Comancheria
Well-Known Member
Folks,
Russ here in deep South Texas.
I apologize in advance for starting out with such a brutally long post. Although I have been a hunter for nearly 65 years, and although I have never been a long range hunter, I have followed this site closely for a number of years. Thus, I approach all of you as a novice, admittedly seeking your guidance. The good news is that I have an excellent understanding of the principles of marksmanship, reloading, and ballistics. The not-so-good-news is that my learning is almost all academic—I have never shot an animal at over 250 yards! My goal is to expand from our local dog-sized whitetails in heavy bus, and the few mule deer I have harvested (and can you say "Feral Hog?" to Muleys, elk, and pronghorns.
Currently, I have two excellent hunting rifles—both of which are capable of achieving much longer range shots than I myself am. Both were built by Lex Webernick of Rifles Incorporated in Pleasanton, Texas. Both are built on blueprinted Remington 700 actions with premium barrels and synthetic stocks—and both can put a 180 grain Nosler Partition into 1/2 MOA at 100 yards. They have never been tried at long range.
I plan to escalate the rounds I lob over the horizon from the 180's to the Berger 215 grain—because most recently, I have read about half of Jeff's magnificent, 33-page marathon on his 2012 season. I realize I still have tons of homework to do on my own, but I throw the following out for comment—and don't worry—I never let pride get in the way of my education.
My mountain rifle is as follows: .300 Win Mag/with a pencil -thin, 23 inch barrel/muzzle brake with an older Swarovski HABICHT 3-10 X with a 1 inch tube and the BR reticle. This little jewel weighs just a couple of ounces over 6 pounds—fully loaded.
It's Big Brother is a .300 RUM/ with a heavy 27 inch barrel/muzzle brake with an older Swarovski HABICHT 3-12X WITH A 30 MM tube and TDS-Plex reticle. It weighs in at 10 1/2 pounds fully loaded.
I have decided to upgrade the optics on both rifles—along with acquiring adequate range-finding tools and ballistic-calculation software—for long range hunting. But lacking any delusions of grandeur, I have no intention of extending that to ultra-long-range. In fact, I am prepared to swear off taking any shot beyond 1,000 yards—and highly unlikely at that—and ONLY if I find myself capable in practice.
I live just north of Corpus Christi just 50 mile north of the King Ranch and do not have access to any range or public land which would allow practice out to 1,000 yards. I run cattle on a couple of small pastures I own about a hundred miles away. The longest stretch where I can set up a kinda-sorta "long range"—without bringing in a bulldozer—would be about 650 yards. And I can possibly extend that to maybe 800 yards—with a little help from one of my cousins—and his trusty dozer.
My main quandary is that for mountain hunting, I am 74 years old with a lot of hard milage on toy ancient wheels. I would love to haul the .300 RUM over hill and dale, but not only am I not the man I used to be—I never was the man I thought I was. But I have not given up on the idea. I have looked long and hard at several alternative setups:
Alternative #1:
(2) Bases for these rings—to allow interchanging the scope between rifles.
Vectronix Terrapin X Range Finder
Kestrel with ballistic software
The obvious problems with this setup are as follows:
First: the scope is just too heavy: On the big rifle, it would increase the already difficult weight of 10 pounds to over twelve. And it would increase the weight of the little mountain jewel to around 8 pounds.
Even assuming these quick-detach mounts are just as repeatable as all the reviews claim, every time I moved the scope from one rifle to the next, I would have to have previously recorded the exact zero and change it back to that for the new rifle AND reset the zero stop.
For every shot, I would have to perform the juggling act of finding the critter with my binos, checking range with the Terrapin X, syncing it to the Kestrel, and dialing in the solution on the rifle.
——————————————————————————————————————————------------
Alternative # 2:
(Here I got really wacky and high tech—but I am beginning to settle down):
One and only one Swarovski ds—as a one-step do-everything solution with the same
Quick detach rings to switch from one rifle to the other.
The negatives here are, not only the high price tag, but even if nothing happened, I would have nightmares, thinking about what the recoil of the little Win Mag and even the heavy ultra-mag would eventually do to the electronics running all over the thing. Might as well be the Star Ship Enterprise!
——————————————————————————————————————————----------
So finally, I have come down to this as a high probability:
Alternative # 3:
Switch out my current 8X40 Leica Binos for the Leica Geovid Geovid HD 3,000 for the ballistics—and maybe a Kestrel for wind—but probably not.
Might even add the yardage-based elevation turrets to both scopes.
Add a Swaro X5i 3.8-18 X 50 in fixed mounts to the .300 Winnie
Add a Swaro X5i 5-25 X 56 in fixed mounts to the .300 RUM
(I don't really need the illuminated reticles on these scopes, and would love to save the cost they add to the package, but I believe I am correct that Swarovski Optik has discontinued the X5s without illumination.)
——————————————————————————————————————————-----------
I will be happy to get anyone's input on these plans—but I guarantee you I will keep pestering you all with my questions.
Thanks and best regards
Russ
Russ here in deep South Texas.
I apologize in advance for starting out with such a brutally long post. Although I have been a hunter for nearly 65 years, and although I have never been a long range hunter, I have followed this site closely for a number of years. Thus, I approach all of you as a novice, admittedly seeking your guidance. The good news is that I have an excellent understanding of the principles of marksmanship, reloading, and ballistics. The not-so-good-news is that my learning is almost all academic—I have never shot an animal at over 250 yards! My goal is to expand from our local dog-sized whitetails in heavy bus, and the few mule deer I have harvested (and can you say "Feral Hog?" to Muleys, elk, and pronghorns.
Currently, I have two excellent hunting rifles—both of which are capable of achieving much longer range shots than I myself am. Both were built by Lex Webernick of Rifles Incorporated in Pleasanton, Texas. Both are built on blueprinted Remington 700 actions with premium barrels and synthetic stocks—and both can put a 180 grain Nosler Partition into 1/2 MOA at 100 yards. They have never been tried at long range.
I plan to escalate the rounds I lob over the horizon from the 180's to the Berger 215 grain—because most recently, I have read about half of Jeff's magnificent, 33-page marathon on his 2012 season. I realize I still have tons of homework to do on my own, but I throw the following out for comment—and don't worry—I never let pride get in the way of my education.
My mountain rifle is as follows: .300 Win Mag/with a pencil -thin, 23 inch barrel/muzzle brake with an older Swarovski HABICHT 3-10 X with a 1 inch tube and the BR reticle. This little jewel weighs just a couple of ounces over 6 pounds—fully loaded.
It's Big Brother is a .300 RUM/ with a heavy 27 inch barrel/muzzle brake with an older Swarovski HABICHT 3-12X WITH A 30 MM tube and TDS-Plex reticle. It weighs in at 10 1/2 pounds fully loaded.
I have decided to upgrade the optics on both rifles—along with acquiring adequate range-finding tools and ballistic-calculation software—for long range hunting. But lacking any delusions of grandeur, I have no intention of extending that to ultra-long-range. In fact, I am prepared to swear off taking any shot beyond 1,000 yards—and highly unlikely at that—and ONLY if I find myself capable in practice.
I live just north of Corpus Christi just 50 mile north of the King Ranch and do not have access to any range or public land which would allow practice out to 1,000 yards. I run cattle on a couple of small pastures I own about a hundred miles away. The longest stretch where I can set up a kinda-sorta "long range"—without bringing in a bulldozer—would be about 650 yards. And I can possibly extend that to maybe 800 yards—with a little help from one of my cousins—and his trusty dozer.
My main quandary is that for mountain hunting, I am 74 years old with a lot of hard milage on toy ancient wheels. I would love to haul the .300 RUM over hill and dale, but not only am I not the man I used to be—I never was the man I thought I was. But I have not given up on the idea. I have looked long and hard at several alternative setups:
Alternative #1:
- Valdada Recon 2 4.8-30. (But the darned thing weighs 38 ounces without the mounts!)
(2) Bases for these rings—to allow interchanging the scope between rifles.
Vectronix Terrapin X Range Finder
Kestrel with ballistic software
The obvious problems with this setup are as follows:
First: the scope is just too heavy: On the big rifle, it would increase the already difficult weight of 10 pounds to over twelve. And it would increase the weight of the little mountain jewel to around 8 pounds.
Even assuming these quick-detach mounts are just as repeatable as all the reviews claim, every time I moved the scope from one rifle to the next, I would have to have previously recorded the exact zero and change it back to that for the new rifle AND reset the zero stop.
For every shot, I would have to perform the juggling act of finding the critter with my binos, checking range with the Terrapin X, syncing it to the Kestrel, and dialing in the solution on the rifle.
——————————————————————————————————————————------------
Alternative # 2:
(Here I got really wacky and high tech—but I am beginning to settle down):
One and only one Swarovski ds—as a one-step do-everything solution with the same
Quick detach rings to switch from one rifle to the other.
The negatives here are, not only the high price tag, but even if nothing happened, I would have nightmares, thinking about what the recoil of the little Win Mag and even the heavy ultra-mag would eventually do to the electronics running all over the thing. Might as well be the Star Ship Enterprise!
——————————————————————————————————————————----------
So finally, I have come down to this as a high probability:
Alternative # 3:
Switch out my current 8X40 Leica Binos for the Leica Geovid Geovid HD 3,000 for the ballistics—and maybe a Kestrel for wind—but probably not.
Might even add the yardage-based elevation turrets to both scopes.
Add a Swaro X5i 3.8-18 X 50 in fixed mounts to the .300 Winnie
Add a Swaro X5i 5-25 X 56 in fixed mounts to the .300 RUM
(I don't really need the illuminated reticles on these scopes, and would love to save the cost they add to the package, but I believe I am correct that Swarovski Optik has discontinued the X5s without illumination.)
——————————————————————————————————————————-----------
I will be happy to get anyone's input on these plans—but I guarantee you I will keep pestering you all with my questions.
Thanks and best regards
Russ
