How are you training for long range?

[Lawnboi]

For most hunting rifles working perfectly, with great shooting, the best ammo, in the most stable position, and with no wind is going to be about 1 MOA. So for the 750 yard shot discussed, you are giving up 7.5" in variation just in the cone of fire from perfect shooting with a perfect rifle and perfect ammo. That leaves extremely little room for error.

My main practice is an 8" kill zone assumption. I shoot and practice on a 8" plate backing up further and further until I'm no long consistent in field conditions (wind, shooting of pack, seated, etc.). That is my max range for that position.

Add wind. A 6mph rifle at 750 yards…. 1mph of wind is changing poi more than .1mil. It takes no time for your cone of fire to get quite a bit bigger.

IMO once you hit the point where your mph makes 1mph make .1 mils things become a lot more difficult

 

[Southern Lights]

Add wind. A 6mph rifle at 750 yards…. 1mph of wind is changing poi more than .1mil. It takes no time for your cone of fire to get quite a bit bigger.

IMO once you hit the point where your mph makes 1mph make .1 mils things become a lot more difficult

There is a lot to go wrong for sure. One thing with shooting on plates is it downplays the significance of a miss. I have seen many times someone walk a shot onto a plate, then after taking five shots to get on it, hit it another five+ times and think everything is fine. They forgot about the five shots it took to get there.

Shot 1 - Off the plate to the left = Complete miss of animal and it starts running. All your range dope is now off.
Shot 2 - A little off the plate left, but low = You clipped the front leg of the animal or underside of chest. It runs off and dies.
Shot 3 - Over correct and now hit far right as wind shifted and low = You shot it in the rear leg. Ran off and died.
Shot 4 - Off the plate to the right but almost hit. = You gut shot it. Ran off an died.
Shot 5 - Great windage, but shot just high over the plate = You clipped the spine. It dropped stunned, then got up to run and died.

Shot 6-10 - My rifle is on and I would have killed the animal.

So really in this kind of practice your first shot is the only one that matters. If you can't put it on a target after setting up under time pressure, I think it's very misleading what will happen when the pressure is on.

One of the most valuable things I do for LR hunting is shoot in comps where the targets are life-size targets. The kill zones are steel, but the rest of the target is rubber conveyor belt. If you hit it rings. If you miss you hear the thud. It keeps things in perspective about reality of taking long range shots because a miss is obviously bad. A plate standing alone misses this important part of what the miss means when it actually happens on an animal.

 

[WKR]

Shot another confirmation 10 round group out of a batch of 50 i loaded this morning. I have yet to shoot anything bigger than a .7-.8 moa 10 round group with this load. Thats at 100 or at 500. Very consistent and accurate.

 

[WKR]

Put the coon out today at 955
First round cold bore impact!
And a follow up for good measure.
Then swung over and rung the 750

 

[WKR]

Practice paid off today.
Took a buck at 600. 133 berger worked well at 1980 fps impact velocity