kill zone in the chest area, so, provided your rifle is a capable killer at whatever range you're hoping to shoot out at, then you're trying to find the 'maximum' range you can confidently shoot, keeping your group size at around the 6" mark, preferably less.
Now, take a measurement from the center of the bulls eye, where you aimed, to the center of your group as that gives the bullet drop (trajectory) in inches/cm. If you've got a holdover type scope, with various elevation marks, take a note of the middle of your group size and correspond it to the marks in your scope, and write that mark on your stock for easy reference (example 400 = 1 & 1/2 lines down). Do this at every 100 y/m intervals (remembering that the closest you choose to do this, the more accurate a data you're going to collect) until your group size gets bigger than the magic 6" mark! If you shoot 6" at 700 y/m but at 800 you're shooting 7 or 8" then 700 y/m is your maximum, it could be that your group size opens up more than 6" at 500 y/m, in which case 500, or maybe 450 is your maximum range.
Now, 'if' at say 500 y/m you're shooting a 2' group, then there's something drastically wrong with either you or your setup, and desperately needs to be sorted.
Do this and you should have the 'ethical right' to shoot at anything out to that particular range, and if we're all being honest, a certain amount of "collateral damage" is always to be expected with all forms of hunting, after all, how many rabbits have we shot that have manged to escape wounded down the hole, dragging their rear diff and screaming as they go, 'never, to be seen again?... That's just my sixpence, oh, and of course, windage is a different story!
In the video the wind was blowing quite hard! IMO to much for that range!
Even his humane shot went through the stags noise!
Yes everyone makes mistakes!
Just goes to so we all learn!
1 don't take long range shots in high wind.
2 only take long range shots if you have plenty of range time at doing this. It's a skill that needs to be learnt and it's a perishable skill at that, which means you stop practice the skill diminishes.
3 use a could bullet with high BC that you know is going to make a big wound thus bring a swift humane death! This is an ethical thing to do.
Just hope he dragged the gut and offal out of the stream bed.
Nice to see that he took out the meat though.
I only added point .3 cause I read it somewhere and it sounded cool:wtfsmilie::thumbsup:
Sure not hung up on it. But I definitely chose a premium hunting bullet that I know is going to do the job!
Gripping shit. Ahwell couple lessons learnt
I thought it was a good story and at least he didn't wound it he got it and had a good time with his son.Its quite amazing how many ethical hunters there are here who have never ever done the same thing.
Just eating some of the venison tonight for tea Yummy! :P
7mm, im happy for you to PM me if you want me to teach you a bit about ballistics, Long range shootin etc and help you get your setup sorted properly, properly set up you should be able to kill smaller deer out to 1000 yards and bigger stags etc out to about 700 with your rifle.