Articles by Len Backus

SAVAGE 110 ULTRALITE WITH A PROOF RESEARCH BARREL By John Johnston At the 2020 Shooting Hunting Outdoor Show, Savage Arms unveiled their latest hunting rifle, the 110 Ultralite. Savage and Proof Research joined up to make a light weight hunting rifle with a carbon wrapped barrel for hunting...

Leopard In A Tree By Len Backus "Leopard in a tree!" was Hassan's urgent utterance. It was the seventh morning of our Kenya photo safari. Hassan was driving west toward the area where we had been shooting a cheetah family quite late the afternoon before. A little way further down the gravel...

The backpack equipment industry has made amazing weight-reducing improvements in the last few years. I have been continuing to lighten the weight of my backpacking gear. I am hiking many miles per year in the western mountains on my backpacking trips. Every ounce that I can take off the weight...

Looking down from Paintbrush Divide at 10,700 feet onto Lake Solitude "What an amazing adventure - just finished backpacking with my 71-year young dad in the Tetons across the Teton Crest Trail. 3 days. 35 miles. 3,000' of climb covering 6 miles in 4 hours the last morning. Overshot our...

A Culture Of Excellence At Nightforce Optics By Len Backus, Publisher Last summer Kathy and I made a 5,200 mile road trip from our home in Wisconsin to the northwest coast of the US. We got up as far north as Vancouver Island in British Columbia and as far south as Darrell Holland's home and...

Zeiss Conquest V6 Riflescope Review By Andy Backus The new Zeiss Conquest V6 riflescopes marry glass quality that will be very hard for other manufacturers to compete with at their price point with all the features, bells and whistles that American long range shooters have come to expect, in...

TESTIMONIALS - - Long Range Rifles, LLC 6.5 GAP Brian S. -REPEAT CUSTOMER- Len 123 Amax 100 yards, 3 shots I think the rifle has potential! 30 Nosler Ron P. Len I'm still fairly early in my break-in on the 30 Nosler you built, but here is a 3 shot group. It was a 3 shot group on...

26 Nosler - Hot Rod for the 21st Century By Len Backus I think Nosler has a winner in their new 26 Nosler cartridge offering. The 26 Nosler when zeroed at 350 yards, has a maximum Point Blank Range of 415 yards. For quick shooting situations such as with whitetail deer in long bean fields this...

Welcome to LRH! I am thankful for all of my involvement in long range hunting over the years. I first got into long range shooting and hunting when my son Andy was in his teens. We were fortunate to do some fantastic back country hunts in the western US, Alaska and Mexico and at the same time...

SoundGear Electronic Hearing Protection - Review By Len Backus, Publisher of LRH Last year about this time I ordered a set of SoundGear Electronic Hearing Protection and I have been very, very satisfied with it through an entire year's use. Made by Starkey Hearing Technology, a very established...

A Thousand Stars In The Sky By Len Backus “A thousand stars in the sky make me realize, That you are the one that I adore.” -Song by Kathy Young Those were the words in my mind as I approached the shore of Dream Lake in pitch blackness at nearly 11,000 feet of elevation in the Rocky...

Behind The Scenes With Best Of The West TV By Len Backus Have you ever wondered how those outdoor TV shows operate in the field while filming a hunt? I visited with Jack Peterson of The Best of the West last January at the SHOT Show in Vegas. I had met him the summer before in Cody, Wyoming...

Mule Creek Outfitting Hunt Report By Len Backus, Publisher of LongRangeHunting.com Outdoor writer, Jack O’Connor, would have enjoyed high country mule deer hunting on the licensed national forest concession of John and Jacob Berger, owners of Mule Creek Outfitting in Wyoming. In fact, maybe he...

Accuracy, A Game Of Strategy By Jerry Stordah ©Copyright Precision Shooting Magazine Expectations vary. Few shooters expect a factory rifle to shoot with a custom built gun, but some rifles can come close. It all depends on how accuracy is defined and how the “accuracy game” is being played...

Passing on the Heritage: Youth Shooting Camp Part 2 Pete Weisbrod As 2012 rolled around, my sons, as well several previous students and prospective students, asked about shooting camp. They wanted to know if and when I was holding camp again. The “if” part was a no brainer, but working out the...

A Scientific Basis for Evaluating Variable Crosswinds By Paul Carter Although we frequently discuss wind as if it is constant in both magnitude and direction, that’s seldom true in the real shooting world, where features of terrain make accurate wind doping much more challenging. For instance...

These are not always your conditions, so let’s talk about how to do it the right way and get everything we want and more out of the HHA Optimizer Speed Dial system. First of all, it’s not limited to the 80 yard distance that is advertised on the package, so I’ll explain how to set it up for up...

Lessons Learned The Hard Way Are Often Worth Repeating! By Darrell Holland We can all look back over our shooting career and note dreadful if not embarrassing moments when we really blew it. Anybody who claims to have never experienced such a moment is either telling a “Big Windy” or hasn’t...

Spring Bear Hunting Tips By Paul Tunkis Big game season here in Montana generally ends the last Sunday in November, and so begins my nearly five month wait for spring bear to open. Coyote hunting over the winter helps keep me in shape and spring gopher hunting is something I’ve looked forward...

Texas Turkey Hunting As I Know It By Ian McMurchey I am NOT a bird hunter of any note. As a matter of fact I rarely shoot shotguns since rifles take up so most of my time. Despite this lack of shotgunning and bird-hunting experience I get to go on occasional hunts. I usually view these...