JFrank
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Depends on the rifle and mission.
What distances do you guys normally shoot at?
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Varminterror
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Unfortunately, yea. But also, lots of long range shooters like to create some aire of mystique that hitting targets past 300yrds requires unattainable skill and intestinal fortitude, and some unrealistic volume of experience and practice.
Buy a great rifle, load great ammo, and go bang realistically sized targets at long range.
Mn Fats
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Same thought.
I "normally" shoot anywhere from rock throwing distance to a max of 350 yards during Whitetail season.
Bearded Phil
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I'm usually posting my targets at the 50yrd line when I go to the range. I keep telling myself I'm going to stretch it out to 100 after I get the loads I'm developing where I want them but the developing never seems to end! Haha.
Actually a personal goal of mine is to get my loads for 357 & 45-70 settled and sight so I can ring the steel plates at 200yrds at my local club. I use skinner peeps on both of those rifles so it seems like an achievable goal with some challenge for my shooting level.
Actually a personal goal of mine is to get my loads for 357 & 45-70 settled and sight so I can ring the steel plates at 200yrds at my local club. I use skinner peeps on both of those rifles so it seems like an achievable goal with some challenge for my shooting level.
lightman
Member
100 to 600 yards for me.
i used to start cold bore 4-5 days a week on the head of an IPSC or reduced IPSC silhouette at 500-600 yard. i.e. usually 4-6" square target. then i would plink a bit or do some drills. just depended on what i was trying to accomplish.
that was when i had easy access to 1100 yards. now i have about 415 yards so i dropped the target size to 3".
that was when i had easy access to 1100 yards. now i have about 415 yards so i dropped the target size to 3".
until the past decade, being able to hit targets at 1000 yards was extremely rare. it wasn't so much the lack of skill as the effort and knowledge required to sort out a gun, scope, ammo, etc and then find a place to do it. a person's best chance was usually finding an NRA F-class range within a half day drive and learning from them. but that was a long way from practical/tactical, shooting 1 round per minute, prone on flat well-manicured grass, with range flags and wind dogs everywhere.
i used to bring people to a hilly cow pasture all the time and let them shoot my rifle at 1000 yards. lay down behind it, point it where i tell them, pull the trigger. they all got hits. but almost never with their own gear.
after the PRS got popular enough to sell guns, savage stepped in and made a gun that didn't suck, that pretty much let dudes go buy a $1000 rifle and factory ammo that already had a good enough stock and trigger etc that they could make hits. Then the flood gates opened and now there are tons of factory guns that anyone can just go buy and hit 1000 yards with.
so... there used to be a real aire of mystique and a ridiculous amount of myth and misinfo. not so much anymore.
also, back then, social media wasn't as prevalent so knowledge was harder to come by.
Captcurt
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Most of the time I shoot at a range that only has 200 yards as a max. If we want get serious we have a private farm where we can go out to 500, 700 if we have the bushhog or dozer handy. Put the portable bench in the truck and make a day of it.
Varminterror
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That’s how I started in LR, but it was a big longer ago than just a decade. But out in the Midwest, we have a lot more space with a lot fewer houses around, so it’s pretty easy for hillbillies with rifles to look at wide open fields and wonder how far they could shoot across it.
Admittedly, we were using rifles and kit that I’d never use today, and it wasn’t a controlled and calculated activity, but starting when I would have been 10-12, so early 1990’s, my uncles, dad, and I would drive out into cattle pastures and hang an old car door on a hedge fence post by a dog chain, lean an old Chevy hood up against the next post beside it, then drive across the pasture until the guy riding in the bed told us to stop at 500yrds, then they’d jump out and we’d drive further while he lasered the truck, until he waved to stop - since his Leupold LRF only reached 500 on big targets, if we wanted to go farther, he’d have to again stand at that mark and laser the truck as we drove out farther… then we’d lay in the bed with sporterized Mausers and R700’s in long action and magnum cartridges, SFP Leupolds with Mil-dot reticles and 1/4moa capped dials - not even turrets! - socks full of playsand or lima beans, wholly reliant upon printed data tables from bullet manufacturers to back our way into tried BC’s and muzzle velocities, and watching knee deep pasture grass for wind estimation. When I was younger still, we’d run 100ft tape measures in the fields, or rely upon fence lines and tree rows to define 400yrd ranges, and shoot at old disc blades - but when my uncle eventually bought a laser rangefinder so we could measure past 300-400 without stringing tape for an hour, the game was on! It would have been 1998 or 1999 that I bought an R700 in 7x57 and loaded it to “.308 win pressures,” and really thought I had the long range thing figured out, because I could hit a truck door at 1,000 yards “most of the time.” About the same time one of my (decade older) cousins had built a heavy barreled, fast twist 25-06 with a Shilen barrel on a Win70, and I eventually picked up a Sendero in 7RM to outrun him…
All of that was a long time before the PRS, but all we were doing is laying in truck beds or on old quilts on hilltops in cattle pastures, shooting at huge targets with poorly devised gear. So it’s maybe not fair to imply long range shooting is new, but it’s certainly fair to give credit that - HOW EASY IT IS TODAY - to deliver precision at long range is completely different than it was 20-30yrs ago.
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MR WICK
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CoalCrackerAl
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From 10 feet to 330 yards.
yep. i shot in the first PRS match and my PRS number was 55. Before that, aside from CMP and NRA HP, we shot at a friend's house who had a school bus turned on its side and painted a huge target on it. and we pushed up berms every 100 yards to 900 where the bus was. sunday afternoons, we'd bring out a tarp and the pop up tents and plink. often have quite a few folks. back then i was shooting stuff like a rem700 with leupold extreme varmint scope. vx-L i think. and nightforce benchrest scope.
Varminterror
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Are you coming up to Spearpoint this summer for any of their monthlies?
GJeffB
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My local public range has large steel at 100 yards, 200 yards, 300 yards, and 600 meters (i.e. 660ish yards). The AR is usually out to 300 yards. The Sharps .45-70 is 300, working on 660. I keep the Ruger NMBH .45 Colt down to 100 for giggles. There's more range available past 600m out to ... 2000+/- yards.
-jb limiting factor is packing lunch for target set up
-jb limiting factor is packing lunch for target set up
I only wish that I remotely had any kind of long-range shooting talent! I was hoping someone would see the gag and point it out. Like every other average everyday shooting schlub my ranges are 100 yards or so…tops.
My dad started shooting sometimes last year. Those are his first 3 the last time we shot at just under 1k.
Actually distance was 990ish yds or something, guessing from drops, and the ranges i could pull on my rangefinder anyway.
I did set his drops, and suggested a wind hold.
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Nature Boy
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That’s all you need. No mystic to it.
18” plate at 1,000 yards
Nature Girl hammering it with ease….with a .308?!? Impossible!
Varminterror
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I only wish that I remotely had any kind of long-range shooting talent! I was hoping someone would see the gag and point it out. Like every other average everyday shooting schlub my ranges are 100 yards or so…tops.
Oh, lol… sorry, I took the post at face value and was hoping you were one of the few ELR guys running around. I’ve never been past 2300 yet, and I don’t do it remotely often, but I went up to a couple of Steve’s matches last year, and I’m going to go to more this year - years ago, I used to have a 50 and had a couple of 338’s after that, all factory rifles, but I didn’t have use for them and sold them, so currently I am not properly equipped for ELR, so I’m just going up and learning the ropes and spotting - a completely different level of intensity than I’m used to. We’re moving this year though (finally!) and after the new house is finished, I’m building (likely) a 416. I’ll probably shoot one of my 300’s a few times this season, just for grits and shins, but it’s super obvious the 30’s and 33’s can’t compete with the 375’s and 400/416’s.
doubleh
Member
Our range is on land leased from the city and the longest distance is 185 yards. The huge berm behind is is slightly over 200 yards and has a lot of caliche rocks in it it. I have been known to shoot rocks on the berm even with 22 rimfire. We used to have 300 and 400 yard target boards thanks to a local rancher but a couple of dummies did away with those several years ago. By driving about twice as far I can be on BLM land and shoot as far as I wish. Of course I have to bring my own bench and target stands and pick an area where it is safe to do so. There is a spot where I could do a half mile if I wanted to and the back stop is decent. It is the caprock and it's around 300' high.
NapalmMan67
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Point blank defensive handgun distances out to 200 yards. My range has a 600 yard line, but I have not qualified for that yet. Need to take a long distance class to be able to qualify, but I always cringe at the cost of the classes when I see them, and that usually demotivates me fairly quick.
DMK
Member
Man, I wish I had access to some of these open spaces you guys have. That's the one drawback of living in the mountains.
I have a 25 yard pistol range in my backyard, but the terrain doesn't let me go further than that (it goes steeply uphill).
Our local public forestry range is 100 yards max.
I have a 25 yard pistol range in my backyard, but the terrain doesn't let me go further than that (it goes steeply uphill).
Our local public forestry range is 100 yards max.
Legionnaire
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Mostly at 100 and 200, 500 when that range is open. There's a range less than an hour away that goes out to 1,700 yards, but I've not been yet.
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