Deer don’t have an aiming dot and your groups aren’t really that small.

[doc holiday13]

Lastly, I love the idea of the cold bore challenge. Once a load is dialed on a rifle I like to shoot 1 or 2 cold bore anytime I go to the 300 or 600 yard ranges. It's a confidence builder or a sign that something needs attention.

.

Thats how you should shoot ANY hunt rifle. Group size is good for knowing how consistent your gun and load is. But you only get 1 cold bore shot and sometimes a 2nd follow up. You should know your cold bore impact and have your scope adjusted for that. Takes me forever to develop a handload for hunting. I take 1 shot and immediately eject the case, i do a 10 second count, rack the 2nd round in, aim, fire. Then I let the gun sit for 10-15 minutes before I shoot again.

My PRS gun is different. Its actually quasi okay if my first shot is 1/3-3/4 MOA different impact just as long as the other 9 rounds group well

 

[Lawnboi]

We looked at animal shaped targets, but once you’re looking at a small enough section to staple on a target frame, it’s pretty blocky. Do you think a 20” wide section of this target would be functionally much different from a 20” square of cardboard? We probably will do a full size deer target at some point just for fun.

View attachment 846740

If not full size I’d prefer to shoot at something that is around the size of the vitals of the animal I’m shooting if I’m trying to determine effectiveness.

If your shooting at it in that 300-500 range id just buy a full size coyote to shoot at if you want to shoot at a shape that you cant just center up on.

Nothing beats paper for humbling a person, but steel does have the advantage of pushing a shooter to watch for a splash/reaction, which can be related to shooting living things. I only really use paper at distance to verify group size/drop and really that’s it.

 

[CJF]

Is the center of a small dot is the same size as the center of a 20” target?

 

[rayporter]

i dont completely agree but wont argue.

i have felt the best way to get a new hunter to learn to hit vitals is to hang an apple in a 5 gallon bucket that is hanging and can rotate so they understand that hitting the apple requires some thought and understanding of the angles involved.

 

[dieselchessy]

When i was teaching my kids i bought a bunch of cardboard deer targets at Sportsmans i believe.
They are a bit smaller than real deer.
We started out with them shooting the painted side, and then after they got better I put them up backwards so they were shooting the brown side and had to pick a point based on body proportions.
It taught the kids where to aim on a brown deer.
I also did some black sharpy drawing in the shoulder crease.

These look to be similar/same.

Amazon.com

 

[SouthPaw]

You can still aim/hit small on animals. Practice bracketing on larger targets or animal targets at distance. Preferably targets with feedback. Obviously wind becomes a thing.

Elk from a very recent hunt. 2 shots an inch apart at 405 yards.



On real animals, a thorough understanding of animals' different reactions to bullet impacts of specific body parts helps with spotting/knowing your impact locations at distance.

 

[Mike D Texas]

During the off season I typically use plates based around the size of animal vitals, but it’s mostly to work on fundamentals.

As season gets closer I buy life size animal targets of whatever I plan to hunt that season and place them in front of the same plates that I shoot at in the off season. That way I at least get positive confirmation of a vital hit at distance.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro