First are you hunting or shooting?
I am killing. Pure and simple. You can call it any of the beta buzz words you want to call it, like "taking" or "harvesting" or whatever, but at the end of my hunts, something dies. Period.
If I can do it at 25 yards, great. If it is at 800 yards. Still great.
I take the time to practice and understand my equipment, whether it is the Tikka franken-gun that I put together, the Satterlee rifle that I had built, or the GW rifle that I spent my money on. At the end of the day it is my decision to pull the trigger and I don't give a good gosh darn about your "ethics" or what you think people should, or shouldn't be doing. You do you and leave me the hell alone. It is people like you that are the reason I can't buy a bottle of bourbon on Sunday here in SC (i.e. people who want to legislate morality).
There are too many of Aaron’s type customers who want to shoot at 1000 yd mule deer, and elk but not put anywhere close to the amount of time in to become proficient and humane. His type is encouraging the let’s buy a 1000 yard hunting rifle.
You sure know a lot about Aaron's customers. I would bet my entire year's salary that you couldn't name 5 of them who you know personally. Also, there are quite a few "regular" factory rifles that are 1000 yard hunting rifle (just about every 7PRC or 300PRC, for example).
It’s all over the internet and the outdoor channel of these goons who are filming their hunts shooting 700-1000yd plus at mule deer, elk,pronghorn, etc.. and showing their incompetency wounding these animals on their you tube channels and tv shows. Not making this sh** up. They make blasting away and wounding animals at 700 + yards and make it seem this is normal and no big deal.
These shows are not promoting shooting game at 100 yds. but instead the new long range shooting at big game animals. Sure there are plenty of bubbas who can’t make a 100yd shot, but they aren’t the ones making 100’s of you tube promotional videos , infomercials, tv shows on this long range wounding.The hype is all about shooting long range and 93% of them should be shooting at 200yds on a good day.
What about all the ones who are killing animals at those distances. Or do you just assume that for every video that shows a successful hunt there are 2-3 shots that are not successful that aren't shown? Like all the folks who claim that the proponents of the small cartridges only show the successes but are secretly hiding multiple failures in order to push their "narrative". You should look up what "projection" is, because I believe you are doing it.
It sickens me watching the wounding of these majestic big game animals used as targets at long range .
Your feelings are showing. Animals are cool, yes. But they are animals. We hunt them in order to kill them. By definition they are targets. Pure and simple. If you think that wounding them with rifles or bows is cruel, you should spend some time in the woods and take a gander at the shit that Mother Nature throws at them. We are doing them a kindness by killing them as efficiently as we do.