What do you call long distance shooting/hunting?

[Coyotes-R-Us]

   
Long-distance Hum.
I JUST got back from shooting what I conciser long distance.
.3 miles, 1500 feet, 500 yards, whatever you want to call it. It's a LONG way.
Longer than I care to walk out and check the target for sure.
I set up a life-size target of a coyote, printed on letter paper, It takes 14 sheets to print it out with feet, tail, and ears.
38 x 44" is the target backer.
To look at it without a scope you say crap that's a LOOONG way.
The wind was blowing, can you get your hands around that? in Montana?
Maybe a 45* ish and like 18 mph. Hard enough to blow my target over just before the first shot.
I Just tested 12,220 gr 8mm rounds with different powders and loads.
I found a match that at 100 the bullets almost all touched, and around 2950 fps according to the book.
I had the 8 zeroed at 3" high at 100 yards which is dead nuts center at point-blank of 240 yards with the 200 gr Barnes up around 3100.
That is what I was shooting, I adjusted the parallax to 500 yards, Put the third hash on the coyote's nose.
Shot 3 times, when we checked that put a left to right string about 5" with less than a 1/2" up or down Center coyote but up at ear level. I was surprised at the drop or lack of it. I know in my heart if I had used the second hash it would have been dead center coyote.
I was going to do it again after the check but my buddy shot his 375 Ruger and he hit the supports and blew the target over and we could not stand it back up.
I was a happy camper. Come to find out he had aimed over the target and off the target into the wind. His bullet dropped the 44" target and them some and the windage was well over the 38" wide target.

All that said:
500 yards is a LOOONG shot with any gun in the wind, in the field.
My 6mm and his 6.5 CM at that range and wind was lucky to hit the 11 1/2 sq foot target backer.

Remember: Four boxes keep us free, the soapbox, the ballot box, the jury box, AND the cartridge box

[Hawks Feather]

Nice shooting and 500 yards is a long ways to shoot.  Best I ever did was a ground hog at just over 400 yards, but that was back when I was young and could hang a rifle out the window so the car was my bench.  I do have to say that I am impressed with 12,220 grain rounds.  I think you need a tank to shoot those. 

[Coyotes-R-Us]

Sorry
12 each 220 gr rounds

[pitw]

I've shot at 500 yd but it was mostly flock shooting singles.

[Hawks Feather]

Sorry
12 each 220 gr rounds

Just giving you a hard time and that is impressive shooting.

[remrogers]

There may be times where you just can't close the distance, but most hunters should pass on a shot over 200 yards. A lot of folks pull the rifle out of the closet and go hunting without even sighting it in. " It was on last year, so it should be good to go."

My longest shot, on an animal, was a coyote at four hundred yards. It was on a hard run and I rolled that dog; pure luck. On big game, I limit myself to 250 yards and I need to be dead solid. I would rather let an animal go instead of taking a chance of just wounding it and not making a recovery. IMHO, those who shoot consistently  at 500 to over 1000 yards are target shooters and not really hunters. If you want a real hunt, use an open sight smoke pole at no more than 100 yards or a bow at 30 yards.

If you want to do the long distance thing, then have at it. It is your choice.

[Okanagan]

Man, that is some impressive shooting!  Coyote vitals are a lot smaller target than most people realize once the hair is gone.

I never got into the long range thing, though I sure am impressed with what we can do with developing gear today.  My habit carried over from bow hunting is to get close, probably a bad habit sometimes when a centerfire rifle is in hand.   But when needed, it sure helps to know your gear and ability.  I killed a wounded bull elk at 690 yards or a bit more, that was getting away from another hunter.  Lot of luck, but some awareness of where the bullet would go with that load and rifle.  Also powder burned a bull elk, about 4 inches range, for my closest one. He ran over me in a tight opaque thicket. 

Decades ago a friend and I got to shooting more and more at long range game, such as a goat he killed at about 800 yards with his 300 Win mag. A companion spotted the impact of his first shot through a spotting scope, and he raised the crosshairs up about five feet and rolled the goat off of a cliff with his second shot.  That was range finding back when we hunted dinosaurs.  But he couldn't recover the goat because a blizzard blew in within minutes, making the cliffs deadly to climb, let alone find it. 

He and I decided that with the gear we had at that time, we would not shoot big game that required holdover, using our sight in at 2 1/2 or 3" high at 100.  That Fall it cost me a very good 4x4 mule deer at what turned out to be almost exactly 440 yards.  No regrets.  Nowadays, with the optics, range finders, scopes and computer calculated ballistics, the distance for a high probability first round hit just keeps extending farther.  Animal movement, and ethics, also grow as factors in the equation.

[Coyotes-R-Us]

I don't normally shoot over 300 on any game. Coyotes I will try longer shots because it doesn't matter one way or the other.
I was shooting my 8mm RM with a 200 gr bullet, almost never go hunting coyotes with the 8.
I just happened to have a target with a coyote on it.
The last three big game animals I shot did happen to be very long shots and I was using my 6mm rem 80 gr, Barnes.
two 4 point mule deer and an antelope all, around 450 yards. One-shot DRT shots.
BUT I get a LOT of trigger time throughout the year.
I needed to see where I was hitting with the 8rm it's new to me and I and still getting used to it.
At the time I was testing 220 sierra bullets at 100 yards, I found a good load just under a 1/2, 5 shot group.
I was shooting my other proven bullet load 200 gr Barnes, 3100 fps, at the target. It, when tested, gave me a 12MM hole with 5 8MM bullets at 100. I'm thinking it will be my normal load for hunting with this gun.
I'll use the 220 if I get a bison tag or I fined a feral elephant funning around.

[JohnP]

My predator rifles are sighted dead on at fifty yards if I can't call them in that close something is wrong.  Deer rifles dead on at a hundred.  Once upon a time in a different life - a thousand yards plus was a given.

[Okanagan]

My predator rifles are sighted dead on at fifty yards if I can't call them in that close something is wrong.  Deer rifles dead on at a hundred.  Once upon a time in a different life - a thousand yards plus was a given.

Now that is interesting.  You are the only person I know who sights in similar to the way I do for predators.  I have usually sighted dead on at 75, though recently using my predator rifle for deer, I have fudged that up a smidge.  I want the close-in sure thing shots to be sure thing, plus in our brush, I want the bullet to travel as close as possible to the line of sight my eye is seeing.  The bullet needs to go through the same small hole in brush that my eye is seeing through, not rising way above it as it would with a rifle sighted in for 260 yards, etc.  For that reason I want the scope as low and close to the bore as possible, so bullet path and line of sight through the scope start out close and say that way, within an inch, as  far as possible, neither below nor above.   It works.

[nastygunz]

 I've never done any long-distance shooting because I grew up and still hunt the big woods up here, New Hampshire and Vermont are both over 90% forested.  The only opportunities for any kind of distance shots are in hayfield or cut over cornfield or powerlines,  And those are still not very far.  I've dropped game with rifle, shotgun, compound bow, handgun, long bow, muzzle loader,all at close range.  Then again I think I could get a close-up shot no matter where or what the terrain was, I move through the woods like an Apache ghost
     Nowadays everybody hunts from tree stands or ground blinds, I grew up still hunting, where you learn how to be slow and stealthy and when you can sneak up on a big game animals and see them before they see you there is an accomplishment!

[nastygunz]

https://www.marlinowners.com/forum/general-gun-related-off-topic-stuff/237185-zero-25-yards.html

[JohnP]

My predator rifles are sighted dead on at fifty yards if I can't call them in that close something is wrong.  Deer rifles dead on at a hundred.  Once upon a time in a different life - a thousand yards plus was a given.

Now that is interesting.  You are the only person I know who sights in similar to the way I do for predators.

Likewise with the scope, usually start out with it at 3x, normally never go above 6x.  No 50mm scope either as then I cannot get the scope low enough without the bell touching the barrel. I just have too much respect for predators and all creatures (except illegals) to take shots that at best are iffy. 

[Okanagan]

https://www.marlinowners.com/forum/general-gun-related-off-topic-stuff/237185-zero-25-yards.html

Re discovering the wheel...    The 25 yard zero was trendy with some folks in the 60's and into the 70's, some of them my relatives.  It is quick and easy and will do for most deer hunting in woods.  Its not for me, even in close brush shooting.  I want to know just how high and where the bullet is actually hitting out beyond 25 yards. 

A 25 yard zero means that the bullet angles upward from its starting point an inch to 1 1/2 inches or more below the center of the scope and rises steeply enough to cross the line of sight at 25 yards. At that point it keeps angling upward for quite a ways, and though it will stay on a deer within average deer shooting range, that is not precise enough for my predator hunting, nor for big game for that matter.

In the article linked, most of those rifles were putting the bullet up 3 1/2 to nearly 4 inches high at mid range.  That is too high for me, even for big game.  I might have to think about holding low,  which a guide friend of mine used to do with his rifle.    I missed a coyote at a little over 100 yards with a big game rifle that was sighted in 2 3/4 inches high at 100.  All I could see was about 3 inches of his back over a snow ridge, and instead of holding a couple of inches down into the snow I held on fur at the snow line.  I don't like to think a lot on game shots...

And my called critters are usually close. A lot of that is hunting style and set up. Nothing wrong with how anyone wants to do it but this works well for me.

[nastygunz]

 Reticle scopes and laser rangefinder's and ballistics tables you can dial a rifle in pretty tight nowadays.  Are usually site in at 25 yards but then fine-tune it at 50 and 100.  Ranging reticles on a rifle scope Are just about like the different yardage pins on a bow.