LDHunter
Well-Known Member
I meet a fair amount of people at the range and I go there often. I hear the brags about 500-900 yard shots and I love to ask them how and where they sighted their rifles in at that range. The answer usually is a bunch of bluster and statements like "there's a ballistics chart in the back of my loading manual so I don't need a range" but they don't own a chronograph or ballistics software nor to they have any idea how much their bullet drops beyond 300yds.
I'm not too worried about these braggarts wounding game or even placing a bullet in the same general vicinity of their quarry.
The damage that is done in my opinion is to the people that think that they can buy a "long range rifle" and a couple of boxes of ammo at Wally World and suddenly they're long range hunters. They can become disillusioned and start badmouthing the sport.
To me long range hunting is almost a lifestyle. It requires so much time and expense and dedication and for someone here in the east without easy and reasonably close access to ranges with the option to shoot out to 1000 or so yards it requires a whole lot of driving back and forth to a range.
Then there's the expense of a trip "out west" which is where almost all long range hunting is done and trying to set all that up without a guide is likely to be an exercise in frustration.
Yessir... I'm committed to doing some long range hunting and I don't mean just shooting a deer 500-1000 yards down a powerline ROW although that's likely to happen too. I mean sitting on top of a hill somewhere near the Rockies and shooting an elk or muley beyond 600 yards on my first long range hunting trip out there.
The preparation and planning and expense for that trip is likely to take me a couple of years and I certainly know I am capable of missing or wounding game at that distance but if I do it won't be because I haven't done the proper practice or have the proper equipment or knowledge or a good guide. It will be because I'm just a human being and subject to failure but it won't be because I didn't put in the time and money and effort to become a man that can take that one cold bore shot at game way the hell and gone out there and place that bullet right where I need to.
If only I could find a range offering 1,000 yard shooting within 2 hours of where I live that is accepting new civilian members this would be a heck of a lot easier. <sigh>
I can shoot 500yds on my hunting lease and 500yds at a buddy's farm but can't even find a place to shoot 600 anywhere but power lines so that's likely where I'll get most of my practice but even places like that are few and far between around these parts.
$bob$
I'm not too worried about these braggarts wounding game or even placing a bullet in the same general vicinity of their quarry.
The damage that is done in my opinion is to the people that think that they can buy a "long range rifle" and a couple of boxes of ammo at Wally World and suddenly they're long range hunters. They can become disillusioned and start badmouthing the sport.
To me long range hunting is almost a lifestyle. It requires so much time and expense and dedication and for someone here in the east without easy and reasonably close access to ranges with the option to shoot out to 1000 or so yards it requires a whole lot of driving back and forth to a range.
Then there's the expense of a trip "out west" which is where almost all long range hunting is done and trying to set all that up without a guide is likely to be an exercise in frustration.
Yessir... I'm committed to doing some long range hunting and I don't mean just shooting a deer 500-1000 yards down a powerline ROW although that's likely to happen too. I mean sitting on top of a hill somewhere near the Rockies and shooting an elk or muley beyond 600 yards on my first long range hunting trip out there.
The preparation and planning and expense for that trip is likely to take me a couple of years and I certainly know I am capable of missing or wounding game at that distance but if I do it won't be because I haven't done the proper practice or have the proper equipment or knowledge or a good guide. It will be because I'm just a human being and subject to failure but it won't be because I didn't put in the time and money and effort to become a man that can take that one cold bore shot at game way the hell and gone out there and place that bullet right where I need to.
If only I could find a range offering 1,000 yard shooting within 2 hours of where I live that is accepting new civilian members this would be a heck of a lot easier. <sigh>
I can shoot 500yds on my hunting lease and 500yds at a buddy's farm but can't even find a place to shoot 600 anywhere but power lines so that's likely where I'll get most of my practice but even places like that are few and far between around these parts.
$bob$
