308 how far is to far
- Thread starter 1000yardking
- Start date
re: Hail Mary" shot. ya, I guess it was. It all happened so fast. I am a poor judge of distance and did not realize how far away it was. Had I been still hunting, as I usually do, I would have already estimated the distance to each corner of my patch. Usually the very farthest I can see is about 100 yards, and often half of that.
I was thinking it was a small moose about 200 yards away. It was a fairly large one.
Western hunters are used to seeing game at long distance and passing on a shot if it is too far. I have never hunted in the west. It was a sudden shock to see the moose but at 200 yards, not too far to shoot.
The next moose I saw/shot was trotting towards me on a trail. I shot when it was about 10 yards away. I would have shot sooner, but it was first light and I was in the bush. It took awhile to see the antlers and then find it in my 3X scope.
Most deer and moose I have shot were under 50 yards and some were under 25 yards. I asume that some other eastern hunters would say that is their experience too.
I hope that there is a lesson to be learned from our mistake. We got away with it through good luck, not good shooting. I have always felt I was poor at judging distance, but except for bow hunting, I never thought it would matter. Usually I can't see far enough for it to matter.
I was thinking it was a small moose about 200 yards away. It was a fairly large one.
Western hunters are used to seeing game at long distance and passing on a shot if it is too far. I have never hunted in the west. It was a sudden shock to see the moose but at 200 yards, not too far to shoot.
The next moose I saw/shot was trotting towards me on a trail. I shot when it was about 10 yards away. I would have shot sooner, but it was first light and I was in the bush. It took awhile to see the antlers and then find it in my 3X scope.
Most deer and moose I have shot were under 50 yards and some were under 25 yards. I asume that some other eastern hunters would say that is their experience too.
I hope that there is a lesson to be learned from our mistake. We got away with it through good luck, not good shooting. I have always felt I was poor at judging distance, but except for bow hunting, I never thought it would matter. Usually I can't see far enough for it to matter.
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- Location
- calgary alberta
Am I the only one who think that 'hail mary-ing' in bullets like this isn't taking your own advice???
Practice, know your dope and plan the shot. Don't bang away at an animal and give the anti's something to talk about!
NO you are not. I think the "Hail Mary and hope to hit something important" shooting/hunting technique is crap too.
Tales like this are NOT good for hunters in any way, especially those of us who hunt long or extreme long range as I tend to.
Personally I would not hesitate to use my 308 on ungulates out to 700 yards, beyond that I feel there is not sufficient retained energy to kill reliably.
That being said bullet placement is critical, aiming 3 feet high and hoping to hit the animal is just NOT an option for my ethics. At 700 yards my 175 gr SMKs still have nearly 1100 ft lbs of energy, and need 20.25 moa added elevation over my 100 yard zero, if the bullet is placed correctly is plenty to kill moose and deer, and likely elk, which I consider to be the toughest of the common big game in Canada. Shooting a sub 1/2 moa rifle helps in being able to place shots where they need to be.
- Location
- Pile of Bones, SK
Only mods can delete the thread!
- Location
- calgary alberta
Make no mistake, plenty of hunters out west practice the "hail Mary and hope" shooting techniques. Most know that the rifle may be capable, but fail to realize that unless 1 shoots long distance regularly, there is more to long range shooting, than just holding over. On more than a few occasions I have had to "help solve" a poorly thought out shot.
Learning is making the most from 1s mistakes, I can guarantee you that I would make mistakes in close brush hunting as is what most of the east seems to have as I understand it.
I too got lucky many years ago but in a reversed situation, a moose was 15 yards from me in fairly thick willows, I could see him quite well, and shot at him with a 338 Win mag, which I reasoned was plenty to do the job. I aimed for just behind the front leg elbow on a broadside shot, never thinking a bunch of 1/4" dia willows would deflect a 250 gr bullet much in that short a distance, it did deflect, the bullet broke his spine 2 feet behind where I was aiming and higher by 12" than I was aiming. Needless to say the moose died, but luck not skill was the cause of death.
We learn from our mistakes. We call it "experience". I am 65. Startign an active shooting program at age 9. Worked in an ammo compnay R &D lab at age 20 (CIL in Brownsburg). I have a lot of "experience".
Of course, it is nice if we can avoid the "mistake" by learning from someone else's. My tag line, below is lifted from a poster often seen in pilot's lounges. (I am a pilot).
"Brush busting" comes up from time to time when hunters discuss their experience. My last 'expereince" was a 150 grain bullet blowing up when it hit a small branchabout 6 feet in front of a deer. One of the larger fragemnts did the job, but a lot of meat was ruined. As we were skinning it, my hunting friends and I all came to the conclusion that wew would do better to keep our velocites down. In my case, I switched to 180gr for a 308.
Over the years I have tried to conduct some tests on 'brush busting". The last test involved putting a deer target about 10 feet behind a christmas tree and shooting 5 shots at it. Results were inconclusive, but I got the impresion that my 6.5x55 shooting 160 gr RN did better than my 45-70. About all I can say for sure is that one should try real hard to pick a clear line to the target.
We did testing of sniper bullets on plate glass for a police force. 12" squares of plate glass were slipped into brackets at 90 defgrees and 45 degrees to the rifle. A figure 11 was 10 feet behind the table holding the glass. (The table was set on a large tarp so we coudl recover all the glass shards.) The conventional match bullets broke up, but a big hunk usually hit the target.
Barnes made us solid copper or brass bullets that looked like full wadcutters. These deflected very little and did not breakup, but grouping was about 2" at 100 yards.
You mention a 338Win Mag. I shot a moose in the sternum at about 10 yards with a 338 Grand Slam bullet. When we opened it up, the chest cavity was almost pristine. The bullet never got there. It deflected off a rib and ran around the ribcage, along the side of the moose and hit the back hip.
I was so confident I had shot the moose dead I did not even bother reloading the rifle. As it ran away, my friend said "You missed!" I said "No. It just doesn't know it's dead yet." Just then, we heard it fall over.
The moose had been coming towards us and the bullet clipped the sternum, then deflected. The deflection may have been helped by close range bullet yaw.
As the bullet passed the length of the rib cage, one of the ribs broke and a small piece of rib flew off and cut through the top of the heart.
One thing I have noticed in amny forms of testing is that bullets do strange, unreliable things at close range because of bullet yaw. For testing in ballistic gelatin, for example, rifle results at 25 yards and 200 yards are very different due to yaw. Just downloading the ammo to give, say, 200 yard velocity will not give real 200 yard results if the test is at 25 yards.
Close range yaw is an important variable when looking at shooting results. Your bullet may not have deflected so much if the moose had been at 150 yards, instead of 15.
Nothing faster than a spine shot, though.
Of course, it is nice if we can avoid the "mistake" by learning from someone else's. My tag line, below is lifted from a poster often seen in pilot's lounges. (I am a pilot).
"Brush busting" comes up from time to time when hunters discuss their experience. My last 'expereince" was a 150 grain bullet blowing up when it hit a small branchabout 6 feet in front of a deer. One of the larger fragemnts did the job, but a lot of meat was ruined. As we were skinning it, my hunting friends and I all came to the conclusion that wew would do better to keep our velocites down. In my case, I switched to 180gr for a 308.
Over the years I have tried to conduct some tests on 'brush busting". The last test involved putting a deer target about 10 feet behind a christmas tree and shooting 5 shots at it. Results were inconclusive, but I got the impresion that my 6.5x55 shooting 160 gr RN did better than my 45-70. About all I can say for sure is that one should try real hard to pick a clear line to the target.
We did testing of sniper bullets on plate glass for a police force. 12" squares of plate glass were slipped into brackets at 90 defgrees and 45 degrees to the rifle. A figure 11 was 10 feet behind the table holding the glass. (The table was set on a large tarp so we coudl recover all the glass shards.) The conventional match bullets broke up, but a big hunk usually hit the target.
Barnes made us solid copper or brass bullets that looked like full wadcutters. These deflected very little and did not breakup, but grouping was about 2" at 100 yards.
You mention a 338Win Mag. I shot a moose in the sternum at about 10 yards with a 338 Grand Slam bullet. When we opened it up, the chest cavity was almost pristine. The bullet never got there. It deflected off a rib and ran around the ribcage, along the side of the moose and hit the back hip.
I was so confident I had shot the moose dead I did not even bother reloading the rifle. As it ran away, my friend said "You missed!" I said "No. It just doesn't know it's dead yet." Just then, we heard it fall over.
The moose had been coming towards us and the bullet clipped the sternum, then deflected. The deflection may have been helped by close range bullet yaw.
As the bullet passed the length of the rib cage, one of the ribs broke and a small piece of rib flew off and cut through the top of the heart.
One thing I have noticed in amny forms of testing is that bullets do strange, unreliable things at close range because of bullet yaw. For testing in ballistic gelatin, for example, rifle results at 25 yards and 200 yards are very different due to yaw. Just downloading the ammo to give, say, 200 yard velocity will not give real 200 yard results if the test is at 25 yards.
Close range yaw is an important variable when looking at shooting results. Your bullet may not have deflected so much if the moose had been at 150 yards, instead of 15.
Nothing faster than a spine shot, though.
I just found an article about testing various calibers for bullet deflection after hitting a branch. It looks to be well done.
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot40.htm
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot40.htm
There are just two small problems with the test.If you look at the pictures,they kept hitting the dowels almost directly in the center which is much less likely to deflect the bullets than a grazing contact.The second problem is that they used rigid dowels which don't flex like most branches.
And they only used one shot with each caliber and type of bullet.
One of the tests that I saw in a magazine used green branches,and a few shots were fired with each gun at various angles.The result was that in most cases the bullets were deflected much more that in this test.In fact few bullets struck anywhere near the bullseye in the other test.The other thing that was made apparent was that no caliber did much better than the others in the test.In fact the best results in that test were with a 250gr bullet out of a 338win mag.However,the second best results were with a 55gr bullet out of a 22-250.
One trick to long range hunting is to use ballistic tip type bullets. The plastic nose gets shoved into the hollow point and initiates bullet expansion even at relatively low velocities.
I used a 165gr Ballistic Tip out of a .30-06 to kill a Mule Deer at 575 yards a few years ago.
I used a 165gr Ballistic Tip out of a .30-06 to kill a Mule Deer at 575 yards a few years ago.
- Location
- Edmonton, Alberta.
That depends on many things like the mass of the rifle, the weight of the bullet and the amount of powder in the case. If you take a rifle with a heavy barrel and stock, the felt recoil will be less due to the mass of this rifle absorbing the recoil of a given round. If you take that same type of round and fire it through a light rifle, that recoil will be much greater. Hope this helps.
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
I concur if we are talking about game under 800 pounds. If the target was a big moose, a bison, or a big bear and I'd want to cut that range in half.
The only sport shooting target suitable for a .308 at 1000 yards is paper and varmints. Everyone knows that a MK is a fragile bullet. This is the jacket of a 200 gr MK I fired from my .308 after it penetrated my 1100 yard target then hit a rock. Had this been a game bullet and had the target been tissue, expansion would have been minimal, and the penetration would likely be insufficient for a humane kill on any but the smallest species of big game.
If you have the talent and the equipment to take these shots, you should be shooting a heavy for caliber, high BC game bullet with a muzzle velocity in the 3000 fps range. That pretty much takes the .308 and the .30/06 out of the equation.
It always amazes me when 2 1/2 year old thread is opened back up and becomes really popular
Much more stimulating that the same Savage vs. Remington question coming up every few weeks in the precision rifle forum because nobody searches the thousands of posts that repeat the same subjectivity over and over and over and over....and over.
Mystic Precision
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Summerland, BC
For those who want to learn more, longrangehunting.com will answer your questions.
As long as the shooter and rifle can deliver the goods at distance, the type of bullet becomes critical.
Fragile match and varmint bullets work like controlled expansion bullets once they slow down. A 308 at 700yds is not going fast. Bullets that excel at those distances would be Amax and Berger. Even the Interlock/SST and Ballistic tip (new versions) are a bit tough.
By matching the IMPACT velocity to the bullet and the desired effect on game, you can have effective killing power. That does not translate directly to some number you get out of a calculator.
45cal 550gr RNFP arriving at 800fps did alot to rid the American plains of buffalo. That is a big tough critter. The math on that impact would be unimpressive. Drilling through such an animal - impressive.
Of course, they weren't too concerned about actually putting the bullet in the right place as there were plenty more to blast away at. Not so good...
LR hunting is most definitely not spray and pray but it can be done with predictable and deadly results if you are willing to make a substantial investment in time, gear and practise.
Enjoy....
Jerry
As long as the shooter and rifle can deliver the goods at distance, the type of bullet becomes critical.
Fragile match and varmint bullets work like controlled expansion bullets once they slow down. A 308 at 700yds is not going fast. Bullets that excel at those distances would be Amax and Berger. Even the Interlock/SST and Ballistic tip (new versions) are a bit tough.
By matching the IMPACT velocity to the bullet and the desired effect on game, you can have effective killing power. That does not translate directly to some number you get out of a calculator.
45cal 550gr RNFP arriving at 800fps did alot to rid the American plains of buffalo. That is a big tough critter. The math on that impact would be unimpressive. Drilling through such an animal - impressive.
Of course, they weren't too concerned about actually putting the bullet in the right place as there were plenty more to blast away at. Not so good...
LR hunting is most definitely not spray and pray but it can be done with predictable and deadly results if you are willing to make a substantial investment in time, gear and practise.
Enjoy....
Jerry
Quote: "If I was properly sighted in I'd be confident with the 308's performance to take shots out to 400 on game."
The 308 bullet my friend shot at 425 yards was loaded with a 180 gr Norma soft-point bullet. It failed to expand at all. The moose bled out from a lung shot. Under the right circumstances I have no doubt I could hit a moose at 400 yards with my 308, but from what I have seen, I don't think it has enough velocity to expand the bullet. And if a light jacketed bullet expanded, it might lack the penetration.
This is why I have revised my max range down to 300 yards for a moose.
On a deer type animal, a better expanding 150 gr bullet might work well at 400 yards. Don't know. Have not seen a recovered bullet from such a shot.
The 308 bullet my friend shot at 425 yards was loaded with a 180 gr Norma soft-point bullet. It failed to expand at all. The moose bled out from a lung shot. Under the right circumstances I have no doubt I could hit a moose at 400 yards with my 308, but from what I have seen, I don't think it has enough velocity to expand the bullet. And if a light jacketed bullet expanded, it might lack the penetration.
This is why I have revised my max range down to 300 yards for a moose.
On a deer type animal, a better expanding 150 gr bullet might work well at 400 yards. Don't know. Have not seen a recovered bullet from such a shot.
- Location
- calgary alberta
That Norma 180 gr bullet is 1 TOUGH bullet, in the same league as the Woodleighs, no wonder expansion was minimal. These were designed more for large game at close range, like European elk of African heavy plains game.
Mystic Precision
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Summerland, BC
If an SST was used instead, the bullet effect would have been perfect.
Jerry
Jerry
