Long Range Rifle Shooting on a budget ...

[Eagle eyes 17]

We've addressed the topic of " Long Range Shooting on a budget " which all starts with getting the right Shooting setup that works for you.
So now it comes down to learning how to apply the information that successful Long Range Shooter's have shared with us, to help us to achieve Long Range Shooting Skills.
Again I'm going to suggest this book :

Ryan has shared his Long Range Shooting skills in this book, I believe that he is one of the best there is out there to learn from.

 

[Barrelnut]

Below is a link to a great older article (Long Range Hunting on a Budget) that is in the Technical Articles section of Longrangehunting.com.
A great read for anyone starting out and trying to decide on equipment, etc.

https://www.longrangehunting.com/articles/long-range-hunting-rifle-on-a-budget.3/

 

[Don A Parsons]

Let's see,,, $700 Cnd funds.

I'd buy a slightly used Remmy 308, a 3x9 used scope that has life time warranty. $100 Harrison BR bypod ,,, and a solid bunny ear bag.

Yuppers,,, one would think that with a bit of bedding, tightening up the action screws,,, proper fitting of bases, rings and optic along with lighting up the trigger that it would easily fit a 10 shot group into a 17" disk at 900 meters...

If there's any funds left over ,,, I'd buy the archery book from Al Henderson.

The same thing he discuss in his writings apply to everything in life you know. LOL.

One book is all it takes to get to the major leagues

 

[Danehunter]

Yeah, well on that "scope same cost as rifle" advice if you absolutely must do that then look closely at SWFA scopes. Many on this site own them and stand by them.

SWFA is the very best quality for the money. WHY? Because they have no advertising and no middleman.You buy straight from their site. I have their SS 3 - 15 x 44 and the glass is very good, as good as my Bushnell ERS 3.5 - 21 x 50 target scope. Plus you can shoot SWFA scopes on air rifles whose reverse recoil destroys many high priced scopes by shaking their lenses out of place.

Eric B.

 

[MudRunner2005]

Yeah, well on that "scope same cost as rifle" advice if you absolutely must do that then look closely at SWFA scopes. Many on this site own them and stand by them.

SWFA is the very best quality for the money. WHY? Because they have no advertising and no middleman.You buy straight from their site. I have their SS 3 - 15 x 44 and the glass is very good, as good as my Bushnell ERS 3.5 - 21 x 50 target scope. Plus you can shoot SWFA scopes on air rifles whose reverse recoil destroys many high priced scopes by shaking their lenses out of place.

Eric B.

I have 3 of them. They're built like tanks and the glass is good for the price. The turrets are solid, tactile, and repeatable. For the money, the SWFA SS and Vortex HS-T scopes are going to be really hard to beat.

 

[Pmacc60]

My 2 crnts, and my apologies if the same has been said earlier.

A precursor, I'm in a single income family, with 2 kids under 4. So, there's some context. Budget for me is the best quality I can get without chasing the 'new shiny'

I agree wit many of those before me regarding the scope. I started by spending about $350, which got me started, but I realized I was missing a lot. So, I sold it, losing about $100, then spent another 300 (550 total price).
After a lot of reading on here and the hide, then getting to put my hands on some top tier glass, I realized how naive I had been in my purchases, and quickly realized how my BDC reticles were killing me in what I really wanted to do. So, selling that glass (losing another $150) I started searching.

So, at this point, I had spent $650, but only had $400 in my pocket. To many, no big deal, but to me, that's a big loss.

I watched Facebook groups like optics trader and such, as well as for sale sections here and the hide, and ended up with a $1200 (new) optic for 600 bucks! Yes, it's older. Yes, it doesn't have the best glass, the newest reticles or even zero stop. What it does have is a lifetime warranty, it tracks and the glass is better than my old optics. It's good enough for me, and isn't holding me back.

As for the rifle, I was lucky enough to pick up an HMR with a timney, 20 moa rail and muzzle brake for under a grand.

Yeah, it's not sub 1k, but I don't feel like I need to update anytime soon. Shooting my first match I made impacts to 1315, and just this weekend shooting next to a rifle worth 3x as what I spent, we were both engaging the same 10" plate at 1k with the same success rate.

In the end, it's the Indian, not the arrow, but don't hamstring yourself getting caught up in what others have. 5 year old glass is better than most of us are, and newer used rifles are great as well, just make sure the barrel isn't burnt out when you buy.

Closing note (sorry this is long). Reload. If you enjoy this at all, start now. It'll save you a ton in the long run. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Your journey s like many of us, mistakes made and corrected. What you learn along the way makes you better . I feel we learn by successes and failures and what you said here proves it. It is the man behind the trigger, his talent , his sweat his , his passion to be better.

 

[Don A Parsons]

A father and Son took up Deer hunting last year,,, they bought the same rifles and optics new at $550 Cnd funds ,,, about $375 Usd.

They came out to the range with their cleaned and prepp-ed rifles to sight in.

Both of them had pin point zero at 200 yards in 5 ish shoots ,,, then they reached out to 400 and 600 yard gong.

I assisted them with the MOA dial up stuff.

They reset the optics back to 200 yards as both optics tracked back to the proper clickage / dial-back.

We should not forget that """most""" of today's frugal optics are better than the optics of years ago.

The Weaver 2.5 and 4 power optics were the go to units for long range shooting back then.

Many world records were set with them ,,, and multi millions of critters around the world fell before many sportsmen...

Another father son joined in on the Open F Class shooting spring opener with all in factory rifles in 308 ,,, both of them placed 32nd over all out of 40 shooters,,, and in the top 7 of of open class.

Pretty good for first time out at 400 and 800 meters. Both of thier units came in at the $1000 Cnd funds.

If the rifle and optic is syn'ed,,, the majority of the input comes from the shooter.

10% dialed in rifle and optics with 90% shooter.

Most of us have seen this happen a few time.

 

[Eagle eyes 17]

So my first Long Range build was a 'Remington 700 S.S. … .308 Winchester'
By the time I was done ( or are you really ever done )
I had dropped it into a 'Magpul Hunter 700 Short Action Stock w/Mag Well'
then I replaced the Scope with a 'Vortex Crossfire II .. 6-24x50'
I had the Trigger Set at 3lbs and my favorite Reload for it was :
…… 155gr. ELD-Match
…… 44.5gr. Varget
….. 2,700fps - .439 B.C.
This was a great Combo for out to 500yds., beyond that was stretching it for me.
A friend and his son have it now and he is much more capable than I am at Reloading so I'm sure he will be able to take it out to farther limits. Examples of this Long Rage build , Before and After :

 

[Don A Parsons]

Whoops my bad on my above post .

The father and son placed 7th in the Stock Class FTR,,, HA,,, """Not the open."""

Dang brain fart typing up that post. LOL.

Funny thing was that a 14 year young fellow schooled me that day ,,, dam young eyes and brain power.

 

[MudRunner2005]

So my first Long Range build was a Remington 700 S.S. … .308 Winchester
By the time I was done ( or are you really ever done )
I had dropped it into a Magpul Hunter 700 Short Action Stock and added the Mag Well, then I replaced the Scope with a Vortex Crossfire II .. 6-24x50
I had the Trigger Set at 3lbs and my favorite Reload for it was :
…… 155gr. ELD-Match
…… 44.5gr. Varget
….. 2,700fps - .439 B.C.
This was a great Combo for out to 500yds. beyond that was stretching it for me.
A friend and his son have it now and he is much more capable than I am at Reloading so I'm sure he will be able to take it out to farther limits. Examples of this Long Rage build , Before and After :

I built my first custom when I was 16, because I shot the barrel out of my Rem Model 7 Varmint .22-250, and wanted to upgrade to .308 Win. So i've always looked at it this way... This was also at the same time I was working at the gun store selling guns, and working on, and cleaning them. Learned a LOT in that during that time.

Essentially, you're buying the action, and renting everything else. Because once you Blueprint an action, there's no real need to do anything else to it. But you will be constantly upgrading or replacing barrels, stocks, optics, etc...

 

[Eagle eyes 17]

Growing up I shot open sights, mostly
with a 30-30 Winchester Lever Action

then throughout my time in the Army with the
M16 w/203, M60 Machine Gun
and the M2A1 50 Cal. Heavy Machine Gun all with open sights.

And then for many years after that I continued to use open sight's, one of my favorite Rifles then was a Lever Action .375 Magnum,. mostly for hunting large Bull Elk and Bear.
It actually took me awhile to get used to using a scope at first, but now I can enjoy some longer shots with my Rifles that have Scopes mounted on them.

 

[Eagle eyes 17]

My go to Rifle now is the 'Remington 700 M40 Long Range' chambered for the
'300 Remington Ultra Magnum'

 

[uka]

The Savage rifles offer superior accuracy out of the box and so does the Ruger precision rifle series... These will not break the bank

I have seen on u tube guys with Ruger American rifles with the package scope bundled with the rifle stay right with every body on the line with expensive rifles at 700-1000yds

 

[Eagle eyes 17]

I usually like to use the ' Remington 700 ' Action as a base for a Long Range Rifle build

But I'm sure the Ruger and Savage are both great for building Long Range Rifles also.