how far is to far. what's your limit?

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screwdriver1

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i often hear guys tell me they shoot moose and dear at what seems to me like really long ranges. some of these stories have to be false. i'm not saying that my hunting buddys are liars but i think some of them are poor at estimating range. i have this one buddy, now he's a great guy but we all call him tommy 400 because he's always telling us he shot this that and the next thing at 400 yards and of coarse he's doing all this with an old enfield rifle that started out at longbranch and looks like it got hit by a german 57 mm howitzer shell somewhere over at dieppe. anyway before i get to far out into thee weeds.
im comfortable out to 600 feet with any stable field position, 900 feet with a good rest and prone position, 300 feet off hand mabe a little more as long as my lungs and blood are full of O2 and im not pumping for air. i can stretch that off hand distance a little bit but i dont like doing it.
i hunt with a 338 win mag loaded with 225 gr. barnes tsx bullets. i like this combo because it almost always goes all the way through a moose. thats it, thats my limit.
 
Wit mi 270mkvlhbdl and 164gr cuztum obscurium hand paddled projektils over lotsa c4 and nissan bases i am minote of hare to 9200 furlongs.









Sorry, I couldn't resist.
 
Well, I shot a mulie doe offhand at a paced 208yds this last season and probably will never even think of a longer shot offhand. Before that one, I would have said my offhand limit was maybe 125-150yds. 200yds with a decent kneeling position or off a fencepost is very reasonable and 300-350yds from prone with time to set up and range the target is OK, too.

I have found that my limits are getting longer every year as I get more and better practice time in, along with more experience hunting. My first year hunting (2009) I would have said that 100yds offhand, 150yds kneeling were my limits.


Mark
 
There are so many factors involved in shooting at longer distances.
Lighting, wind, elevation, angles, steady rest, chambering being used, etc, etc.
Offhand is a pretty shaky proposition, so I limit myself to 150 yards.
A rest can extend that to 350 or so.
Prone or a very good padded rest will take it out past 500 a bit.
I would much prefer trying to get closer than take a long poke.
In any case, much practice is needed, in field positions.
Did I mention practice??
Absolutely vital, and not just a few shots!!
You should know your firearm and load intimately.
The distance should be laser ranged anywhere beyond 350 yards.
Each person must realize their personal limitations, and stick to them!!
They also need to recognize when NOT to take a shot.
Regards, Eagleye.
 
It's really simple,if you're not absolutely sure don't take the shot.It doesn't matter how far it is.Hail Marys are not successful very often. Mur
 
i shoot my 308 win out to 150 yards and hit a heart sized target free hand. and with a good rest i shoot out to 300 yards and do about the same. my 22lr i shoot 100 yards and and hit a 5 inch target and can do the same at 200 yards with a good rest.
 
Two very important factors.

1) How far do you practice and from what positions.
2) How well do you know range and your rifle.

With a good range finder, practice and a solid rest I have a rifle I have no hesitation reaching to 500 yards.

Other guns 150 max.

If I can hit an 8" circle consistently I feel comfortable. If it is a long shot where I am not positive of range I will not try.
 
powdergun said:
Two very important factors.

1) How far do you practice and from what positions.
2) How well do you know range and your rifle.

With a good range finder, practice and a solid rest I have a rifle I have no hesitation reaching to 500 yards.

Other guns 150 max.

If I can hit an 8" circle consistently I feel comfortable. If it is a long shot where I am not positive of range I will not try.
Click to expand...
Practice is the most important thing of course.Last year in Montana I ranged a very good Pronghorn buck in the middle of a flat at 465 yds.I know that my .25-06AI will put a bullet in the kill zone at that range,but I was not comfortable with the shot and I could not get closer.I passed and hunted that buck for 4 more days without seeing him again.Did it ruin my trip?No,I had a great time!If I'm not sure,I don't shoot,I'm well aware of my own limitations.My hat is off to those who can consistently harvest game at long range,some can,some can't.The trick is to know which group you belong to,and hunt accordingly!:D Mur
 
The successful limit for me has been 600 yards with a bull moose down with a 300 WM firing one 180 grain power point...! It's all I had at the time and it worked.
 
In the summer I try to practice as often as possible, about 2 times per month. From a standing position 150 yds is my max. With a good rest, no wind and a range finder 400 yds is my maximum.
 
depends on a lot of things. How windy it is, what shooting position I'm in, whether I have a rest, and the particulars of the cartridge I'm using. But, I get enough practice with my guns that I can tell what's a 'hittable' target in the scope, and what's not. You start to get a sense for your own abilities, when you've got enough experience with your gun; start to develop some instincts. There's no substitute for practice: first you learn to tell, at the very instant the trigger breaks, what the picture in the scope looked like. Before the shot even, in those milliseconds it takes between the time the trigger snaps and the gun recoils. You can tell, in that instant, whether the shot was 'good' or not; well before you get eyes back on the target.

For me, offhand in mild wind, I max out at about 200-250 yards. I can often connect further than that, but with less certainty; 'often' isn't good enough. In buffeting winds, it may only be 100-120. And if I'm able to lean up against a tree or find a branch to rest the gun on, 400 yards is quite doable. Farther, even, but you need to have very precise distance measurements and a drop chart handy; the bullet's starting to drop very very rapidly out there. Mis-estimate the range by even 25 yards could make the difference between a clean hit, and a messy one, or even a complete miss.

That's with a high-velocity round, like a 270 or 7mm magnum; something moving in the vicinity of 3,000fps. Obviously, things would be very different with a 45-70 or 44 magnum.
 
I'm pretty new at hunting big game with a rifle so I don't have much experience in that regard. But I hunt coyotes every winter with a rifle that is the same kind (diff caliber) as my moose/deer gun so I'm very used to the gun and shooting at coyotes at long ranges make deer and moose look like "largest side of barn" LOL


I shot a cow moose at 374 yards and a doe at 235 yards this year. I was laying prone resting on my back pack shooting at the moose and she dropped with one shot. The doe I was down on one knee, resting on dead fall, I whistled and she stopped dead and I just held my breath and touched one off. Dropped her on the spot. Definitely a bit of luck involved there, but I felt very confident taking both shots


I shot a coyote last winter with my .22-250 at 450 yards. Resting on a rail fence. That was PURE LUCK I took 3 shots and that coyote never moved after each shot. The last shot I seen snow fly between his legs and he ran 20 yards and stopped again. I aimed a touch higher and let one go and seen him jump and spin then take off and roll over. My jaw just about hit the floor.
 
With a god solid rest I feel confident to 350 yards with my 22-250. With my Model 71 with 200 grain silvertips I feel confident in my ability to around 250 yards. Offhand I wont push myself past 100. Thats enough for me. I stick to my confidence ability. If I am second guessing, it means I am going to have trouble so I pass.
 
My max range for the most part is 300 yards. About 8" of drop at that range with my zero is very reasonable with larger game that I hunt. 400 yards under ideal conditions (no wind, solid rest, etc.) is ok in my books too, but that is the absolute longest I will ethically take a shot at an animal. If I am not 100% confident I can't make a quick humane kill, at any range, I don't squeeze. Period.

Even if it's 30 yards away with the vitals obscured by brush, I'm not shooting.
 
I am confident with prone or from a rest up to 400... Kneeling or sitting... 200 sometimes under depending on my breathing... Standing 150... And that goes for all my big game rifles except my 30-30 of course...
 
We often hunt big fields and power lines here so longer shots are often required. I've shot a Mule Deer doe just outside 350 yards with a 308 from a very good rest, last year I made a pretty good offhand one shot kill on a whitetail buck at 258 paces. When I was in South Africa I made several shots over 200 yards but two stand out. The first was after we had climbed and skirted a small mountain to shoot a kudu Bull across a canyon, 230 metres. What made it cool was at least a 30 MPH sidewind.

SouthAfricaTrip2007075.jpg


The other was on an Impala, the size of a small Whitetail doe facing dead on off shooting sticks at a lasered 259 metres, one shot straight down. We had stalked a long way and belly crawled the last 100 yards and two of us were hiding behind a little bush. The PH put the shooting sticks up while lying on his back, I got up and dropped it, the body was probably only about 8 inches in diameter.

SouthAfricaTrip2007032.jpg
 
Prosper has it.
Depends is exactly it.
What rifle I am carrying, and what I can find for a rest.
Free hand under 100.
If I can get comfortable I can do an easy 300.
I aim and point and at this instant, I know whether I am up to the shot.
If it doesn't feel right, the fur lives another round.
This has worked for me so far.
 
I took my second deer (and last one taken to date) at over 300 yards on the run from an off hand postion. Now I'm not claiming that I am an uber sniper yada yada yada ( I missed the only shot i had at a deer this year and it was inside of 100)..... I thought that the shot was between 100 and 150 and this was a purely intsincive shot there was no thoughts of technique hold over or anything eltse you might think about when you have the time to. Yes that damn horse shoe hurt when i shat it out. The nice thing about our standard hunting rfiles is that almost all are moa or better out of the box with sometype of factory ammo and with the quality of factory ammo damn neer anything zeroed in at 2 inches high at 100 with not drop all the much out to 300 so its pretty much point and shoot and its in the boiler room. I am not advocating this type of shooting had I though first I probably would not have took that shot but I guess sometimes its better to be lucky then good.
 
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