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I do not shoot at game with any rifle past the point blank range of the rifle/load because it is unethical! That is certainly less than 400 Meters, with my Rem 700 Sendaro in .300 RUM. I am a DV hunter and am allowed to use an ATV to get way out back and do not worry about weight. I use a ranging 4-16X56 scope and expect my bullet to land inside a 4" circle at the 500 meter gong at my club's range, on a calm day, but the 190 Grain Berger VLD bullet at 3280 FPS has a PBR of only about 360 Meters according to my computer ballistics program, so I never shoot at any game animal that my laser range finder has not verified to be with in the PBR! I also do not shoot any great distance in high winds where I stalk close and use a TC Encore in .308, or a 7-08 Rem XP-100 at ranges less than 200 yards/180 Meters, half that if the wind is really up. While I can shoot to over a mile on a good day with any of several rifles I own, I would never think of doing anything that un-ethical! You have a duty to the animal to deliver a clean and fatal shot, the first time, every time. Anything less is very poor sportsmanship!
Stone stock, factory, Remington stainless Sendaro with fluted heavy barrel in .300 RUM with huge muzzle break and custom hand loads using the Berger 190 VLD bullet at 3,280 FPS. I use a 4-16X56 ranging scope and laser range finder as back up. See my other post about ethical shooting. I also use one of two hand cannons in .308, or 7-08 for stalking up close on windy days. Either one is half the weight of a rifle and will shoot just as far under the right conditions.
Man, I was thinking ban time but the comments have been fun. Long range hunting......
I know they will. There is a very certain thrill with making a kill at very long range! However, I still believe that you have a very real moral obligation to treat the game animal ethically. ( Varmints excluded regardless of size!) As range gets longer there are many ways that things can and do go wrong. Most of the time, everything goes right, but when it does not... At the same time, I believe in self responsibility and fee will! You make the choices that you have to live with. Elmer Keith was one of my heroes when I was growing up. That 600 yard shot with a .44 revolver was a legend that I admired and tried to emulate during all the time I was in the ASA. I grew up in Illinois and shooting was so close a 12 gage with ordinary slugs was a sure winner. Later I lived in Colorado and Utah and had many opportunities to hunt mule deer and elk at very much longer ranges. As luck would have it, my stalking skill, more likely a better fiend/guide let me harvest many animals mostly at ranges under 100 Meters. When I retired, I had more time to think on it and my military experience. I evolved and now choose not to shoot at live game past the point blank range of the weapon system and ammo. It is my choice and I am glad to let each of you make your choice, what ever it is because I know that you and not I will have to live with the results of those choices. If you crave the thrill of long range shooting at unknown distances, enter sniper matches, hone your skills where there is no ethical trap for a shot gone wide. Do not risk the guilt of knowing you let a gravely wounded animal escape to die days, or weeks later.
Long range hunting is not my main thing. But I have a serious jones for very long range target shooting and I love elk to the point I no longer hunt deer. The fact that I only made a few posts, does not make the ideas in them any less true, or reduce the pleasure I get reading on this website. Each of us has to make our own choices and live with the results. As to my LR Bonafides, I own half a dozen ARs including a 28" 1/8 twist BBL in .224 Valkyrie. Two LR-308 AR10s, two .22-250s, and a .224 Clark Imp custom rifles, the previously mentioned Sendaro in .300 RUM and a 28" BBL'd Mossberg 144 LRS target rifle I use to shoot eggs, or paint balls with at 200 yards/meters, I just can't remember the denominator. I do not, have not won, but I once tied with two hits out of five tries in the first round only to loose 0/5 in the second. Does that make me any less than an avid long range shooter? Does the club you belong to have a safe, no blue sky, 500 meter range? Do you go to the range every week?
I like all of your ideas! Especially the last, "use enough gun to do the job when everything goes wrong!" I used to have a custom .338-50BMG until my last kid was born. It was built on the cheap at the time surplus McMillan action and shot the 300 grain SMK at 3,850 FPS to then ungodly ranges, now long surpassed. But I was not broken back then and could not carry it to the hunt, so I used a Weatherby bought very cheap in a pawn shop after it did not sell for two years.
Seriously. He must of missed the memo.
