Thread: Shooting at Medium Range

Greetings All,
There have been a few threads recently dealing with long range shooting. Although I have not shot at anything much over 200m I found the posts interesting and learned a thing or two as well. This got me thinking about how people deal with medium range shots? These would be those beyond the point blank range of your rifle, scope and cartridge set up out to about 400m.
For those not familiar with point blank range and its other names it is the range at which the projectile neither rises above nor falls below the line of sight by a maximum of 50mm. For most hunting rifles this very roughly 250m when sighted in at 180 to 200m.
My primary and alas little used hunting rifle is a Tikka T3 in 6.5x55mm with a Leupold 6 power long range duplex scope. The load is the 129 grain Hornady SST at 2,850 fps and is zeroed dead on at 200m. Using the trajectory from the Hornady on line tool corrected ranges for the hash marks have been calculated and also enough deer body bracketing data to tell me when the shot is likely to far for a point blank shot. If it is it is time to reach for the rangefinder. This last is important as there is a tendency to aim over the deer when it looks a long way and over the deer is often where the shot goes.
So the question is "What other methods are people using for those medium range shots"?
Regards Grandpamac.

Stay with your normal long range technique

Assess target

Range
Measure wind
Dial for shot

Use every shot as an opportunity to make your Long Range technique as normal and second nature as possible.

My rifle is zeroed at 100yds. I hunt with 2.5 MOA dialed into my scope so anything inside 250yds I range and then shoot. Anything beyond 250 I range, consult drop chart and dial.

You'll get 300 easy just aim at top of shoulder but beyond 300 you need to dial. Am using eld 130 @ 2830 and zeroed 3.8" high at 100m. Gives 3" high @200 m . 4.3"low@300 . 10.7"low @ 350. 14 7" low @ 375m and 19.2" low @ 400m.

I never have daylight showing under the cross hairs of my scope.

But then 200 yards is a long shot for me.

For deer size targets I use a 100 mm poi sight at 100 meters. Depending on cartridge / caliber from .35 Whelen bush rifle to .270 win open country fallow gun this gets me to 200 and 275meters dead on. At 400 m at high shoulder shot with the .270 is all that’s needed. Always range first where time allows.

In open country I normally pick a dial set up first.

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Stay with your normal long range technique

Assess target

Range
Measure wind
Dial for shot

Use every shot as an opportunity to make your Long Range technique as normal and second nature as possible.


Attachment 168773

Yep absolutely this, plenty of people miss a shot at just 400 yards or even much less due to not acessing and approaching the shot right.

90 % of the time for a 400 yard hunting shot you have time to determin and allow for drop properly.

Before I had a range finder or dialy scope I sighted in bang on at 200m (217y)
With the 308 and factory 150gr soft points that put me a maximum of 2.5 inch high at 125y
Bang on at 30y and 217y
2 inches low at 250y
6 inches low at 300y
13 inches low at 350

So I knew I could aim straight at the neck if the shot was on with no allowance for trajectory out to 250y

If it looked farther than that I would hold high on shoulder and know I would either spine or engine room shoot 300-350.

It worked very well however my eyeometer ranging while pretty good out to 200-250 was pretty poor at 300-350....needless to say I got a range finder after a couple of cockups.

As long as you KNOW your trajectory and KNOW your range Kentucky windage is perfectly adequate with shoulder shots on deer sized game in a decent chambering until you are trying to guess/holdover more than 12 inches of drop.

You are just not going to guess 20+inches holdover at range accurately.

Then you need to go to a drop type reticle or a dial scope IMO

Zero bang on at 100yds,then go to 300yds,get my drop at 300yds with the 100yds zero.Then i know my drop chart is good to 400 -500yds.For hunting my scope set at 2'' high is good for point and shoot to 240yds.Most of my deer are inside 200yds any how.

I just use a 270.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

I just use a 270.

I just stalk closer :-)

Originally Posted by Sarvo

I just stalk closer :-)

So does he

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Attachment 168806

Its a good approxamation that chart.

its older than us both bud...and still VERY RELEVANT........back before rangefinders were common...hell you DIDNT see them at all...and as for dialing up...yeah nah...twiddlin n fiddlin was done to sight in and not touched AT ALL otherwise..... if you read "the sharpshooter" arguably the bible of accurate hunting 30 years ago...one of the bits that stuck out for me was line...wait till deer is heading uphill away from you,giving big dorsal strip to aim at and from top of head down to hips ..... a shot ON LINE had big drop and still effective....
interesting Matt used the 22HP Savage for a time and had high praise for it.....when used with caution.....bit like,well actually VERY LIKE the thread on 223 on deer.
the more time goes by the more I come to realise everything has been tried before in some form and the old rules still hold true.