shortpants Report post Posted August 12, 2006 Just brought the new canon home! Hey Bill I could'nt agree with you more on a 300yd. hunting rifle. However, what I failed to tell you guys is the intended use of this rifle. It will be my primary coues rifle (which is all I've ever hunted with a rifle) ,however, I love to practice long range shooting. When I'm on my game I can confidently shoot a coues at 500yds. This is only achieved however when I'm consistently practicing. When I practice I do so out to 800yds. and even as far as 1000yds. when I'm really having fun. I feel like you should practice beyond distances you intend on shooting at game. This is a great confidence builder and truly shows you what your capabilitys are. I only practice from a bench when sighting in or checking zero's. I could go on but I feel like I'm boring you guys. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billrquimby Report post Posted August 14, 2006 Just brought the new canon home! Hey Bill I could'nt agree with you more on a 300yd. hunting rifle. However, what I failed to tell you guys is the intended use of this rifle. It will be my primary coues rifle (which is all I've ever hunted with a rifle) ,however, I love to practice long range shooting. When I'm on my game I can confidently shoot a coues at 500yds. This is only achieved however when I'm consistently practicing. When I practice I do so out to 800yds. and even as far as 1000yds. when I'm really having fun. I feel like you should practice beyond distances you intend on shooting at game. This is a great confidence builder and truly shows you what your capabilitys are. I only practice from a bench when sighting in or checking zero's. I could go on but I feel like I'm boring you guys. Shortpants: More power to you on your long-range shooting. I used to shoot in a siluetas metalicas league in Sonora in the 1960s, early 1970s, and even won a couple of matches. We shot offhand, standing, without a sling at small metal animal silhouettes at distances of 200 to 500 meters. I was reloading and shooting maybe 150 rounds every week before I shot out the barrel on my .270, so I know 500-600-yard shots (and even farther) are doable and ethical for someone who practices as you do. I suppose you also have a rangefinder and know exactly how much your bullet will drop and just what the effects of wind will be at any given distance. For those of you who don't practice long-distance shooting under field conditions, a 180-grain (you want a heavy bullet to reduce wind drift) .30-caliber bullet that leaves the bore at 3,000 fps will drop 40 inches at 500 yards (only God knows what it would be at 1,000) when sighted in at 200 yards, which is the recommended sight-in for this weight bullet and caliber. That means you will have to hold over an Arizona white-tailed deer about about 2.25 times the distance from the top of its back to the bottom of its chest at 500 yards. If there's a 10 mph cross wind, you'll also have to hold left or right about 20 inches, depending on the wind direction. It's an easy shot for someone who does a lot of shooting at long distances, such as Shortpants does. For those of you who don't, however, I think you are risking making a poor shot on a great game animal if you're banging away under field conditions at a Coues deer at long range. I've seen too many beautiful bucks running around with their jaws shot off, or limping with a broken foreleg... or dead and bloated from a gut shot that allowed that deer to run a couple of miles before dropping. My $0.02 worth: hold your shots at the deer we all love to distances under 300 yards. 500 yards is more than a quarter of a mile. You owe it to the animal to get closer. Billl Quimby Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
.270 Report post Posted August 14, 2006 hey, i at least clean my rifles, sometimes. cleaned 2 of em friday after hammerin' the heck outta some targets. but i've never been one to break in a barrel. never even heard of it until about 15 years ago. a friend o' mine bought some "lapping" bullets for his .378. maybe they have valve grind compound on em or some deal, i don't know. i remember he used reduced loads and stuffed cotton in on top of the powder to keep from having hang fires in that big ol' case. after a couple shots we had lint floatin' everwhere. the new barrel, with all the little sharp edges and stuff in it really grabbed the cotton too. he had a heck of time cleaning it all out. it looked like caterpillars nests all over the bench and stuff. he always claimed it made his gun better and he did it to a couple others after that. them big guns like that make me flinch so bad it don't matter what you do to em, i ain't gonna get a good group out of em. as far as hunting tho, i don't think just shooting one is gonna hurt it much. just don't get it too hot, but that goes with all shooting. and one thing about running a patch soaked in some kinda solvent between shots, it does help keep your barrel cooler, and that's a good thing. RR and casey left out one thing, between shots casey played dueling banojs, then foggy mountain breakdown, then white lightnin, then cannonball express, then.............Lark. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shortpants Report post Posted August 14, 2006 Love your humor Lark, and Bill I could'nt have said it any better. Fact is most people have no business shooting past 200yds. The best way to find out your capabilities is to do exactly what you used to do Bill, shoot silouets. I just cut deer silouets out of wood and with a black marker draw the back side of the front shoulder and leg on the wood. I make no other markings and put no targets on the wood. This makes you have to practice picking a spot on the target just like on real game. I put the target out at random distances and using my rangefinder I figure out how to hit the ''spot'' with one shot! My scope allows me to dial in the yardage using the target knobs or aiming with one of the mil-dots on the verticle post. As far as wind goes if it's more than a 10mi./hour cross wind I won't shoot past 300yds. The last buck I kiled was at 362yds. with about a 5mi./hour crosswind. I hit him just below his heart shattering his brisket. The reason I missed his heart is because I was using 350yds. as my reference. Sounds close enough right? That's what I thought till he jumped up and ran when I was just 15yds. from putting my hands on him. After a couple of follow up shots and a permanant scar on my thumb from working the bolt so fast I cut it on the scope ring I put him down. When I got home I ran the ballistics of a 362yd. shot through a program on my computer and found out there is 2 1/2 inches of drop from 350 to 362. Does'nt sound like much but it would have made a big difference that day. Lesson learned! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
COUESAZ Report post Posted August 14, 2006 This reminds me i have an old rifle that probably fill like it needs broken in. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
