Thread: Calibre, Rifle & Scope Sugestions For Longer Range Hunting

Buy a .223 with a dialing scope fitted - much cheaper to feed to get the practice in dialing and reading wind etc. Then get something longer legged that fits the same operating profile as the .223 and is either a 'premium' rifle package or a semi-custom with an accuracy guarantee or a known pedigree in shooting over the ranges you want...

The actual caliber provided it retains sufficient energy at those ranges isn't that important - it just needs to be repeatably accurate and reliable.

Sorting the rifle and caliber out is actually the easy part - the hard part is developing and honing the skills you need as the shooter to take those shots at longer distances at live game and to do it humanely i.e. not shooting the things in the knees jaw or guts, not being able to take a follow up shot and losing them in the time it takes to close the distance to the animal. It really does need a superlative level of shooting skill to take game reliably past the 350-400m mark, especially in open country across valleys where the wind calling becomes local knowledge on how the air moves around the hills and valleys. It's not impossible, but it does take a LOT of practice - this is where the cheap-to-feed .223 comes in.