Thread: 24" Tikka 7mm PRC Terminator

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

and just in case some newbie with little experience shooting thinks buying/building one will allow them to walk out and shoot animals at 1km after only shooting 60 shots......Im guessing you have been shooting for years,spend lots of time at range,have all your drops and drifts worked out to withing gnats nuts and have used those 60 rounds to prove them.....own a good reliable rangefinder and do the hard yards to make sure all ducks are in a row before thinking about shooting.
thats not criticism...its there to let newbies KNOW whats needed.... your into formula ONE motor racing here and a learners licence having driven mums eskudo for practise isnt going to cut it.

You're bang on MD. It definitely takes a fair bit of investment in training, equipment and humility to be truly confident in taking an animal out to 1000m in the Southern Alps. I've been fortunate enough to have been exposed to fantastic mentors and instructors over the years that when the conditions are favourable (nil wind), that I may feel confident enough to attempt a clean kill on an animal out to 1000m. However, I must emphasise for those reading this that my aim when I hunt is not to take animals at 1000m, but to be able to use all the tools at my disposal as nature can be an unpredictable beast. I still love the thrill of the stalk and getting in nice and close.

For those interested in getting into long range shooting, I recommend watching all the Todd & Colby Hodnett / Accuracy 1st videos you can find on YouTube. The best piece of advice I ever got was from a Accuracy 1st video where they stated words to the effect of: the most important aspect of long range shooting is knowing what matters and when it matters. Eg. 100fps MV extreme spread probably isn't going to make much difference at 100m but you sure are going to run into problems at 1500m. Furthermore, I would enquire with local training providers such as Nick Fisher @ Sparrowhawk and/or Stu Tylee @ Target Dynamics for quality training.

Ref cost for the above build, I recommend touching base with Greg @ Terminator as I supplied a couple parts myself. What I can say though with confidence is that my 5-25 NF ATACR is the most expensive part of the setup and the rifle Greg built was significantly cheaper than what I was quoted from GA Precision in the USA for a similar build.

Hope that info helps some readers.

JT