Western hunters, how do you range your shots?
I have a cheap Simmons rangefinder that has served me well for small game, but it only works reliably out to around 200 yards. I put in for Coues whitetail this year and expect to take 300+ yard shots in the mountains. Is it practical to range deer with a mil dot reticle? Or by using the terrain to locate the target on a map?
Go outside and take guesses and then range it.
You'll get good in like 3 days.
Also you can range them with anything as long as you know how to judge range. +/- 20 yrds isn't gonna change your shot much.
>+/- 20 yrds isn't gonna change your shot much.
Unless you’re stuffing 90+ grain bullets in a .22-250 or something similarly mad, you are unfortunately very wrong past ~300 yards give or take. At 400 yards, even with good long range cartridges like 6.5 PRC, a 20 yard range misestimation can be the difference between a perfect shot or having to track a spine'd deer that’s dragging itself as fast as it can by its front legs only. Not exactly the hardest track you’ve ever followed, but maybe the most disheartening.
If he was hunting elk or whatever, he’s probably be fine at that level of precisions, but Coues deer are little.
There’s no great answer, even buying a better rangefinder (the vortex one is decent and not super expensive) won’t guarantee that you won’t frick up your range estimation by not noticing that you’re actually rangefinding a bush or whatever between where you are and where your target is. Practice and a decent rangefinder is the best bet, but it can be hard to be able to get the time in field you need. I like knowing the ranges from ridge to ridge where I hunt (and ridge to valley floor, etc), it lets me make a decent estimate which I can then compare to the dope from the stadia lines on my scope and a laser range finder, but even then it was getting in the field and taking shots on game that turned me from worrying about whether I’d done it right (and occasionally spine-ing a speedgoat) to taking confident shots at long range.
The technical morons are here now. Go outside and hunt brother. Put some fricking jeans on, lace the boots, and send it. The whole sport has been ruined cause you homosexuals have to push your glasses up everytime someone says something and tell us about how one factor "CHANGES EVERYTHING". Go play on your OnX maps and look at barometers.
OP just sight the gun in at 200 and go shoot at stuff that looks far enough. You will hit it, go from there. Develop your like
said. It shouldn't take too long. Try getting in closer than 300, it'll make for easier retrieval.
how is learning your pace count technical? Even if you don't hunt this is the best way to learn to eyeball distances. I would post a picture of some family heirlooms listed in the Boon and Crocket records books but I'm not going to dox myself to dab on some idiot literally telling hunters to not learn their pace count.
>A 20 yard range miscalculation can move a shot 6 inches
you're an awful shot if you think this is true. The nearest cardinal direction you're shooting has more impact than 20 yards and if you have to ask why (or don't know) you absolutely shouldn't be giving advice on long range shooting.
Heart to spine on a coues is less than 6 inches. They are little deer.
>heart to spine is over 6 inches
Ah, I see your problem, you don't know basic anatomy AND you're a shit shot. The heart is below the lungs my dude... sure, ok, it may be like 5 inches, my bad.
.308 is dropping like 6 inches per 50 yards at 300 and 11 inches per 50 at 400.
Thanks for the info you fricking accountant. Go play with your actuary tables.
>.308
Because .308 is a cartridge with exactly 1 load, grainage, BC, barrel length and zero. Brainlet.
And all of them have a lot of drop at ranges typical for Western mountain hunting.
.308 with high BC bullets in the 168-178gr range is perfectly capable of taking medium to large game at 500-600 meters. In 99% of cases you can always close the distance to under 300 meters anyway.
Taking pot shots at shit from one ridge to another at last light with your shitty chink made R700 clone or whatever budget rifle you Black folk use these days is grossly unethical and has nothing to do with hunting anyway.
If you want to long range LARP on PrepHoleg get a .300 WM, but it's not like you could handle the recoil anyway.
>Taking pot shots at shit from one ridge to another at last light with your shitty chink made R700 clone or whatever budget rifle you Black folk use these days is grossly unethical and has nothing to do with hunting anyway.
based
I really don't get long range gays. Hunting is about stalking, understanding, experiencing, living amongst and then cleanly taking an animal. Why the frick would I want to shoot an animal at braindead benchrest distances at the risk of a strong gust of wind at 500 meters fricking up my shot placement or, god forbid, the animal quartering away at a critical moment and turning a lung/heart shot into a gut shot where I'll never retrieve the kill?
I think they should just make the cucked Midwest law where you can only hunt with straight wall cartridges mandatory all across America. If urbanite parasites had to get within 100 meters of their elk kill with something like a .357, I assure you the number of elk wounded and not retrieved would plummet.
it's just people LARPing as snipers, usually people who aren't really hunters or didn't grow up hunting or even worse maybe they did and heard uncle bubba shot a spike at 800yds so they think that's acceptable, never raised with the idea of ethical hunting. I was quite unironically in a marine corpse scout/sniper platoon my whole 4 years and the only thing I'll shoot at over 500 is coyotes, anything else I'll try and get closer, there are just too many variables to bother fricking around if it's an animal I want to keep or eat, and most educated shooters I know are the same way.
You must not be from the west. Shooting elk sized game at 200-400 yds is normal. The distances you hunt at in the east and midwest average closer to 100 yds. .308 is the all around everything cartridge (used for brown and polar bear defense in AK to). Using anything less than it on 500lb+ game at those distances is unethical but you don't need a 300 wm to drop that kind of game at 300-500 yds reliably and ethically.
>Shooting elk sized game at 200-400 yds is normal
>all of them have a lot of drop at ranges typical for Western mountain hunting.
>ranges typical for Western mountain hunting
>200-400 yds is normal
fricking moron
>Shooting elk sized game at 200-400 yds is normal
Yes it is. Gtfo larper.
I'm not disagreeing with that I was citing that post to BTFO the moron that said 308 has unacceptable amounts of drop at normal hunting distances
My bad then. It always amazes me how eastoids think they need a .30-06 to shoot a 150lbs deer at 120 yds and they squeal like morons when they find out the average shot out west as a whole is around 200-400 yds and 308 win works great for that.
Yeah it's a whole different ball game out there hunting in the thick, I greatly prefer hunting in the open without a doubt. Nothin wrong with a 30-06 though either way, although I've taken the 6.5cm pill for anything below elk and I'm not looking back, makes shooting so damn easy.
Nobody said it has unacceptable drop, moron. Just that it has enough drop that a 10% error in ranging can mean a miss at normal shooting distances. This doesn't make 308 bad, it makes accurate ranging important.
cope harder moron, you got blown the frick out
Post gun and hand.
>Just that it has enough drop that a 10% error in ranging can mean a miss at normal shooting distances
literally never said once in this thread, stop backpedalling moron
>shitty chink made R700 clone
That would probably be unironically better quality than an actual Remington 700.
Imagine actually buying that garbage with your hard earned money.
A factory rifle that more often than not needs to be blueprinted, trued and barrel swapped, just to even hang with a cheap as shit Ruger American.
>ranges typical for Western mountain hunting
unless you're talking about sheep or antelope or maybe elk if you can't call worth a frick there's literally zero reason to ever expect anyone to shoot over 500yds at a game animal and even that is a stretch for probably 99% of shooters
.308 is still the most heavily used hunting cartridge in the west, 90% of hunters don't hunt past 300-400 yds. I've seen it down a 1000lb+ bison at 300 yds without issue. In the right hands it can definitely push it a bit farther, 1800 fps impact is still good. Those that do hunt farther than 500 yds regularly mostly use 300 wm with the same high BC 308 bullets.
I’ve been doing this for a couple weeks now and it’s uncanny how good I’ve gotten. I’m talking out to 150 yards within 5
Learn your 100 meter pace count and practice it three to five times a week for two months. You'll be able to eyball small arms range no problem after that.
it's called "a well calibrated eye" and that's how you calibrate it.
OP here. I'm not sure pace count will work scrambling up a rocky wash. I've calibrated my eyeballs pretty well out to 100 yards. I used to carry my RF around on neighborhood walks and guess the range to telephone poles and stuff.
If I'm drawn for a tag (chances are good because I put in for a couple near-100% hunt numbers) I'll be out there camping/scouting/hunting rabbits and have lots of time to practice eyeballing valleys and checking against a map.
Lotta gear gays in this thread.
OP trust your judgement and place that shot. Good on you for the draw. Go knock em dead buddy. If you can eyeball good enough, you should be good to go. The gear gays will tell you to do eye exercises and spend $1500 on a Zeiss rangefinder. If you've shot at 250+ yrds and can hit a volleyball, you're all good to go.
I shilled out for a pair of rangefinding binos, specifically Bushnell ones. Yeah I could zero for max point blank, yes I know how to mil with my reticle, but frick that shit, if I can know exactly what range it is then I want that range. I'm trying to kill the fricking thing not prove I'm somehow more advanced because I refuse to use commonly available gear, people just like to LARP as snipers, who, btw, outside of 1(one) graded evolution where they aren't allowed, use range finders whenever they can.
Just invest in a better rangefinder tbh. They are too good these days at too cheap a price to not pick one up and a good one lasts a very long time. If you have a veteran buddy they get 40% off of Vortex products through expertvoice so you can get one very cheap.
>Ranging
First, just buy a rangefinder. These days they're cheap as shit and work great and weigh about as much as a deck of cards.
Second, is there any reason in particular you don't just, you know, get close enough so that you don't have to range anything? I've lived in the west all my life and pretty much only use irons when I rifle hunt.
Leica CRF-2400, cheap, fast and accurate, carry it on my belt so I can get it out quickly.
On big game, you don't really have to range them unless it's at 200+, just have turret dialed for PBR, and range animals if you have to take longer shots.
Unless you are moving through the terrain on a pogo stick, the animal is usually undisturbed and calm enough to range and dial at those ranges.
In other news, just picked up a new rifle yesterday, Tikka T3X UPR, shit was fricking expensive.
Had to pony up $2500 for it, makes me angry when I see how cheap burgers get the same rifle.