For example if you are going to be about 2.5 inches low at a given distance on an animal would you try and account for it or just aim center of vitals?
Correcting 2.5” is nothing of consequence - hold or dial, and deliver. 2.5” drop with a 2700-3200fps bottleneck cartridge is a chip shot.
Bottom line - If a shooter doesn’t know their trajectory at a given range, they shouldn’t be shooting that range.
Three things come into play for me when determining my maximum effective range - the shorter of the two always is the limitation:
1) Field position precision
2) Gross trajectory at range
3) sufficient impact velocity upon delivery
Expounding upon these:
Field Position Precision - in general, I don’t like to take shots on game beyond which I can deliver a heart shot. This means I abstain if I can’t deliver a 5” group for a whitetail deer from my field position, unless the shots are thoroughly planned prior to the hunt. If I’m laying prone, that might mean 600-700 yards with a high velocity bottleneck centerfire. I typically won’t own a rifle which doesn’t shoot sub-MOA from the bench or prone. If I take a standing shot, supported on a shooting stick, that might only be 200yrds. But if I don’t KNOW my group size would fit entirely within the size of the heart, I don’t like taking the shot.
Gross trajectory at range - game animals move. LRF beams are big, and accurately pinging game in the field can be a challenge. Knowing the EXACT range of an animal at the time of the shot can be difficult. I typically consider any range in which my load is falling over an inch per yard to be almost unmanageable on game, a half inch per yard is a challenge. Any range where you get to a “click per yard” is an exceptional challenge. It’s simply too easy to have an error of 2-3yrds in measured range when you get way out there, so compounding a POA error of 2” at, say, 600yrds, with a measurement error of 3 yards, meaning an inch of error in trajectory correction, plus the fact we can’t hold perfectly or dial perfectly to match our trajectory (a click at 600yrds is an inch and a half for a MOA scope, 2.2” for an mead scope), it’s far too simple to miss a deer’s heart. Wind is pretty simple here - if wind estimation error of +/-2mph can push me off target, then the shot is too risky.
Impact velocity - pretty simple. I need sufficient velocity upon impact, whether for reliable bullet expansion, or for penetration, it has to hit hard enough on the business end.
So... two extremes in my world: I hunt often with a 45-70 and often with 243win/6 creed/6 Dasher. My 45-70 is a 1.5 minute rifle from my shooting sticks in the blind, and it’s only running 1795fps. Impact velocity is low no matter what, but the big Gov’t doesn’t need much speed to punch hard and deep. It’s dropping 1/2” per yard by 300, also delivering about 5.5-6” groups in the field, such 250-300 is my manageable limit for that rifle. Alternatively, my 6 creed is a 1/2moa rifle shooting prone in the field, which means I could run it to about 1,000yrds on a 5” heart just based on group size. However, my gross trajectory is such I’m dropping about 3/4” per yard at 1000, every click in my scope is 3.6”, my crosshair stadia covers just under an inch of target... The wind is the kicker here. 2mph at 1,000yrds should be about 12” of drift, far too much to risk, for me. My impact velocity is also down in the mid 1600’s, below the reliable expansion window for the bullets I typically use - without enough bullet to reliably kill without expansion. Velocity and wind influence dominate here. So I pull that one back to about 600-700 yards in manageable wind, where I’m only dropping about .1” per yard, each click is only 2.5”, my crosshairs only cover about 1/2”, and the wind error is only about 5” of play - and my impact velocity is still over 2,000fps. If I can’t get prone, however, I shoot about 1moa from a hedge post with that rifle, such I’m stuck at about 400yrds, so my field group size becomes the rule.
Every unique combination of shooter, rifle and load, environmental condition, and field position is a law unto itself. These variables stack differently together to develop the shooting solution.