I’ve been thinking about this since last night. The conditions I’m shooting in drive everything. They drive which rifle I pick, how far I will consider taking a shot, when I pull the trigger, if I will take a shot at all…
Real life example. I mule deer hunted out west for years. If you’ve read a few of my posts, you can imagine I spent a bit of time on my rifles, getting ready for this pursuit. The very best long range rifle I ever put together was a 6.5 x 284, it was a single shot Cooper with a heavy barrel. I prepped all my brass, and did meticulous hand loads, with extremely long high BC bullets. The second best long range rifle was a factory Weatherby Mark five, in 257 magnum. It’s shot one factory load well under MOA. Both of them were extremely heavy, both of them had big huge sniper scopes on them. I do a lot of walking when I hunt. They became a burden to carry as I aged. So then I built a long range carry rifle…Custom Remington model seven in 260, with a stock I made, Shilen barrel. Unfortunately, it did not live up to its accuracy potential. And was one MOA at best with handloads. It was probably more difficult to shoot accurately out in the field also, because it was so much lighter. Best case scenario it was a 350 yard rifle. I passed on the buck of a lifetime at 450 yards on a reasonably calm day (10 mph wind steady), When carrying the light rifle. I sat there and watched him mount a doe right at daybreak with my cross hairs hovering a couple feet above his back. I can still see it. He even had a name. He was 200+, easy. I didn’t shoot. Equipment plus conditions didn’t add up to a good shot. I could’ve just as easily hit the doe as hit him. If I would’ve had either of my long range rigs, he would have been dead. Now that, is almost an absolute…
guess which rig I carried if I knew it was going to be windy that day? Quite often out west the winds are 20 to 30 mph. All day long you just have wind howling in your face and in your ears. There is no reason to carry the big rig. I wasn’t going out past 300 in those conditions. 350 maybe if it was a perfect set up. But I’m not going to decide that until I’m looking through the scope at the animal. So the conditions actually drove which rifle I brought out to the field. Which further drove the distance at which I could cleanly kill an animal.
Then on top of that, you have the position of the animal you’re trying to shoot at, in this case a deer.
here is an example. I’m going to air my dirty laundry. Sometimes I miss…Neither of these are trophy mule deer, they are both nice. My point is I’m not trying to brag about these mule deer, I think it just adds credence to the story, plus makes it a little more interesting.
The one below I shot at twice. He was 437 yards out, and standing still, quartering towards me. Wind was minimal 5 to 8 mph. I was on my bum bag with my sticks, The same position I had shot baseball size groups at 400 yards prior to coming on the hunt. It was the last day, final evening of our hunt. He just walked right out in the open out of nowhere, probably 10 minutes before dusk. I pulled the first shot and missed him completely. This was very humbling to put it mildly. He didn’t run. The next one went right through the boiler room. First off just being transparent, because everyone misses shots. But second, I was extremely confident of the shot that day, with the rifle that I had in my hand, at that distance, in those conditions. That’s why I shot. Yet I had two completely different outcomes…Certainly no absolutes to apply there. I was well within my comfort zone of making the shot. I’m confident I could sit down with the same rifle in the same conditions and make the shot nine out of ten times…I not only would take the shot again, I did.
Deer
number two below. He was 525 yards away. I was all strapped in and was trying to decide whether I would pull the trigger. It wasn’t about the conditions , I knew I could hit him. It was dead calm and I knew the drop. He was standing perfectly sideways for me. I was looking at his rack wondering if I should pull the trigger because I was looking for a big Mulie…He had so many points. I decided to shoot. Started to actually tighten my finger on the trigger, and he spun around and looked off to his right, Then took off running straight away. Mule deer run either very straight, only their legs move, or else they pogo hop. Just like in the old cartoons when we were kids. I was already all lined up on him, he was running straight away from me, I put the appropriate crosshair on his neck and squeezed the trigger. I can still picture his body going completely slack while still in the air, and then flopping to the ground. I had no time to consider how difficult that shot was. I took it, and I executed perfectly. My shot hit within an inch of where I was intending to hit, the junction of the neck and the body.
Would I have taken that shot if conditions were not perfect? Heck no. Would I have been all lined up to shoot him when he started running, absolutely not. If someone asked me if I would shoot at a running mule deer at 535 yards, I would reply absolutely not, that’s crazy. But he ran straight away, and there was no wind and I was ready. All kinds of conditions dictate everything.
I’m not going to repeat all of what Q ball said above, because he said it very succinctly.
If you look at this from a target shooting aspect, again conditions dictate everything. I’m watching the flags continuously. while I’m looking through the scope, I’m also watching all the foliage all around me, and I’m feeling the wind on my body. I am also educated in the conditions because I’ve been shooting. I know there’s an approximately X inch wind. But listen to the tomcat talking about his EBR win
. To shoot little tiny groups, you need to judge the wind and pick the perfect time to pull the trigger. (sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t). There’s no doubt that practicing in all kinds of conditions makes it work more often. But Tom cat didn’t pull the trigger when conditions weren’t right, when his hair on his neck was standing up on end, he knew to wait.
Shooting is fun, that’s why I do it. Shooting at long distance is challenging…when I know I’ve shot a little tiny group, and I get to take the walk to go look at it, I smile the entire way. I smile because I’ve beat the odds. The odds of shooting a little tiny group at 190 yards or 240 yards are very low. And totally dependent upon conditions, and more so how I read those conditions.
that’s why people say, in good conditions I can…
And one of the biggest reasons I can do it, is the technology is so much better than it was even three or four years ago.
mike