Thread: Long Range Hunting and F-Class Target Shooting.

Originally Posted by 19Badger

There is a correlation between long range shooting and long range animal shooting, I don't consider long range shooting of animals as hunting.
Yes you can use the skills you develop/learn on a rifle range to shoot animals at long ranges, but when you think about it all the people that do this have done is substitute the paper target for a live animal target. The primary skill is being able to hit the animal at a long distance, not get within a reasonable distance to make a clean killing shot.

I see the demise of the 3/4p type shooting as a sad thing, every hunter should have the skill to effectively shoot animals using these positions, prone, sitting, kneeling and standing, if they can't then they lack the skills to effectively make clean kills on animals.

Like everything how do you gain these skills? By practise, ie go and shoot targets on a range, and you should practise all forms of shooting positions so that you gain confidence in your equipment and ability which leads to better results in the field.

But it seems there is less encouragement and requirement to learn these skills today than there has been in the past, or the knowledge of "why" these skills are necessary hasn't been passed onto successive generations.

To give an example of why these skills are beneficial, at a number of shooting competitions I have noticed that those who do a bit of target shooting "practise" are able to score a similar score in each position, yet those that don't practise shooting targets usually have a worse score in prone (this is where the prone position is shot first) than they do in standing when the standing position is shot last. It is quite noticeable that the person who doesn't practise range shooting scores improve the more they shoot and which position they favour for shooting usually has the highest score.

Given this knowledge how do you encourage hunters to practise their shooting and develop their shooting skills? How do you make it a thing people want to do? I see this as something that would improve their success in the field.

Maybe you should try bowhunting instead.

Or maybe not, as you'll have another whinge when someone nails a deer at 100 yards with a compound bow.

As noted earlier, people were shooting at other people and animals further and further away as time progressed.

Hence the reason for continuous bullet/ammunition, rifle and scope development.

If you want to turn it into an ethics debate, plenty of animals have been lost at close range due to fuckups as well.

I don't think anyone sets out in their right mind to non-fatally wound a deer while hunting (although I was told about one sicko who deliberately leg-shot deer to train his tracking dogs... also happened to be a 'use copper bullets as lead ones are bad' loony, thankfully we never crossed paths).

But if someone runs into a deer over with a vehicle of some type, it's an 'unfortunate accident'...?