New shooter, gear and ballistic questions

[Clearwaterarcher]

Little background info:

I’m mainly an archery hunter but have shot rifles on and off my whole life. I’ve killed a pile of whitetails but picked up a b-tag this year because I’m only going to have 4-5 days to hunt during bow season(elk). I’m really looking to dial in my gear before rifle season and need some pointers.

Rifle Setup- I’ve been shooting my dads old browning bbr chambered in .270 for years and it’s a deadly accurate rifle. It shoots 130 grain Barnes under half minute. I recently bought a Swaro x5 3.5-18x44 P from my uncle and once I get all my ballistic information for the load I will buy a custom turret for it from outdoorsmans.

Gear questions- The one thing I feel I’m truly lacking is a good quality rangefinder. As stated above I’m an archery hunter as well so I want something that will calculate EHR but will be mainly geared toward rifle shooting. I’m not afraid to spend money here. I was looking at either the Leica range master 2400-R or the sig kilo 2200 bdx. Would love to hear your recommendations on a solid unit.

Bullet Questions- What bullet do you guys recommend for shooting elk at a maximum of 500 yards out of a .270? As stated above the gun likes 130 grain Barnes lrx. But, I’ve also heard really good things about 140 grain Accubonds as well. I’m going to buy custom ammo from Unknownmunitions.

Ballistic Questions- I’ve been looking at the ballistic information that I will need to gather for the outdoorsmans custom turret on my Swaro x5. My question is- how important is temperature, humidity, and elevation when shooting a maximum of 500 yards? It says on their website the elevation is accurate +- 2000 feet. I live and hunt in north Idaho so I was just going to set the elevation at 4,000 and be done with it. For temperature their website said the turret is accurate +- 20 degrees so I was going to set it at 40. I’ve heard humidity really isn’t all that important when shooting relatively close range so I’m just assuming I’ll set that at 50%? Would love to hear your guys thoughts on these three factors.


Jack

 

[SneakyThunderCat]

If your not afraid to spend money on a rangefinder my advice is to get a ballistic rangefinder and ditch the turret idea. It will give you the most accurate data in real time and you won't have to worry about factors like density altitude, humidity, temp, etc.. I'm a fan of the Sig Kilo 2400. I pair mine with a $40 Caldwell wind meter.

As far as the bullets go, the heavier bullets buck the wind better better than lighter ones. There is less room for error if you're shooting a heavy bullet that gets pushed 3 inches at 500 yd vs a lighter bullet that will move twice as far with the same crosswind.

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[Keith Stone]

Sig kilo line should do everything you will need it to do. I agree with above about ditching the custom turret and just running your solver. There are several available on your phone AB, Shooter, 4dof. Getting one any playing with it will help steer you in the right direction as far as bullet selection as well. The reason in general people are not a fan of the custom turret option is ballistic curves require tweaking 99.8% of the time so yeah you stated your max distance at 500 yards at an animal but if you say your max range with a bow is at 50 yards then how far are you practicing with your bow? So let’s say your turret was minute of animal to 500 yards which there’s a fair chance it would be there is a far greater chance it will not line up at greater distances where you should spend the majority of your time practicing. Solvers allow you to take “try dope” out to the range and shoot it to acquire actual dope so then you can adjust your MV/BC to match the solver to your load. Once you have this data you can start bringing in atmospherics and create charts you can tape on your rifle for different temp/humidity/elevation situations.

 

[Clearwaterarcher]

If your not afraid to spend money on a rangefinder my advice is to get a ballistic rangefinder and ditch the turret idea. It will give you the most accurate data in real time and you won't have to worry about factors like density altitude, humidity, temp, etc.. I'm a fan of the Sig Kilo 2400. I pair mine with a $40 Caldwell wind meter.

As far as the bullets go, the heavier bullets buck the wind better better than lighter ones. There is less room for error if you're shooting a heavy bullet that gets pushed 3 inches at 500 yd vs a lighter bullet that will move twice as far with the same crosswind.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

The Kilo 2400 abs?

 

[Honyock]

For elk with a 270, I have used 150 gr Nosler Partitions and have had no issues if you put it where it's supposed to go.