Thread: Experienced Advice Appreciated For Long Range Hunting

Old mate Remington 5R posted this wee gem about 6 months ago....

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!