Holdover shooting

[FEENIX]

Hold over work good until around 600 yds. After the "gap distances" are what's tricky. Look at feenix's reticle example above. The gap between 652-780 is large Let's say the shot is 710 where do you hold?It's not an equal distance between the two points to hit the target. More precise reticles and lots of practice you can figure that out but that is the down fall with hold overs when the distance's get far.

I used hold overs for a lot of year and took many animals out to 600yds.
Dialing is better for the longer distances

Yep, that is also my personal experience.

 

[Sockeye66]

A big issue I face is that I wear reading glasses and can't see squat up close, when hunting, I don't where my glasses to look through the binos (BDX3000) to range or through the scope to shoot, but do need them to see the dial, takes to much time and messing around. With a holdover reticle, either in mil or moa, the binos range, give the dope and I just use the reticle, much easier to 600 for me. I like them setup like this with numbers.

 

[xsn10s]

Mine set up to where it corresponds well with the reticle out past 400 yards. Inside 450 yards I used to hit 10oz beverage bottles to simulate varmint hunting. Give me the idea of setting up milk jugs at unknown ranges out to 700 yards or more. Good practise using the rangefinder and reticle for practical purposes and testing..

 

[Varmint Hunter]

With a standard Leupold Boone & Crocket reticle I can easily hold over out to 500yds which is as far as I shoot whitetails with a B&C reticle scope. The crosshairs don't exactly match @ 200yds & 300yds but it's not hard to work with. I typically sight the 400yd crosshair dead on at 400yds. Shorter distances are shot with the corresponding crosshair and aren't off enough to make any real difference. For 500yds you only need to know the bullet drop from 400yds to 500yds.

I use dial-ups on other rifles but they are slower and aren't needed for shooting under 500yds.

 

[yobuck]

For hunting, we dont use the scope reticle for holdovers, we use the animal.
If its a wide miss, we hold on the animal and dial to the hit.

 

[Sockeye66]

I should have added that I use the reticle for FFP scopes. SFP scopes are definitely more challenging with the variables in magnification, and then I'd prefer to dial.

 

[xsn10s]

Mine is SFP. I just use max magnification for hold overs. It's the only setting that the reticle works at.

 

[xsn10s]

Given using a reticle or dialing I'd agree I'd rather dial. But it's really up to the shooter's preference and how much they practice. A good point was made on dialing. If you can't see the dial then that can be an issue. If I were to rely solely on a reticle I'd want a Christmas tree type ret. I train with both because I may not have time to dial. Or a rifle I have might not have a scope that I'd dial.

 

[Sockeye66]

Mine is SFP. I just use max magnification for hold overs. It's the only setting that the reticle works at.

Bean and yourself said the magic word, practice.

 

[Hinterlandr]

Reticle type will make a lot of difference. If you are talking about a standard duplex it helps to make an animal sized target and shoot at distance, record drops and note size relationship of animal to Reticle. With my stock 700 in 3006 with vxll 3x9. 400 yds on deer is as far as I would want to shoot.

I like the vortex with the extra crosshairs. They dont seem to correspond exactly with my expected bullet drop, but i have figured out the Corresponding distances for the 1st 2 below below the center crosshair and can hit 10" plate at 500 yd regularly.

 

[Hinterlandr]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
As with anything, Practice, Practice and more Practice

Id love to do more, but ammo is so hard to get now! 280AI.

 

[Hinterlandr]

Depends on what your shooting and what reticle your using. All i use is holdover with my 257 but my dope fits the moa reticle almost perfect. Zeroed @250yds 1moa@300 2moa@400 4moa@500. Those dopes arent perfect but **** close. 500yds isnt all that far but I dont like shooting at deer past 500yds.

Sounds very similar to what I have going on with the vortex Viper BDC. I like to keep my setup very light because I'm up-and-down the mountains a lot and prefer the simple light scope with a big field of view.

 

[xsn10s]

Either dialing or using a reticle if you can't practice in varying conditions then I wouldn't feel comfortable taking a long shot.

 

[Hinterlandr]

A big issue I face is that I wear reading glasses and can't see squat up close, when hunting, I don't where my glasses to look through the binos (BDX3000) to range or through the scope to shoot, but do need them to see the dial, takes to much time and messing around. With a holdover reticle, either in mil or moa, the binos range, give the dope and I just use the reticle, much easier to 600 for me. I like them setup like this with numbers.

Yes, I've had to go to glasses recently too. I have bifocals so I can do the close stuff and the far stuff while in the woods too.. The problem is going up-and-down the mountains in the snow through the brush it's not fun with bifocals haha