Rant: Newbies & Long Distance

So this has been bothering me for a bit. Mostly from my own hunting club members I hear this that I want to shoot animals from at least 300yd.

I've shot 2 animals at 200yd+ in 9 years of hunting. One was an axis doe with my 22-250 with a Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14x50mm and 55gr Hornady VMAX in 2013, sitting on my rear end and resting on a uprooted treelimb. The second was a pig with my dad's 30-06 with a Nikon Buckmasters 4-12x50mm and 150gr Federal Fusion. The axis doe took 1 shot and a difficult tracking job: the super-flat shooting 22-250 did a ton of internal bleeding but left us nothing to follow with a chest shot. My 22-250 has shot 45, 55, and 64gr bullets within a 2" margin at 50, 100, and 200yd; that's why this was possible. The pig had blood everywhere, but took my 5 shots to drop: 3/5 connected. I was shooting standing, using a BOGPOD tripod as a rest.

There is no NEED, as a hunter, sportsman, to shoot at absurd distances. I took these two opportunities because I had to: the axis doe busted me while I was stalking her herd and the pigs were on higher ground than us so we couldn't get closer. I have shot deer on foot as close as 30yd. From a blind, 80-110yd. From a truck/mule, 100-200yd. It is your responsibility as an ETHICAL hunter to get as close as you can to your prey in order to deliver your hot little piece of molded lead or infused copper at it's best amount of energy into a living animal to take its life away.

That being said, a hunter does find himself in situations where un-ideal shots must be taken, such as in the above cases. That's where I have my pet peeve: one cannot just put trust in performance (of optic, gun, and shooter) at 100yd as the baseline for a 400yd shot. Anything at 300yd or higher is science and skill, not a smooth trigger pull and closed eye. Ballistic coefficients, wind drift, "dope," MILs, MOA, 1st Focal Plane, 2nd Focal Plane, bipods, cant, parallax, and PRACTICE all come into play here.

If there is ever a chance that you will shoot at 200yd, practice at that distance. 300yd? practice at 300. And NEVER shoot further than you've practiced for: I took 5 shots because I had only shot to 200yd, and at 273 I had to keep correcting for bullet drop. One of my hunting partners, a 14 year old who routinely shoots out to 600, dropped his pig with one shot--a headshot, to the eyeball--while shooting prone (I was standing. Now I know what sort of rest to use/have).

Long range shooting is not a joke. Please don't shoot if you haven't practiced at that distance. It's better to let the animal slip away, healthy and unharmed, than to put it through a miserable few hours before it dies or you can finish it off. Or worse, have it live with a bullet lodged inside of it, in pain every day because of lead poisoning or a badly healed bone.

You had to take those shots?

You had to take those shots?

Maybe you will finally learn a .22-250 is not a do-all cartridge


That and learn to shoot at 300 yards.



300 yards, while a good distance, is not unachievble. It's within the realm of common big game hunting

You had to take those shots?

I should have known better than to post anything asking for advice. Y'all are a tough crowd: darned if you try to know, darned if you don't know.

It's the closest I could have gotten.

That is not the proper answer to the question. The reason should be obvious upon reflection.

I'll not weigh in on the larger issue, as I'm not really sure what advice you are seeking/giving from your OP.

I have hunted all my life and never had to take a shot over 150 yards. Yes I left a few animals to walk away. I try to stalk until I am close enough for a good clean kill. I've shot antelope in Wyoming and mountain goat in British Columbia, got within 40 yards, plus mule and whitetail. However my wife takes shots at 200 -300 yards routinely. She has taken 24 shots and has 24 kills. So, each to his own. The hunting world is big enough for all of us without us attacking each other.......PETA will do that without our help.

But is makes these threads sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring if we aren't slamming each other.

Pretty sure that someone is going to [censored] on this too, but I will go ahead and try to clear things up a bit.

I see SapperTitan's point that I'm just trying to gain attention or get my post count up or whatever. I see how y'all may see this post that way.
But that wasn't what I was trying to
do. No sir.
I put that up there so that y'all could point out some fallacies in my points made--y'all didn't see the point I was trying to make, only the fact that I missed a pig twice and the numbers "22-250." All I'm trying to do is to not have people who are just barely getting into hunting and shooting think that shooting past 300yd is the same as to shooting under 150yd. I put my failures in there to back up that point: when you don't practice, you miss. When you use a small caliber with a non-head/neck shot at a distance further than 200yd, then you're in for some prayer and stress. I've learned a lot from here and am trying to pass on very good information from here to people who are more novice than me. I'm still young, but I have been hunting for 9 years--is that worth nothing? I've made my share of mistakes, mistakes that I've realized because THF has showed me that these are mistakes.
The whole point of my big long anecdotal "rant" was to basically say this (to the brand-new hunters who I am addressing, not Texas Hunting Forum because y'all ain't brand new): hit a target at X distance before you attempt to hit an animal, because there are more factors at those ranges and beyond than under them, which I have learned the hard way. (X>200yd)

And I must ask: what is wrong with promoting clean kills, regardless of distance, animal, caliber, or scope magnification? I don't see a pet peeve to derive from "ethical hunting," however you want to define it. I'm not telling YOU what to do, I'm telling people who don't know what they're doing what NOT to do so that they don't screw up like I have.

You just cannot have a different opinion? Chital your post is not out in left field.

It absoutly is not, if I infered it was I appoligise. I think he did a bang up job trying to teach what he has learned. To do that well takes practous and time. Not every harsh statement here was helpfull, but several offered him guidence.

I am proud he ts trying to pass along knolage, and even more so that he respectfully defended his position in a Mature maner. My intention was one of encouragement.

Young man, you are experienceing what all of us old farts experianced many years ago: growing up.

I belive your intensions were good and sincere.

Here is the thing. You are trying to pass along knowalage (admirable) to your peers, but you seek wisdome from these men and women you admire.

You are now learning the differance between the two right now, here in this post.

Wisdom comes with time, and maturity.

I belive some of the answers here were harsh, but that is what you asked for (relise it or not), and you have been given a great gift.

Please reread all the post and look at the wisdom that has been shaired with you.

I think you expected to hear praise for a job well done, but got something much more valuable .

Keep on swinging, you are not far from where you want to be.

You will make these guys proud I promice.

Not gonna bash you chital but you have to realize you can't preach ethical shots and post you had to take the shot. everyone is comfortable at different distances and with different calibers. You need to think about what you said and my advice is if the shot is not ethical on the first hour of the hunt then it's not on the last hour.

Very true. I'm working towards that level of ethics, but for now I'm pretty trigger happy

Not sure how it fits into this conversation, but I have lease buddies who start blasting at doves when they're still 100 yards away. Is this considered long range hunting, or do I have stupid lease buddies? I ask them why we bother setting up the Mojos within 20 yards if they're shooting at 100.

I think the better term is they are steering the dove to another field where their buddies (who are better shots) are hunting, thereby increasing their hunting yield and illegally claiming their limit while not actually hunting there

It's all about responsibility in the end. If you take a shot you are responsible for the outcome. Shooting axis with a small caliber rifle at long range is not responsible... It's just common sense. I think you learned your lesson though when you chased her through the woods to get the job done.....experience

If you made the same shot will a bigger caliber and better bullet things would've gone better and you definitely know that....common sense

If you have the gun/bullet to get the job done at the distance and have shot the range before and know your capable through experience then you can take the shot and know your ok. If you feel uneasy and unsure you just don't do it...it's just responsible to hunt that way.

This is also why I will not neck shoot a game animal, the target area is very small which makes the chance of missing your target point of impact that much greater when you start taking longer shots. Its just to little of a margin for error