When to hold vs when to dial?

[TaperPin]

If the goal is killing animals and not just playing with long range toys, I’m simply encouraging long range shooters to have a plan that best maximizes their odds of making a killing hit at all distances. That’s being good at holding at short ranges for quick shots, and being good dialing past that, and knowing when to do either. Quick short range skills makes an accomplished long range shooter more deadly, not less. Would you take a long range shooting class that states they want to make you less deadly from 0 to 700 yards? Yet, having no short range plan does just that.

Plenty of long and medium range guys also have zero interest in even practicing off hand shots and will let an unexpected 100 yard animal walk away if the shot has to be offhand. I’ve had to ask accomplished long range guys why they didn’t take what is an easy shot with a heavy rifle. This is unfortunate, because with moderate practice shooters with heavy long range guns can add 50% to their effective offhand range in a handful of weeks.

I can see where you’re coming from. I have ballistic binos, so my glassing and ranging are the same step. In your example of 275, I’d probably just do a quick drop calc and send it at 0.7 mils.

When an animal jumps up or suddenly pokes out of some brush unannounced what you are describing isn’t realistic - your binoculars aren’t up, but you have to dig them out, hold steady enough to range, fiddle around to get the rifle off your shoulder or gun carrier and into position. It’s a classic mistake of young hunters to fiddle around instead of focusing 100% on getting the rifle up and the shot off for shots in this range. If PRS matches had random targets pop up unannounced inbetween fixed stages 300 yards and in, with a score based on how quickly you made the shot, you’d be all over holding for those distances.

I suspect your argument is going to be that you are only holding out to shorter ranges and perhaps failing after that.

Short range holdover doesn’t take the place of dialing longer ranges. For every shooter they should test themselves and their equipment enough to know what techniques give them the best hits at any given yardage, shooting position, animal movement and time allowed. I used to be surprised at long distance shooters who don’t understand how hitting moving targets works, another skill that would make a long distance shooter more deadly not less, but that’s a different topic.

 

[robby denning]

I can understand how it sounds quick to always follow the same procedure, and the more someone sticks to it the faster it is, but there’s no way to range a distance out to 300 yards, dial and shoot as fast as someone can simply hold and pull the trigger. It ticks off my nephew all the time when we’re shooting rocks and he points one out, brings the range finder up to eye level for a reading about the time my rifle goes Bang Bang, dead rock.

It’s not the only way to do things, but not dialing is simply a little bit faster. I’ve lost 3 animals I’d like to have on the wall by a matter of one or two seconds, so it’s been a priority most of my adult life to speed up my process as much as possible, which includes what distance the scope is set while walking around, knowing holds instinctively to 400 yards, being good enough at estimating to 300 yards to not have to range, not getting into a slower more steady position if a less steady faster position is good enough, carrying the rifle in hand as often as possible, not zooming a scope in or out, good trigger control so the first time the crosshairs are on target the gun fires, don’t use scope caps unless conditions warrant them, and holding 2 MOA on a 10 mph wind call at all distances to 300. As much time as I’ve spent fine tuning, I’d love to find extra speed somewhere and would be the first to dial if it were as fast or faster.

Even as close as a few years ago I can’t remember any of the cool kids admitting they walk around with their scope dialed to anything other than 100 yards, but now there are plenty who follow something like I do. All my scopes, even the ones that dial, are set for 300 yards. That makes it as simple as a hand width low for 100 & 200, hand width high at 350. The crazy thing is it works with any cartridge. Check out your rifle on a ballistics program - when it’s set to 300 yards, not knowing what bullet, velocity or cartridge I could use those same holds if it were a 243 or 300 PRC.

How valuable it is kind of depends on how someone hunts. There are some kinds of hunting where it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry and shots are quite predictable and not rushed. Eastman’s video of elk hunting the Red Desert is a prime example. Meat hunting in any area with tons of animals is another. Who cares if a doe or little buck walks behind a tree, another is right around the corner. But walking a ridge in western Wyoming when a big buster buck could stand up and trot off at any minute speed matters. When a bear is moving through small openings, speed matters. If a elk walks out of the timber 300 yards away, takes a look at you walking out in the open, turns around and high tails it back in, speed matters.

Nothing I say is secret or not testable. I didn’t come up with any part of it, but combined bits and pieces of what others have done before me. Someone should shoot different scenarios for themselves and see what’s faster for them. In fact it would be much more valuable for someone to shoot it themselves rather than take the word of some random dude online.

QUICK!!! Deer about 275 just paused at a ridgetop what do you dial? I drop on my butt, hold dead on and bang bang. The other thing I do at short range is round up and not get caught up in mentally splitting a hand width in half, because it doesn’t matter at that range, and it shouldn’t matter to someone working in MILs.

u and me the same Not taking away from the dialing guys on this LR forum at all--much respect for their discipline and systems--just saying what's worked for me at the distances I limit myself to. (500ish and in). When needed, speed kills.

 

[Chris in TN]

This is the long range hunting forum. I get that. And at the end of the day, my hunting isn't really 'long range'. 90% of my hunting and 98% of my animal shooting has happened inside of 300 yards. And I get that there are people who hunt things, in places, where getting shots inside of 500 is rare. But I still believe that for most of us, we are better off focusing on that 0-300 yard fast shot, and letting the 300+ realm be sort of a separate sub-discipline that is secondary to our usual 0-300 shots.

Maybe it's 0-200 for one guy and 0-400 for another, but, I still think most of us will spend most of our hunting days in places where under-500 is more likely than over-500.

And if that's the case, there are over-500 gear choices that make less sense, for the under-500 crowd.

I see things taught as unquestionable dogma on this forum, for the 500-1000 crowd, that I believe to be counterproductive for the 0-500 guy. I also believe there are ideas that work well for the guy hunting late-season cow elk in the wide open snow, that are terrible for the guy hunting whitetails at 125 yards in a pine plantation next to a standing cornfield.

(I don't dial anything inside of 300, except .22lr).

 

[Formidilosus]

I see things taught as unquestionable dogma on this forum, for the 500-1000 crowd, that I believe to be counterproductive for the 0-500 guy.

I don’t disagree with your post; I am curious what the “unquestionable dogma” is that you meant?

 

[Chris in TN]

I don’t disagree with your post; I am curious what the “unquestionable dogma” is that you meant?

-scope optical quality doesn't matter (It's not that you teach that it doesn't matter, it's that people take what you teach and oversimplify it when they repeat it): it matters a ton on eastern whitetail in the last minute of shooting light on cloudy days, which is something I encounter about 50x more often than I drop a rifle.

-everyone needs a dead-on-at-100 zero: There's no reason to stop using some form of MPBR zero at all, especially for people who largely shoot inside of 500, and regardless of what ranges you expect to shoot at, there's simply no real downside to the 100-yard zero. If you're going from sea level to 10,000' with any modern caliber, the difference in 100-yard POI with, say, a 250-yard zero, is usually (much!) less than a single scope click at 100 yards. If you want to account for that, you can easily open up your ballistics app and fudge your zero range by a yard or five or whatever. This is simply math and people shouldn't be afraid of it. Besides, there's no guarantee that you'll have a 100-yard range to check zero. I've showed up to hunting places where there was a steel target hanging at 200 yards, or a public range where the best you could do was 80 (so you have to check your app and figure where you should be hitting anyway) or maybe the shortest realistic range was 150 (IIRC, last time, it was like 135 yards) or the place was crowded and there was a target hanging unshot at 200 and you could either shoot it or wait for the crowd to leave before you hung a proper 100 yard target.

-Mrads are superior to MOA: Neither is better or worse than the other. If you use one, you'll get more proficient with it, I'm sure, but being able to do 'speed hacks' with one system doesn't make it superior. You can very simply and easily do 'hacks' for both windage and elevation with either system that will work perfectly well in the 300 to 600 yard window where such hacks are feasible. At some point beyond maybe 600 yards, nobody should be using such 'hacks' in a sport hunting situation anyway. Take the time to compensate precisely as possible for everything, or don't shoot. I've seen you say that you've never seen a MOA shooter that can do his 'hacks' as fast as an MRAD shooter. That may be true but doesn't necessarily condemn the MOA system in general without knowing (or having a large sample of) exactly what system he's actually using or what his/their background is before they show up to your class. Also, if a guy gets hung up with MOA because he can't quickly round to the nearest 1/4moa....ehhh, he needs remedial math classes, not as simpler system.

-FFP vs SFP: I like FFP reticles but the ones made thus far generally SUCK in low light, which, again, is a problem in eastern whitetail hunting. I'd much rather have a SFP reticle that I could see at the last minute of legal light, and if you're using a scope that can be shot at max magnification on longer shots, it's no hindrance...which brings up a related issue:

-The teaching that people need to shoot on lower magnifications to spot their shots. This is a two-part problem. First, in eastern low light hunting, there are plenty of times where it's the last minute of light and you have to balance the need to *see* the target (which is almost dark) against the ability to maximize light transmission. Yes, there are times where you can dial magnification *higher than* the point where your exit pupil begins to get smaller, because being able to resolve the target a little bit better can be more important than maximum light transmission. I've had to dial to 8x or 10x to even *see* a deer well enough to make a shot at first/last light, and I'm talking about shots inside of 100 yards here - not long range. Either way, the deer might just be a dark blob, but a dark blob that I can place crosshairs on is better than a smaller but brighter blob that I can't resolve an aiming point on.

In fairness, I've also shot 500 yards with 4x. Sometimes that works fine. But I've killed a ton of deer that were very hard to see at first/last light. I've shot deer that were in thickets where I had to thread a bullet past a tree. I shot one on 16x once at maybe 75 yards. I could see a baseball sized opening and enough bits and pieces to figure out that the deer's neck was centered in that opening. Perfect hit, that I could not have made on 8x, even in good light.

In short, I'm not saying that 8x or so isn't sufficient for *most* shots, but there are exceptions. I think a lot of western guys miss these exceptions.

The second part of that involves shot-spotting. I submit to you that the vast majority of 'shot spotting' is a phenomena that happens when people are taking shots that they simply shouldn't be taking. That's not to say it isn't important or useful or even preferable to know exactly where you hit, but if people stuck with high-confidence shots (like 95% confidence of vital hit) it by and large simply wouldn't matter whether they saw the hit or not - nevermind that a whole, whole lot of 'shot spotting' involves seeing a hide-ripple that can be a bit misleading. I watched a video this week that looked like the guy (poster on this forum) hit really high. Later he shows the shot location, probably a full 3/4-1moa below where I thought it hit based on the video. In fairness, his video did give a good indication of his left/right error and I'll freely concede the importance of that in windy shooting. But at the end of the day shot-spotting is easy on a painted white steel plate but much more complex on an animal and can honestly be misleading. It should be valued, but not above all else at all costs - so there is a place for higher magnification. I'm not saying shooters need 16x for average close shots, and I can absolutely see where elk, especially in winter snow, could be quite easy to make hits on at 6x or 8x even at very long range. But it doesn't always work that way with eastern whitetails.

Again, I'm not saying there's no importance to knowing where you hit. What I'm saying is that there are times where it really does help to be able to see the target better and sometimes that requires magnification beyond what might be optimum for long-range shot spotting. And, again, if that's happening at a range where you're confident in the shot, whether you see the impact or not doesn't matter - the animal will be (or, should be) laying dead nearby.

In the interest of being fair here, shot-spotting helped me recover a deer once. I didn't see the hit but I filmed it and was able to confirm that she did the thing where she reared up on her hind legs at the shot like heart-shot critters do, then there was a flurry of deer activity in the field, then after they'd all scattered, one doe ran back through the field at a weird angle.....it was her. No blood trail. Heart shot below what I'd call good killing speed with a 6.8spc/110vmax, no exit, bullet lodged in off shoulder, she ran 100 yards and died, but I couldn't tell what direction she ran until I watched the video, and on the assumption that the last deer in the video was her, I walked right to her *after* I watched the video, after not finding her or her trail at first. So, yes, shot-spotting, or at least seeing the animal's reaction to the hit and direction of travel, can be very important, I'll concede - but it doesn't always trump being able to resolve a small target.

Also, there have been lots of times over the years that I've shot deer where even if I'd been using a .22lr I couldn't have spotted the shot, as they were standing in tall CRP fields or standing corn or back a few feet or yards into a pine plantation full of briars. They simply vanish at the shot. Sometimes they're laying right where you last saw them. It's especially common with really fast calibers on close shots.

In short - I'm not saying shot spotting is not a good thing, but it isn't always of primal importance
I'm not saying 6x to 8x isn't sufficient for most shooting; I am saying there are narrow scenarios where more is better.
I'm not saying MOA is superior to MRAD; I am saying both are perfectly serviceable systems.
I'm not saying SFP is better than FFP. I'm saying both have strengths and weaknesses and while I think the biggest weakness of FFP could be fixed with proper reticle design, nobody has done it yet.
I'm not saying there's no value in a 100-yard zero. I'm simply saying that MPBR or some variant thereof has a lot of advantages in typical hunting scenarios for most of us.
I'm not saying that high end optics make up for scopes being unreliable. I am saying that there are 'passed the drop test' scopes I'd never buy because of their 'meh' glass. Glass quality does matter. Not always, but in low light, it really does matter, and there are absolutely scenarios where a scope that might not pass your drop tests but has shown to handle more normal use, with good glass, is of more value than a bulletproof scope with 'meh' glass.

(splitting this into two posts)

 

[Chris in TN]

I think the glass reviews that you and others do on this site are one of the best things happening in the entire world of hunting optics, and the shooting class you run sounds awesome. But I think it needs to be said that there are things that work very well for the more typical 0-300 or 0-500 shots most hunters take, and I don't see it as wise to abandon those things in order to set yourself up for 500-1000 yard hunting unless you're going to spend the majority of your time doing that. And that simply doesn't describe most of us.

I also get that running a bunch of people through a class, there's value in everyone doing things the same way - 8x scope max with FFP reticle zeroed at 100 yards with .mrad adjustments, low recoil to spot your shots better (don't get me wrong, I heartily support the lower-recoil movement). I absolutely appreciate that you can run a class more efficiently that way. Granted. But that doesn't mean that everyone should walk away thinking they always have to do things X way or that X way is better than Y way (especially if they prefer X because Y forces them to round to the nearest 1/4....goodness, people, teach your kids to do math!). I get that a lot of people don't want to hear strengths and weaknesses of different systems, they want 'show me one way that works'. But, still, they walk away convinced that the one way, is the only way.

I'm not sure if these are things you teach, or things that people sort of oversimplify as they internalize them, or if they're learning them elsewhere. I just see a lot get repeated, here and elsewhere, as if it's dogmatic ultimate truth, when reality is a bit more nuanced. Guys will argue endlessly about moa vs mrad or FFP/SFP (most don't even argue about 100 yard vs MPBR anymore, most just do 100 yards). It's just.....reality is more complex than that. There's often more than one way to do a thing and one way might work better in some scenarios than others and you lose that if you just teach everyone that there's one way.

And I'm not blaming any of the above on you in particular, I'm just responding to you since you asked.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

I think the glass reviews that you and others do on this site are one of the best things happening in the entire world of hunting optics, and the shooting class you run sounds awesome. But I think it needs to be said that there are things that work very well for the more typical 0-300 or 0-500 shots most hunters take, and I don't see it as wise to abandon those things in order to set yourself up for 500-1000 yard hunting unless you're going to spend the majority of your time doing that. And that simply doesn't describe most of us.

I also get that running a bunch of people through a class, there's value in everyone doing things the same way - 8x scope max with FFP reticle zeroed at 100 yards with .mrad adjustments, low recoil to spot your shots better (don't get me wrong, I heartily support the lower-recoil movement). I absolutely appreciate that you can run a class more efficiently that way. Granted. But that doesn't mean that everyone should walk away thinking they always have to do things X way or that X way is better than Y way (especially if they prefer X because Y forces them to round to the nearest 1/4....goodness, people, teach your kids to do math!). I get that a lot of people don't want to hear strengths and weaknesses of different systems, they want 'show me one way that works'. But, still, they walk away convinced that the one way, is the only way.

I'm not sure if these are things you teach, or things that people sort of oversimplify as they internalize them, or if they're learning them elsewhere. I just see a lot get repeated, here and elsewhere, as if it's dogmatic ultimate truth, when reality is a bit more nuanced. Guys will argue endlessly about moa vs mrad or FFP/SFP (most don't even argue about 100 yard vs MPBR anymore, most just do 100 yards). It's just.....reality is more complex than that. There's often more than one way to do a thing and one way might work better in some scenarios than others and you lose that if you just teach everyone that there's one way.

And I'm not blaming any of the above on you in particular, I'm just responding to you since you asked.

I agree with you in general here. In saying that…

This is a western backpack hunting focused site. There are always going to be niche situations and hunts where “something else” may be “better”.

Would 1-4X with “amazing” glass have been better for the deer I’ve killed in the woods at first and last light under 50 yards? Sure.

Did 6-8x with “okay glass” still kill them? Yep.

The broader application of Rokslide favors certain scopes, reticles, and “zoom” ranges because they work. And they still work for most of the niche applications that guys “think” they have to have a “just so” scope to be able to kill anything.

It’s all about compromise I suppose and setting up your gun for success in how you want to hunt.

My ideal woods gun is an open sight .308 bolt action which still gets used every year. Blasphemy I know. I was VERY close to brining that gun on my moose hunt as well but opted for the long range gun as I didn’t want to limit opportunities.

I think the broad and general comments on scopes here are assuming that most Rokslide members are focused on hunting in the backcountry. So that’s what gets discussed the most.