Another mainstream gunwriter going after long range hunting....

I stumbled across this thread because I just placed an order today for a CZ 550 7x57mm with open sights and wanted to see what luck others had at long range with that caliber. Will probably put my Burris 2-7x26mm scope on it using QD scope rings. I needed an all-purpose carry rifle to keep in the pickup for whatever came along, especially an emergency outback situation where I might have a long walk out. Jerry's Sports Center has them on special at just under $600, and it's really a sort of mini-safari rifle with the European style walnut stock. Not really a long range rig, but if I couldn't hit a deer or antelope with that 7x57mm at 300 yards like Barness seems to not be able to do, I surely wouldn't insult myself further by admitting to it publicly in a magazine. While Barness may be a poor shot and a jerk, at least be glad that he makes it obviously clear to one and all so he can be avoided without any loss on your part.

Also, long range hunting depends on the rifle, hunter and situation. With my BSA .25 cal PCP air rifle on a typical windy day in Montana at dogtown, long range hunting is 100 yards, with my CZ452 .22LR it is 150 yards, and with my CZ 527 .204 Ruger it is 300 yards. Those ranges might seem short to some, but not if you had to fight the winds that we have here.

Also, on my first trip to my favorite 320-acre PD town this spring, I had a grand total of about 60 dead PD's using my .223 Rem and .204 Ruger rifles. Late last summer, I had racked up about 55 dead PD's using my CZ 452 .22LR at the same location. This was after a long summer of having been shot over, so the PD's were more skittish. Also, my average shooting range was about half with the .22LR than with the centerfires.

The lesson learned is that having longer range rifles and shooting over less skittish PD's didn't do me much more good. The centerfire rifles with their louder report and ballistic cracks sent the PD's to their holes at a distance about equal to the increased range they provided. I was only paying a lot more in ammo for a very slight increase in kills. Had I been shooting in late summer with skittish PD's, my total kills may have been less than with the shorter range but quieter .22LR.

The moral of the story is to not take longer shots than you need to before you have gotten as close as you can get. I have no problem with taking long range shots if that is what I NEED to do and I have PROVEN that I can make the shot. If you are taking longer and longer shots just to be doing it for its own sake, against living targets, then I have a problem with that. That kind of shooting belongs at a target range, not in the hunting field. Closer range stalking should always have precedence over a longer range shot....but not being able to hit a large animal at 300 yards with a 7x57mm means you should be playing golf or something instead of hunting.....especially after having several decades of practice and thinking you are fit to write articles for hunting magazines.

Gunwriters that I once took seriously have cost me a lot in trashy rifles that I ended up selling at a loss. The CZ rifle that I ordered today will be CZ number 5 for me. I first learned about them in Soldier of Fortune magazine, not the mainline gun magazines that pander to their advertisers. CZ was just out from behind the iron curtain at that time, and their tiny ad budget had little impact on the magazines. Now that CZ-USA has gone mainline with lots of advertising dollars, it's hard to find a CZ rifle on the dealer shelves around here anymore. When I asked about any used CZ rifles, the salesmen say they rarely get a rifle back for trade from an unhappy owner. In fact, one of the salesmen owned 4 CZ rifles himself and was looking for more. That tells me more than the gunwriters tell me. They also say they are now having trouble getting CZ product, so I guess the word has gotten out about CZ in spite of the gunwriters' seeming love affair with overhyped products from Remchester and such.
 
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I do subscribe to Handloader mag., and like the tech. articles, powder profiles and the occasional article about "older" cartridges. But, i find that most gunwriters, like hollywood people, start to believe they are right about everything just because they write about "stuff" and are surrounded by people (editors) who keep telling them to continue because it sells advertising. I bypass the articles by most of the "slick" mag writers.
 
The moral of the story is to not take longer shots than you need to before you have gotten as close as you can get. I have no problem with taking long range shots if that is what I NEED to do and I have PROVEN that I can make the shot. If you are taking longer and longer shots just to be doing it for its own sake, against living targets, then I have a problem with that. That kind of shooting belongs at a target range, not in the hunting field. Closer range stalking should always have precedence over a longer range shot....but not being able to hit a large animal at 300 yards with a 7x57mm means you should be playing golf or something instead of hunting.....especially after having several decades of practice and thinking you are fit to write articles for hunting magazines.

I'll be surprised if your Post isn't challenged by others, in addition to me. I'm not going out of my way to pick a fight, and this may simply be a matter of miscommunication. But I'll express my complete disagreement with your statements in the above paragraph - when taken at face value.

I have no problem with taking long range shots if that is what I WANT to do and I have PROVEN to an acceptable level - of which I am the sole judge - that I can make the shot. I have no problem taking longer and longer shots just to be doing it for its own sake, and against living animals, provided it's legal to do so, I have prepared to do so, and I WANT to.

If you want to restrict this kind of shooting to a target range, not in the hunting field, that's your choice and right. And I'll respect you for it, provided you don't try to enforce your preferences on me. Forcing your differing preference and opinion on others because you personally have a problem with it is really no different than what Zumbo did, and Barsness would seem to have done.

"Closer range stalking should always have precedence over a longer range shot..." Well, that's your opinion and I respect other's preferences and opinion, PROVIDED they don't try to force them on hunters with different, legal preferences and opinion.

I can't think of any reason or rationale that should lead you to believe or expect your statement is 'reasonable', let alone correct, for other hunters. Because of this, I'm at a loss to understand why you'd choose to present and/or promote this opinion/preference on this Long Range Hunting Forum.

Respectfully - until given clear cause to respond otherwise.
 
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Here's the way it is:

When the paradigm changes every one starts at zero.

I'm not sure when the paridigm changed possibly awhile back when the PA boys started doing the long shots. There were some leaders then that led the charge.

Somewhere along the line things really picked up. When rifle smiths began building LRH rifles to meet demand is when I got on the wave.

LRH is here to stay growing consistently and continually. Those such as the mentioned writer will either join the trend or be left in the dust. Left to write for the masses allowing shallowness prevent him from ever tasting all that the hunting/outdoor experience has to offer.

More succinctly, the guy is short sighted with the range of a TRD.:)

Hell, my first rifle was a 7mm in Mod 93 Mauser. Could only get 170 gr factory fodder. Used the military sights. Had to file on the front sight to get sighted at 100. That rig accounted for several whitetails out to maybe 50 yards.:rolleyes:
 
The moral of the story is to not take longer shots than you need to before you have gotten as close as you can get. I have no problem with taking long range shots if that is what I NEED to do and I have PROVEN that I can make the shot. If you are taking longer and longer shots just to be doing it for its own sake, against living targets, then I have a problem with that. That kind of shooting belongs at a target range, not in the hunting field. Closer range stalking should always have precedence over a longer range shot....

FWIW, when it comes to most "normal distance" hunters. I agree with you, but that is one of the few rules on this forum; we don't discuss the right-wrong or Ethics of Long Range Hunting and Shooting.

As a deer and antelope guide for nearly 30 years now, I've seen a whole lot of people wanting to attempt shots further than they're prepared/practiced to shoot. Granted, alot of this is the illusion of open country, the game is further than they thought it was. But alot of it also is that they haven't prepared enough to even know where their gun shoots at X distance.

John Doe says "They're only 500 yds, I can make that, I hear of other people doing it all the time." He thinks that because he's got a rangefinder now with a ballistic curve in it, that he's GTG. When in fact, John Doe has never even shot his rifle at 500 yds before, and **** sure hasn't done it in the Wyoming wind. He has no idea that his rifle is shooting a 7" horizontal group at that distance and the wind is going to blow him off another 12". So he attempts the shot...........shoots the flank and hind leg off the animal and now attempts running shots at a wounded antelope that keeps getting further and further away. Some family drives by on the nearby highway and see's this wounded antelope caught in the fence because it could'nt get through with only 3 legs and guts tangled up in the wire.:rolleyes:

I agree with you, it is disturbing to see this. However, hopefully forums like this one are helping give those people some idea of the prep work needed to make long distance kills. The new technology is nice, but the 7P's still apply.
 
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The technical part of this discussion is good but let's not stray toward an ethics debate, guys.
 
Sorry if I was straying too far into the ethics side Len. Really that wasn't my intention.

The only point I was trying to allude to is that most of us here on this site are very serious about our long range efforts and diligently practice and put in the research and homework that being successful at long distance requires.

None of us want to be associated with the "spray and pray" or "poke and hope" type of hunter. Most of us work hard and strive for a clean one shot DRT effect, and most of us get that effect most of the time I am sure, regardless of the distance involved.

If the people that make the laws start including all us long range hunters in with that "other bunch" then we're really in trouble. Some of the WY G&F are already looking down their noses at the technology that's geared toward LR, it's surely because of that other bunch and they outnumber us I'm quite sure. I just hate to see us included in that catagory, and don't want to see it become illegal here.

Cheers folks, it's done gone past my bedtime:)
 
Over the years I have had the opportunity to share a campfire (elk hunting in NM) with several magazine article authors, both bow and rifle. Some have been nice guys and some have been jerks, but I have been in some way disappointed in all. They sound a lot more knowledgeable on paper than they do in person.

After that little slap, I will take up for the gun writers (just a bit, and only for being ignorant) on the subject of long range hunting.

Most of us who hang out on LRH and probably have a buddy or two that shoots long range so we may begin to think it is more common than it really is. If you take how many people go "big game" hunting each year and the number of people who are "capable" of first shot kills on big game at 400 yards the LR shooters are miniscule by comparison, take that out to 600 or 1000 and the percentage would be so low as to hard to calculate.......

Now, take your typical gun writer. He get invites to all the hunting camps and everyone is trying to impress him. So, what he sees are a bunch of guys who "talk" about shooting long range but can't do it. So...... the assumption is made that other than the occasional retired Marine Sniper that all the other people talking about LR hunting are just blowing smoke, and he would be right about 99.999% of the time.

I often see that attitude even on this site. Not to disparage anyone here as I know they are asking a real question, but there are often posts along the line of..... "OK guys, how far really?" The question is an attempt to get guys to "come clean" and admit they really don't shoot critters that far, or that it is just luck when you do. I for one have pretty much quit responding to those posts. When you post something like "I have killed over 2 dozen big game critters at ranges from 500 to 1000 yards, have never wounded and not recovered any animal and have only missed 1 animal in all those kills" Someone, usually the person who posted the question will respond with some sarcastic reply that indicates they think you are either lying or greatly exagerating things.

Gun writers...... They have probably never spent any time with anyone who can actually "do it". On the other hand they should keep their mouth shut about things they know nothing about:D And that's my 2 (or 3) cents worth:cool:
 
Gun writers...... They have probably never spent any time with anyone who can actually "do it". On the other hand they should keep their mouth shut about things they know nothing about:D And that's my 2 (or 3) cents worth:cool:

I feel this is an accurate assumption. All the articals I have read that bad mouth long range shots have had one thing in common. While reading, it becomes very evident they have no personal training or experience with long range shooting / hunting. Heck most still talk about " Hold Over ":rolleyes:

If the gods with the pens were to do articals on just about any other subject, they would contact experts or aquire proper equipment to gain good knowledge of the subject. But for some reason when long range hunting is the subject they go off 1/2 cocked and tell of a bad experience where no real experience or proper equipment was invlved. Yet, they use it as representation of the entire world of long range hunting. If there was an author with an open mind to the subject, it would be nice to have them witness long range hunting done right and then write about it. This experience should include the passed shots because the wind is to high today or other conditions were not correct, as well as the perfectly place one shot kill at distances over 500 yards.

JMO

Jeff
 
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I was going to post about the motivation behind Idaho's 16# rifle rule but chose not to as a google search would bring up the comment.

This indicates the hesitency of some to not want to call attention to themselves any more than necessary.

Having said that my LRH rigs are fully protected from the weather any time they are out of the case.:)

Our problem would seem to be that we are being included in the total set of hunters instead of our own subset.
 
Sounds like he is just sharing his opinion and in this country we are still allowed to voice it.gun)


Nonya, I don't disagree that we all have the right to express our opinion. However, when a guy sets out to write articles for major publications he should at least have a decent level of knowledge about what he is writing about...... IMHO.
 
In this country you're still allowed to 'shoot you're mouth off' whether you know what you're talking about or not. Ever listen to the evening news, a politician, or read an internet forum? It happens every day. Individual freedom! Ya' just gotta' be willing & able to sort thru the bull crap. The free market will 'work it out'. His 'opinion' won't mean much IF ya' vote with your dollars and refuse to buy that magazine.
 
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