I'm lucky enough to be able to shoot to 1200yds+ within a mile of my house. I've taken quite a few guys out who were naysayers and put them behind one of my rifles and just let them shoot. All have come away more than a little surprised and all have enjoyed it.
A buddy stopped by last week and was looking at my wife and my antelope skulls as they were on the table because I had just finished whitening the skulls for euro mounts. He couldn't believe that we shot them at 400+ yards with my flyweight 25-06AI and that I had shot mine off of shooting sticks. I told him to come over on friday and we'd go do some shooting and he'd see just what we do.
So we pull in to where I shoot and I point out where we set up. He says, "there's no bench?" I told him we don't hunt off benches so we don't really shoot off them either. we shoot off of packs or bipods prone and also off of shooting sticks while sitting. So we keep driving and he keeps looking back at where we sit and saying that we are a long way away. LOL. I ask him if he would like to shoot from where we are right now and he says sure. I pulled my target out of the back of the truck and set it up. We drove back to where we shoot from and I ranged the steel at 681yds.
Rather than make it harder for him shooting off a pack I threw a bipod on my 243AI. I showed him how to use the SF to eliminate paralax and had him dial up 10.25MOA. There was no wind so that was nice for him as well. He dryfired the rifle a few times to get used to the trigger and said he was ready. I got behind another rifle to spot for him and told him to shoot whenever he was ready. He touched one off and I said "HIT" before he heard the sound come back. He said he had watched it all happen through the scope and was grinning from ear to ear. He shot that rifle quite a bit more and never missed the steel. Now it was a 12" plate so it was a fairly good sized target at that range. I wanted to shoot a group myself since all the rounds he put on there were probably in about 8" or so and I know the rifle shoots better than that. I put 3 into about 4" and called it good.
Then he wanted to try out the flyweight 25-06AI since he couldn't believe that you could shoot long with such a light rifle. Had him dial up 10MOA and told him to shoot when ready. He shot and it was a hit. He said he didn't see it cause the gun jumped off target (this is a 7# all up rifle). I helped him with his position and hot him square to the rifle, and had him preload the bipod and told him that would tone down muzzlejump so that he could spot his own shots even with the light rifle. He shot 4 more and the 5 shots went into about 6" and he was happy.
He's now hooked and stopped by last night to ask me about loading for one of his rifles that he'd like to do more shooting with and I told him we could do that. I have a pile of different sized AR500 steel plates so I went out to the barn and brought him back a 6" plate to take home and shoot with. He can shoot out to 300 right off his porch so that target will work good for him.
Sorry about the long drawn out post, I guess all I really needed to say was that I don't really argue too much with the guys who have never shot longrange. I just offer them up the chance to come out and try it and see for themselves. I'm more than happy to let people shoot my rifles and burn up ammo. I enjoy seeing the excitement that new shooters get when they hear that first "DING".