That’s everywhere not just back east. Most people don’t shoot a box of ammo a year. Personally I shot way less than a box a year and most years don’t shoot at all because I mostly archery hunt. However I have shot a lot in the past and shoot well, my wife and kids hunt with rifles too.
I think all this zero moving is a little blown out of proportion. I’ve seen hundreds of elk killed with guns that almost only shoot at animals several only fire one bullet a year. My grandfather who is 92 has probably killed 60+ elk most with his old 30-06 he got back in the 50’s shooting ammo older than me with an old fixed power scope. My father shoots an older Leupold Goldring and has also killed over 50 elk with that rifle his previous scope was a high zoom tasco. Growing up we would go out and make sure our rifles were shooting 3” high at 100yrds and we were good to hunt. We’ve killed animals from 10-450 yards before range finders were mainstream and zero were killed with long range precision rifles.
I built a 280AI in 2013, spent a ton of time working a load and hitting steel at 1K with a midway vortex 5-15 mil dot HST and took the rifle on one unsuccessful hunt. Since my wife and boys have killed around 20 big game animals with that rifle from 20 yards to 350. Last year during the cold bore challenge I dug out the AI and shot it for the first time in a couple of years at a 600 yard 8” plate in a 20mpg crosswind my first day I adjusted the wrong way for wind and missed just to the edge of the target. The second day I held for wind and dead centered it, 600 the scope still has the same zero stop shims in it from 2013 and has never been adjusted. This year I missed both days at 600 but after the second miss I put two in a row on the plate. Maybe my zero was off of or maybe I just made poor shots since it was super windy again.
A few weeks ago I put 6 shots in a 12” circle at 600 yards after hitting every target from 100-600 with first shot hits. I checked my zero and it was off by more than I’d like and my groups were about 1.3MOA. I came back and got in here and ended up convinced I needed a new scope and ended up with a RS1.2 and am starting load development over. Honestly the rifle has been great and probably would have worked awesome for another 10 years and piled up a ton more critters. I’m sure it will be better with the new load and scope but probably not any better at what it was designed for. Hitting a 2MOA target at 500 is easily enough to kill a big game animal and most of the scopes in the drop test are not getting out of wack more than a MOA.
Anyway with the great tools we have today it’s easy to be a good shooter. My sister and her husband bought a brand new Ruger American one week before elk season this year I helped them zero it and sight in their new leupold. After it was zeroed we put the data off the ammo box into a drop app and she got first round it’s out to 400 on 10” steel targets and hit 400 3 times in a row her first time ever shooting a brand new rifle. We went out and she killed a 6 point bull using my shoulder as a rest and standing on a steep downhill shot with now cover around. The shot was 150 yards and could have been made with a 5MOA rifle.
I really think all off these drop test are irrelevant to 95% of hunters. I’m sure that’s why they are on the long range form. Even still for most people I believe most decent scopes will work well. It’s smart to check your zero every year before hunting and limit shots to what you’re confident in. Personally I think it would be fun to shoot an animal from a very long way but the hunter in me always gets close for a gimme shot.
It would be ideal to have a weapon that was 100% reliable all the time but the biggest factor in most shooting is the person pulling the trigger and for almost all hunting it really doesn’t matter. Shooting 2+ MOA is plenty accurate for most all hunting even at moderate ranges and most scopes meet that threshold easily.
