Missed opportunity Need opinions

Spotted a few aoudad Sunday morning. One big ram in the bunch. I didn't try to guess inches, but he was a big mature ram, and we have a lot of trophy-class 30+ inch aoudad on our place. I've seen some, got pictures of tons of them, but haven't been able to kill one yet. I was in the bottom of a canyon, They were about 3/4 of the way up the side of a hill, I guessed about 500 yards away.

I decided to shoot. Last opportunity I had I tried to get closer and spooked them onto the neighbors. I was shooting a Howa model 1500 .270, 130 grain Hornadys with a Swarovski 4-12x50 scope. I am very accurate with this rifle at 100 yards. I've shot it to 200 and I'm pretty dang good out there as well, as long as I have a good rest. I've never tried to shoot at anything further than 200 yards out. I've studied some ballistics charts before on bullet drop, so I thought I could make a pretty good guess on the drop. Laid down on the roof of my ranger, used a backpack as a rest.

This picture sums up the scenario I was looking at. We later ranged it at 450 +/- yards. I placed the crosshairs pretty far back to account for the wind. I have no idea how to account for windage. This was a complete guess. I shot once, and thought I saw one of them running off, holding a leg up. They were far away, darting through cedars and I couldn't tell for sure though. I didn't find any blood. I know I was looking in the right place, it rained the night before, and I could see some of the tracks they made when they were gettin' gone.

I looked at a ballistics chart today. I'm guessing the bullet probably dropped about 30 inches. I still have no idea how to account for wind, or the fact he was about 175 feet higher in elevation than I was.

What would ya'll have done? What should I have done differently? I'm still trying to decide if I should have taken the shot, or tried to stalk in closer. I would feel very comfortable at 250 yards. I felt good with the shot I took, but I'm guessing I put the crosshairs in the wrong place. I know I need to practice these long shots if I'm going to try to kill an animal at that distance, but I just haven't done it yet.

I'm not happy at all about it right now. I will be investing a long range rifle, probably a 7 mm mag, I'm open to suggestions on caliber for hunting these critters in canyon country. I'd like to hear yall's opinions on what you would have done in this scenario.

I can't help with the shooting but that is a damn fine sketch of the sheep

In all honesty 450 yards is a long way.

If your not used to shooting thst far it's tough

Practice more at distance

Doesn't a .270 have nearly 35" of drop at 450 yards?

If you held as high as the illustration, I'd say you hit the ground. On a flat shot, I would have held 1.5 - 2 'body heighths' above my desired point of impact - in a dead calm wind.

Like you, I'd be lost on the wind drift.

That's quite a shot if you've never practiced it before and a low percentage one without the proper equipment. Just too much guess work in bullet drop IMO.

Never tried to shoot beyond 200 before, never practiced at distance, guessing about yardage, guessing about drop, wind blowing and you "have no idea" how to account for windage.

You should never have taken that shot. A fine animal probably paid the ultimate price for your having done so.

and probably not enough hold over for the wind conditions...20-30 with gusts, shooting out of a canyon is tough tough. For that kind of wind, you are looking at a pretty good hold over, not the one you showed here (my opinion only, others may have more to say about that).

My guess is you probably didn't hit him, chnaces are you hit ground and some dirt or something ricochet'd onto one (maybe) to cause it to lift a leg, but with no blood to go by you have to assume a no hit on these kind of conditions.

YEP

Should've held approx 18 inches for wind, 39 inches for elevation because you are shooting uphill your 450 yards needs to be held over for approx 405 yards. That's based on my 270 shooting Hornady 130SST

You don't say how your rifle is sighted in (100 yds. 200 yds. other), so we can't really provide you the correct hold-over (compensated for the angle). If you can give us your scope height (center of objective lens to center of bore) it would help.

As for wind drift...there could be so many things at play. You stated the wind 'gusts' were 20-30 mph. That is quite a 'spread' and would make 'doping the wind' very difficult. If we knew the 'average' wind speed we could come much closer to making an estimate for your 'lead'.

Wind 'gusts' depending upon the terrain (canyons) might only be influencing the bullet over a short portion/time of it's flight. From the diagram you drew... it looks like the wind would have been greater than 75% but not 'full value'.

Based on what you've told us...your compensation for wind drift could have been anything from 15" to 30".

Assuming a solid rest and a good trigger break....my guess would be you shot under the animal (for trajectory) and somewhere between midsection.. up to the front of the chest, for drift. Could easily have 'splashed' the front legs.

Too far to shoot IMO, lacking prior experience. Hope you get another chance at a latter date.

Remember...Aoudad are tough, so place that shot carefully and be ready for a follow up if needed.

Good luck to you.

Flint.

Kind what I was thinking reading through the OP.

I would have practiced shooting at that type of range and wind conditions a lot before attempting a shot like that.

If your sketch was to scale should have aimed close to where the 4 is

Depending on the wind gust you probably had 3 ft bullet drift at 450 if the wind was parrallel. A 450 shot is long in any condition, but the wind makes it a expert shot when it is blowing that hard.

Several errors in both factors of judgement in this scenario.....first and foremost, taking a shot like that with no practice and the total disregard as to the welfare of the animal. Apparently, your in a locale that allows 450 yard shots - do your home work for long range shooting, go practice with at least one box of bullets.

You may or may not have wounded the animal and it may or may not have survived. That is not the SPORTSMANS way of hunting!

Learn and understand both before you go out again!

Thanks everybody for the input. I know it wasn't smart to take the shot, but I did. I can't undo it. I was thinking to myself I may never have that chance again, and if I didn't at least try, I would've regretted it.

I think I missed completely, and I was hopefully seeing things when I thought I saw one holding a leg up. I looked for blood for a long time, and I know the trail they took for at least 75 yards after I shot.

I'll be better prepared next time.

I'm curious how you even start to calculate for the wind? Say if it was a constant 20 mph.

What the fellas said and I see you already knew it was coming, so I wont harp on it.

What I think would have been the thing to do ( I have personally seen this done on Audad several times) Is go around the hill/mntn and approach from the top. Works real good if you have a spotter giving you updates, but can be done alone if you have the leg.

This! You hit the dirt in front of the animal. Clean miss based on your diagram. Longest shot I have made with a 270 is 325 yards. That was a very long shot for me! I doubt I could have seen the target at 450 yards!

Thinking back on it, you're right on. I would have been downwind from them, but I would have lost sight of them for a long time. Anyways, better try to get a manageable shot at them than to take crap shoot of a shot.

I'm not going to attempt another shot that far out with the set up I have. I'll do some practicing further out, I think I can be pretty good out to 300 yards with what I have, depending on wind.

If this scenario presented itself again, I would definitely try to stalk around the backside and get downwind. If they stayed where they were, I think I could've had about a 100 yard shot, pending spooking them.

In the meantime, I'm looking at a Rem 700 Sendero in 7 mm mag, with a pretty high dollar scope. I'm determined to have a set up that can make 500 yards a piece of cake, and I'll be confident when I pull the trigger next time.

I could see him just fine, took a stupid guess on how much to account for bullet drop and wind.

BigPig, how did you come with 18 inches for wind?

Like western said you been beat enough.

Get the right scope for your 270 and practice and educated yourself about the wind and get a range finder and some practice.

I agree with others you probably shot under him.

Some folks hate audad more than feral hogs. The last property we leased for hunting had a good population of them and the owner hated them and we were supposed to shoot everyone seen.

If you can, enroll in a long-range shooting school like some on here offer. Second, what range do you have your rifle zeroed for? You should, at a minimum, know the drop from that zero for every 50 yards out to 500 yards. (I see some rifles with these numbers written on paper and taped to the side of the stock). If you can though, also go out there and shoot at some rocks at known far ranges.

I had a similar set up to what you have and took several mule deer in Colorado in similar terrain, Ruger .270 and 4x10 scope at the time. My rifle loved the 130g silvertips, but I wouldn't have cared to push it past 400 yards, even though it is capable. So essentially I think you had enough weapon and scope (assuming they are both accurate stand alone.

7mm IMO would also give you more leg no doubt (have one of those as well), but as the fellas mentioned, doesn't matter if you had a .22, you need to know what your rifle with the ammo you have, is dependable IMO

They have apps I believe for windage for smart phones, fellas? but knowing the drop with YOUR set up is invaluable.

BTW, I don't allow a ton for elevation, I do consider it more in "thinner air" like in the Rockies. Do some research online to apply to your research in the field with your rifle, may want to read this link on shooting at angles.
http://www.millettsights.com/downloads/shootinguphillanddownhill.pdf

Did you draw this out prior to making the shot?

Send your scope back to Swarovski and have them install the TDX Reticle. The scope has a normal crosshair. But it also has additional hashes below the horizontal crosshair representing elevation out to 450-500 yards (depending on caliber). The center, horizontal cross hair has a mil dot on each side of the verical cross hair. This represents point of aim in a steady 10mph crosswind at 100 yards. The end of each additional hashmark is the point of aim at whatever yardage with a 10 mph crosswind. Long ranch shooting in 20-30 mph wind is not something I will attempt on an animal, but it can be doped. Just takes a ton of practice, a good program and accurate information on the wind conditions.

Then buy a range finder and spend lots and lots of time shooting the gun, scope and ammo you will be using to hunt. In all types of conditions and at various known ranges/elevation changes.

Let's not guess, let's calculate it! A 270 Win with a 130 grain is just fine, if you know how to use it. This is with a 130 grain SP at 3020 fps.

If you have a zero at 100 yards, your drop would be about 35 inches at 450 yards, call it 3 feet. Shooting up 175 feet with 450 yards to target (1350 feet), that's only a 7.45 degree angle, which is not a lot. It would equal 446 yards actual distance that gravity would effect the bullet. When you get above 15 degrees (or much further out) is when you need to begin to account for angle shooting.

The wind would have blown the bullet off by 33 inches. So, the windage may have been close to your hold.

Your hold should have been higher than what you held for elevation. I'm pretty sure you hit low.

Now, if you want to learn how to shoot longer ranges, I highly recommend getting a scope you can dial elevation and windage for. Learn how to use it, and practice with it. The 270 Win is more than capable. I learned to shoot on a 270, and took a precision rifle class out to 1K yards with my 270 many years ago. So, it's definitely doable. Having a good scope (to dial) with good ammo is the key! Take a class to get proficient with it. If you want match grade 270 ammo, let me know!

20 mph for wind below

Range Elev Wind Velocity Energy
(yards) (inches) (inches) (ft/sec) (ft-lbs)
0 --- --- 3020 2632.6
50 -0.36 0.36 2901.5 2430
100 0 1.46 2786.1 2240.6
150 -0.76 3.33 2673.7 2063.5
200 -2.74 6.01 2564.3 1898
250 -6.04 9.57 2457.7 1743.5
300 -10.78 14.05 2354 1599.4
350 -17.09 19.5 2253 1465.2
400 -25.12 25.99 2154.2 1339.4
450 -35.02 33.6 2057.5 1222
500 -46.97 42.39 1963.5 1112.8

The swaro z5 with BT and 4W reticle would be good for this, dial the ballistic turret to desired distance and use the windage marks on the reticle for the mph wind. I believe the windage hold over for 20mph is the third line over, but could be wrong, haven't looked at it in a while.

Swaro also has an app that calculates the drop and windage based on your load, isn't perfect but gives an idea. Based on your load, it shows a drop of 34 inches for 450 yards and wind adjust of 31 inches for 20 mph, up to 47 inches for 30 mph wind.

Edit: was posting this the same time as chad. I also figured with simple math the real range was 446 yards, remember Pythagorean theorem? so the elevation was not really a big deal, it was the range and wind.

Wow. This makes sense. Thank you!

You probably didn't get close to the animal.

I'm not gonna beat you up about taking the shot, I have longer range rig and if I would have been presented a standing 450 yards shot I would have tried given I had a good rest. Sometimes you pull off those shots sometimes you don't....part of it.

Keep after it you'll get your sheep

There ain't but a handful of people on this forum that could have pulled off that shot in that wind. Honestly you were a fool for even trying.

Says the guy who chases Bigfoot

What I would have done: GET CLOSER! Inch by inch if I wanted one that bad. There's a huge difference between 1/200yd and 450yd. Was at the range today at 200yd, and minor shooting style differences that had NO EFFECT at 100yd were making my dad and I hit completely off with the other's rifles (30-06, 22-250). I ended up having to re-zero both, though the smaller gun had minimal adjustment.

However, I went to the range today with the mindset for a similar scenario. I have a mule deer/aoudad hunt in North Texas next month and the hunt-organizer there told me the deer are easy to kill (<100yd) but the closest recorded kill shot on an aoudad was 150yd. So, I read up on some ballistics (minor stuff, I stuck to inches ), and zeroed at 200.

Moral of the story: do some research and practice at longer distances.

X2 ish

You can't always get closer....a lot of times where you first see them is as close as your gonna get.

They can see a long, long way and if they are above you, as this one was, they will bust you


You better be good at stalking if your gonna go hunt one with a .22-250. That north Texas wind is gonna blow that little bullet all over the place

I agree with txtrophy85....you have mad sheep drawing skills.
And about the shot, well, you learned a valuable lesson and seem remorseful for taking the shot. Sometimes when a person gets excited, they do silly things. I could write a book about it, myself.