Thread: long range newbie starting out. gear wanted

...a long range to practice on.

Hi Country Guy,

Welcome to the forum. You've shown a good, measured response to some daft flaming.

You've done the right thing, starting with the 300WM. Wise move to keep the 16" 308 for under 200m. You need the magnum power at the far end because a lot is lost on the way and shots will never be super well placed at over 500m. The magnum will fare a lot better with wind too. Equally important there the several variables you will need to adjust for on every shot past 500m, which make it very hard to get a first shot kill out there. The furthest I've shot an animal is just over 300m, so I'm by no means an expert. But I've shot enough at gongs to know it's not easy. What's the reason no one shoots deer at 800m ?
Wind - varies over the distance and often impossible to read. Significant even with a 300WM. Typical values will be 1-4 MOA at 500m. @Woody can tell us what it can be at 800 - he shoots it.
Barometric pressure hugely affects trajectory so you will need to have this well sorted for each individual shot.
Cold bore, slope, powder temp and extreme spread of MV are all pretty much insignificant under 300m but can each add a MOA or two one way or the other at 500m

Scope factors that need to be just right and you have to test them with your own gear:
Sharpness at top mag - difficult to get an economical scope that is clear above 15x.
Adjustment per click over a range of 20 - 30MOA and back to zero.
Parallax
Vertical movement straight up and down (mostly depends on your mounting whether its square to the bore line or not.)
Holding zero from one week to the next.

So, it will be quite difficult to get a good enough scope for under $1500 new.
I'd suggest the Leupold VX3i 4.5-14, which has some drawbacks but does these basics pretty well for 500m shooting.
Another approach would be to look for a second hand Nightforce from a kindly long range gear freak wanting to upgrade.

You're unlikely to really have to shoot from 800m.
If a hunter could kill 3 deer with 4 shots at 500m they would be a legend.

I'll chime in with my experience, for what it's worth.
I've done a fair bit of long rang target shooting, and a little bit of hunting, but to me they are almost separate interests that happen to have an overlap of some skills. I know few people that actually shoot animals out to 800m plus and thankfully they are really, really good shots and they take responsibility where the animals welfare come in. I've hit 4 out of 5 shots on an IPSC gong at 1500m with the .338 I was using, but I wouldn't dream of taking a shot at an animal at more than a quarter of that distance unless I'd had a ton more practice. It sounds like you have a realistic view of things, and as others have said; you've got to be well practiced as well as understanding the science behind everything. Sadly marksmanship is like most skills and diminishes over time, so you've got keep practicing as much as possible (god knows I haven't done much recently myself).

In terms of gear, I've bought second hand Leupold and Nightforce scopes before and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again, that goes for any brand which has a lifetime transferable warranty. I've worked in hunting retail a bit and Leupold have always been good to deal with for warranty stuff, usually erring on the side of the consumer even in cases where the damage done ought to violate said warranty under the fine print. After 8 years selling riflescopes I've never seen a broken Nightforce, I've heard it can happen though =). Like others have said; target style turrets are good, most people adjust for elevation, some hold over if the reticle accommodates that. Personally I like to adjust for elevation but hold off for windage. Magnification is another matter of preference, I like to think if the target takes up the same angular size as it would with the naked eye at 100m, then that's suitable, so for 2000m 20x makes the target appear as large as it would 100m with irons or a red dot, and I figure if you're ringing gongs that's plenty. However for hunting you're not just putting the crosshairs on a target, but a vital area of the target, so I like double the above i.e. a deer at 700m through a scope on 14x looks like a deer at 50m. That being said you can't really have too much magnification, just be aware you'll pay more for it, and usually it comes at the expense of how low you go at the lower end of a vari-power.

Rangefinders, I used to have a Sig Sauer but my next one will be a Leupold. I tested a Leica 1600-something, Sig Kilo 2200, and Leupold RX-2800 on a building at 8 or 900m on a foggy day and the Leupold ranged it every time, the other two couldn't pick it up at all, even though it was well within the advertised range. On a fine day they all do the job, but to me that tells you about their reliability in crappy conditions, the Leupold was cheapest to boot. Leica had far better glass than the other two.

Ammo. Pretty much everyone reloads, and that's another can of worms in itself. I'd be asking myself what type of animal at what range the bullet in intended for. For example the Hornady SST should still expand fairly aggressively once it has travelled a wee way and lost some velocity, but anecdotally I've heard many times of people wounding an animal at less than 20m with SST's and having it make a good run, the recovered animals usually having a very wide but shallow wound channel and fragments of bullets throughout. I don't reload for long range hunting, but from a precision point of view:......... Berger. Berger, Berger, Berger. Lapua brass has a good reputation for case life, but so do others. In terms of powder there is an ADI equivalent for most other brands, hell ADI make a lot of powders for other companies which are then rebranded as their own. The only reason I say ADI is it is quicker to get if the importer runs out, and given the issues around shipping powder within NZ, and the state of the world in general; getting powder from Oz is going to be easier than Finland or the US.

Just my 2 cents, don't mean to be preachy. Cheers

I take a lot of people shooting on the local range besides strictly target shooters. Just about every "hunter" is surprised when they get on the 300 Yard line - "are you sure thats 287M??" and astonished at how far 600 yards (557M) is.

There is an old adage of advice to a young guy buying gear - seldom followed but true none the less. "Spend the least amount on your rifle, spend much more on the scope and more still on bino's" This is doubly so for longer range shooting, practically all modern rifles will comfortably "outshoot" their owners, and once there is a tiny bit of wind its doubly so.

To buy a scope on a budget I'd be looking for the best possible glass quality at the sacrifice of power - you'll be a lot better off with a really nice scope that goes up to 10X than a poorer one that goes to 20x or more. For example the glass in a Sightron S111 2.5-10x44 will piss all over a Leupy VX3 4.5-14 and be cheaper to boot. And because higher power happens to be flavour of the month just now there are some real bargains in the lower power stuff e.g. NF, Sightron, and Swaro's.

Ok mate here is my 2c
I have been shooting animals Deer/Goats mainly out to 800 odd yards for a few years now and all on doc land.


First of all, put that 300 away and learn to hit a 200mm plate at 800 yards consistently with your 308 using only the gear you are gonna carry in the field. When you get very good at this then go on to the 300 win mag.

I used to use a 300 win mag with 208 eldm bullets, its overkill for anything in NZ. So i mostly use 308/6.5 CM/ 270. I am now almost exclusively using my 270 loaded with berger 150gr VLDs


Good long range scope, not much out there for $1000. Maybe look at Sightron STAC 4-20x50.

Try get a second hand Leica 1200 rangefinder, they getting cheap now.

Carry a bipod, rear bag, rangefinder, wind meter 100% of the time and learn how to use them by shooting many 100s of rounds for practice.

If you cant hit a 200mm plate 100% of the time using only your gear you carry when hunting then you cannot be shooting deer at that range.


Shooting animals at long range is very tine consuming, recently i shot a Tahr at 665 yards and that took 7 hours to recover, and i shot 2 reds recently at 440 yards, that took 5 hours to recover.

Stuff takes very very long to recover if you are in doc land and shooting long range, this year ive passed up many animals between 500 and 800 yards due to the map saying they will take too long to recover, passed up several sika in the kawekas too recently.


You have to be able to spend a full day recover if needed, and you have to have the discipline to pass up deer that you cant recover in time or if the conditions for the the shot arent perfect.