Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
There is no replacement for knowledge and experience based confidence!
The limitation on most guns is the person pulling the trigger! Not only do you have bullet drop, you have bullet drift. Both can be overcome by understanding the sentence above. Go shoot what you have at a 300 yard range before "pulling the trigger" on the newest biggest baddest whatever is my advice to you. In addition a way to accurately find the range is important too. I work this out then write it on a piece of card stock and tape it to my stock. Windage and bullet drop. There are good scopes that can help you with both. But before all that, simply take a deer sized target out 250 yards and look at it through your scope! a .270 or similar caliber can be sighted in at 25 yards and it will drop back through the bullseye at about 225 yards so you could conceivably shoot down a 6" pipe for about 260 yards and never touch the inside edge of the pipe! Conceivably and reality are 2 different things entirely.
A person who lives the sentence at the top of this post might be able to make the shot, a person who doesn't could never make the shot. I would wager that 99% of the hunters in the last 100 years never shot more than 100 yards in their lives and most of them did the 100 yards from a bench.
Here is a link to get started and math it all out, but there is no substitute to the sentence at the top of my post!
gundata.org
If I start hunting Ohio again and do so with a gun instead of my archery equipment, I have a shotgun, a pistol or a flintlock. All will service me to 100 yards. If I were to shoot farther, I would consider the .350 or perhaps a modern inline. But I expect that the vast majority of my shots would be well short of the 100 yard limit I would have. Outside of that I begin the stalk! Just my 2 cents here, but I realize 2 cents don't go as far as it used to!
Best of luck and success to you regardless of your decisions folks! I love to see your successes here on TOO
The limitation on most guns is the person pulling the trigger! Not only do you have bullet drop, you have bullet drift. Both can be overcome by understanding the sentence above. Go shoot what you have at a 300 yard range before "pulling the trigger" on the newest biggest baddest whatever is my advice to you. In addition a way to accurately find the range is important too. I work this out then write it on a piece of card stock and tape it to my stock. Windage and bullet drop. There are good scopes that can help you with both. But before all that, simply take a deer sized target out 250 yards and look at it through your scope! a .270 or similar caliber can be sighted in at 25 yards and it will drop back through the bullseye at about 225 yards so you could conceivably shoot down a 6" pipe for about 260 yards and never touch the inside edge of the pipe! Conceivably and reality are 2 different things entirely.
A person who lives the sentence at the top of this post might be able to make the shot, a person who doesn't could never make the shot. I would wager that 99% of the hunters in the last 100 years never shot more than 100 yards in their lives and most of them did the 100 yards from a bench.
Here is a link to get started and math it all out, but there is no substitute to the sentence at the top of my post!
Ballistic Calculator GunData.org
Thanks for using the external ballistic calculator from GunData.org that accurately details all aspects of the bullets trajectory the millisecond it leaves the guns barrel.
If I start hunting Ohio again and do so with a gun instead of my archery equipment, I have a shotgun, a pistol or a flintlock. All will service me to 100 yards. If I were to shoot farther, I would consider the .350 or perhaps a modern inline. But I expect that the vast majority of my shots would be well short of the 100 yard limit I would have. Outside of that I begin the stalk! Just my 2 cents here, but I realize 2 cents don't go as far as it used to!
Best of luck and success to you regardless of your decisions folks! I love to see your successes here on TOO
