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What is your hit probability on a 10" target at 1000 yards? First shot.

I've respect for the completely innocent animal giving up its life for my sporting pleasure, so my comfort zone long range is 400yds. I can account for the strongest of winds to ensure 99% a quick death(Less stable shooting positions factored in too)

I frequently shoot 1000-1mile on steel with range rigs. I wouldn't wish my first hit try at 1000 on any animal.
 
In the ELR game we have to shoot prone and when it's your turn you better have a good clue what to do as far as wind and the environment. You are only allowed so many shots and the timer is running, normally they will have you shoot 2 or 3 targets at a time with 5 rounds each, no practice shots or sighters just get it done and smile or weep. The testing the other night with the target shown above was with my 416 pushing a 550 grain bullet.

They are pushing us out to 4200 yards now but 2400 to 3600 is common and I have shot this stuff since 2015 the funny part is the farthest I shot during hunting at an animal being a whitetail for me is 200 yards.

JH
 
Let me clarify my post.

On big game, my personal longest shot is 875 on a pronghorn. 1st round hit, on a very unusual sub-5mph wind day. 661 is my next longest shot on a bull elk, nearly calm. Again, 1st round hit and kill.

I do have some longer 1st round hits/kills on coyotes. 991 (6CM), 1326 (250AI), a pair @ 1367 (300 RUM).

But unless conditions are nearly perfect, I am not taking "long" shots on big game. I feel extremely confident out to 800 however, even in decent winds.

But that was not the gist of the thread.
 
I posted the question after I had heard from my friend Bryan Blake, who just finished 12th at the world F Class shooting championships. Their targets were 900 meters (984 yards) away with a 10" ring that scored 5 points with a 5" V ring. Each competitor fired 130 shots with 2 sighters.

The winner put 86.9 percent of his shots into the 10" ring. The second place finisher put 80.7 percent. One of my assumptions here is any dropped points landed in the "4" ring, which Bryan said was true of the winner.

The winds were strong during this competition, but they shoot quickly and get immediate wind feedback from their last shot, to say nothing of the two sighters. The rests they use cost more than many rifles and the rifles themselves are insanely accurate - I had Bryan build me a 28N after I watched him put 20 shots into a 1.9" group at 500 yards. Bryan has since rebarreled an Edge to 28N and just yesterday I picked a new tube on one of my Lapuas.

Yes, the subject is beyond 1000 yards, but if putting 90% of your shots in a 10" circle at 1000 yards is impossible, not sure what those numbers look like at 1200 or 1400 (wait, I do know - I shoot at those ranges all the time).

One poster mentioned 400 yards and his success at that range even in very strong winds. Colorado spring winds are insane - last month I shot quite a bit with winds over 20 gusting to 50 (I didn't shoot in the gusts). I was very surprised I could hit my 10x12 gong every time at 400 yards - 620 wasn't bad either, but beyond that, forget it. I am guessing wind speeds are normally distributed, which means the stronger they are, the more they can vary over short periods of time. As Bryan pointed out yesterday, the flight time of a bullet to 1000 yards is over one second, and even a perfect wind call is likely to change during your TOF. I video every shot I take in CO - those bullets hit the 400 yard target almost instantly but the time between the rifle report and the bullet hitting metal 1000 yards away is very noticeable.

I have said this before, and someone else mentioned WEZ models, but simple math (like calculating the allowable wind error given your 1/2 MOA rifle can only drift 2.5" at either side of the group before you stand a chance of missing) shows the difficulty of connecting on small targets at long ranges. At some point, it is too far, and that hit has a healthy dose of luck.
 
Survey has been done. Most on this site from prior polls are less than 500 yards, a percentage take offense at that reality. I just thought this was the opportunity for those folks in the minority to take a victory lap.
I may be misreading this, and I apologize if I am, but this seem like somewhat of an unnecessary, snarky comment, not contributing anything useful to the purpose of this thread.....

Anyway....

In low to no wind conditions with time to read the wind, such as a hunting scenario when I would take a shot that far, at least 90%. It is however completely based on what the wind is doing. The more wind, the lower the percentage, and also the shorter the range I would feel confident making a first round impact on a 1 MOA target.

More goes into this question than just as the title says, however. I have called shots in high winds, one specific one was a mule deer at around 860 yards, I doped my rifle for the shot, in 12-14 mph winds, and my sister made a first round heart shot. However, this was also in an open, flat area, and I took about 10 minutes studying the wind, and it was very consistent. The same distance, same wind speed, but up a canyon with a couple draws, I wouldn't have felt confident having her take that shot. Wind speed, geography, rifle ballistics, rifle accuracy, how solid of a shooting platform you have in the field, among other things all play into how confident I am on hitting a 1 MOA target at 1000.
 
I posted the question after I had heard from my friend Bryan Blake, who just finished 12th at the world F Class shooting championships. Their targets were 900 meters (984 yards) away with a 10" ring that scored 5 points with a 5" V ring. Each competitor fired 130 shots with 2 sighters.

The winner put 86.9 percent of his shots into the 10" ring. The second place finisher put 80.7 percent. One of my assumptions here is any dropped points landed in the "4" ring, which Bryan said was true of the winner.

The winds were strong during this competition, but they shoot quickly and get immediate wind feedback from their last shot, to say nothing of the two sighters. The rests they use cost more than many rifles and the rifles themselves are insanely accurate - I had Bryan build me a 28N after I watched him put 20 shots into a 1.9" group at 500 yards. Bryan has since rebarreled an Edge to 28N and just yesterday I picked a new tube on one of my Lapuas.

Yes, the subject is beyond 1000 yards, but if putting 90% of your shots in a 10" circle at 1000 yards is impossible, not sure what those numbers look like at 1200 or 1400 (wait, I do know - I shoot at those ranges all the time).

One poster mentioned 400 yards and his success at that range even in very strong winds. Colorado spring winds are insane - last month I shot quite a bit with winds over 20 gusting to 50 (I didn't shoot in the gusts). I was very surprised I could hit my 10x12 gong every time at 400 yards - 620 wasn't bad either, but beyond that, forget it. I am guessing wind speeds are normally distributed, which means the stronger they are, the more they can vary over short periods of time. As Bryan pointed out yesterday, the flight time of a bullet to 1000 yards is over one second, and even a perfect wind call is likely to change during your TOF. I video every shot I take in CO - those bullets hit the 400 yard target almost instantly but the time between the rifle report and the bullet hitting metal 1000 yards away is very noticeable.

I have said this before, and someone else mentioned WEZ models, but simple math (like calculating the allowable wind error given your 1/2 MOA rifle can only drift 2.5" at either side of the group before you stand a chance of missing) shows the difficulty of connecting on small targets at long ranges. At some point, it is too far, and that hit has a healthy dose of luck.
I don't understand. Are you calling us liars because they only hit 86%....in "strong wind" conditions? I'm not an F-class guy but when conditions are right those guys do incredible things. I think you're comparing oranges to apples.
 
I think you're comparing oranges to apples.
Yeah, this went from 1MOA cold bore to full-on F-Class timed shot strings in a real hurry.

Hitting the 10 ring on a sighter is different than plugging in 20 in a row against a variable 20mph cross wind against the clock. The entire concept of rifle handling goes away with the lack of time pressure in taking a single shot with no follow ups. No stress, no doing four things at once in your head.

One match with crappy winds is pretty selective cherry picking. If we're taking sample sizes of one here - every Open category for every 20-shot course has a perfect 200-20X as the record. The 1000-yard record is actually 200-22x, meaning the guy plugged 22 shots in a row into a half-MOA at 1000 yards. In the same match the Top 5 shooters dropped a total of 3 points between them, meaning a total of 197 shots went into the 10 ring.

 
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80 -90%. Big boomers for me. 338-378 with 275 grain Parker bullets. 300 RUM 190 grain Barnes and 300 PRC with 208 grain Bergers. On a bench with bi pods on front sand bag on back.
Here in the hills of WV wind is tough, but I'm lucky enough to have up to 900 yards to shoot. Lots of practice and I felt confident enough to take a whitetail at 700 yards first shot. My best so far but hopefully I get one farther this year!
LRH....... Most important to me is Long and Hunting
 
I would like to say about 85% in calm wind conditions, if not higher. You can true a rifle the morning prior at 1000 yards, and go out the next morning in calm conditions and pretty easily hit near the middle again as long as the rifle and load are consistent and accurate.

Wind is the great equalizer at long range for sure. Even just 5+ MPH and I'd be hesitant to claim a first round MOA hit above 50%.

This was 974 with about a 2MPH left wind. I honestly felt 100% confident taking this shot. Impact was about 2-3" further right than where a perfect shot for me would be.

 
I don't understand. Are you calling us liars because they only hit 86%....in "strong wind" conditions? I'm not an F-class guy but when conditions are right those guys do incredible things. I think you're comparing oranges to apples.
"They" was a single person - the rest of only put 80% in the 10" ring. Bryan said the difference between the winner and the rest was an astounding 8 points - unheard of.

Look, there have been many times F class shooters have gone clean - mostly in 20 shot contests. But look at their scorecards and see what their sighters - their first shots - scored.

I am saying the best don't hit 90% of the time. Granted, they don't have the luxury of waiting for a specific condition, but they do have the feedback of the previous shot, which is huge. In hunting, you don't have that feedback - you misread the wind, you gut shoot an animal. Maybe you have time for a second shot, maybe not. In F class, you see your wind call error and correct for it - no vapor trail, no buddy on the spotting scope - you see exactly where it hit. And still, they don't put every shot into that 10" ring. But somehow other shooters, with inferior equipment, less practice, and perhaps less than 500 rounds fired at 1000 yards in their lifetime can?

Look at the physical reasons why they don't hit above 90%...for one thing, your wind call has to be perfect - and not change during the TOF. A .308 225 ELDM at 2950 drifts 4.8 inches at 1000 yards. If your rifle shoots 1/2 MOA, you stand almost a 50% chance of missing with an error of only 1 mph. To hit 100% of the time, you can only tolerate 2.5" of drift error, which tanslates into a wind call that is within 1/2 mph. You can do that 9 of 10 times?

At some point, that becomes impossible - if not at 1000 yards, then certainly farther - but not much farther. It is simple math.
 
Well it is was it is LRNut, you asked a question that took a bit but folks replied. It seems that this thread took a bit of a turn and you proved a good point.

I'm not sure why but many times I regret chiming in with info that relates to a discussion or question. Info thats not inflated but what I have personally experienced.

Cheers
JH

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