LR Hunting -- Help?

[Brydawg512]

Hello,

I am very new to LR hunting/shooting. I am waiting for my scope to arrive and be mounted and then to the range I go! I understand that I can use a ballistics calculator to get me started and then I am able to true my values with my specific date. A few questions remain however...

How much should I worry about other variables (especially wind but also temperature, etc)? I will only be shooting out to 600-650 yards maximum on animals at this point once I achieve proficiency, maybe a bit further on targets. So, once I true my drop values for my gun on "x" day with the temperature I am shooting in, how do i adjust this for each hunting season I do (bear in August, deer in october, etc.) where temperatures drastically change? Also, how do I account for wind? By this i mean how do I accurately determine wind direction, it's speed, and where I need to adjust?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Idaho Lefty]

Go to the Berger site online and "plug in" your, bullet weight, Caliber, Velocity and "ESTIMATED",.. B. C. unless, using one of their bullets. Be sure to estimate TEMPERATURE and Elevation of, where your Hunting. For example on my .270 WSM with, 140 grain AccuBond's at 3,140 FPS actual Velocity at 3,200 feet and 65* Temp ( I lowered Velocity, to 3,100 FPS,.. do to the estimated Temp in Nov/ Dec. of 25- 30* at 6,500 ft elev. ) and after long range Target work ( Bullet "validation") I lowered the BC to .485 instead of the stated BC of .496, to get my Ballistic "drop" and Windage at 10 MPH. Wind, is THE enemy of, LRH ! Learning to "dope" the Wind, is of, the utmost importance ! Hope this gets you started. Practice shooting, in the Wind,.. a lot !

 

[Brydawg512]

Go to the Berger site online and "plug in" your, bullet weight, Caliber, Velocity and "ESTIMATED",.. B. C. unless, using one of their bullets. Be sure to estimate TEMPERATURE and Elevation of, where your Hunting. For example on my .270 WSM with, 140 grain AccuBond's at 3,140 FPS actual Velocity at 3,200 feet and 65* Temp ( I lowered Velocity, to 3,100 FPS,.. do to the estimated Temp in Nov/ Dec. of 25- 30* at 6,500 ft elev. ) and after long range Target work ( Bullet "validation") I lowered the BC to .485 instead of the stated BC of .496, to get my Ballistic "drop" and Windage at 10 MPH. Wind, is THE enemy of, LRH ! Learning to "dope" the Wind, is of, the utmost importance ! Hope this gets you started.

So how did you know how much to drop your velocity based off of a temp difference? So it really is just a matter of guestimating the wind speed and direction and doing a holdover for the shot?

 

[Idaho Lefty]

YUP,.."guess-timating" and lots of range work ! After years of hunting and noticing bullet drops, in cold weather. I wish, I could give you more concrete evidence of WHY, but it would take extensive testing, with the many different Powders/ loads, to figure it, truly out ( some powders are more Temp sensitive than, others!). That's WHY I limit my shots, on Big Game to about 600-700 Yards MAX, because I know how much my Bullets drop and,.."DRIFT" in the wind, and I don't want to cripple any animals. Here in the Idaho deserts/ mtn's, I get to practice a lot and test my Rifles in the Wind, quite a bit, plus we shoot a few times in January / Feb when, it's,.. COLD ! I "work up" my loads in early spring when it's still pretty cold but, never get them too Hot for, any warm weather shooting. Next week I will be Hunting in Northern Ariz (Late Rifle, Elk) so I will get to test everything out !
The Temp's are similar, but elev. is 3,000 feet higher than, here and the WIND ???

 

[L.Sherm]

Worry about getting good at shooting in no wind before learning how to shot in wind.
Shooting in the mountains across canyons is different than in the prairie, shooting across canyons the wind can change direction from were your at to the target. I personally wont shoot across a canyon if theres really any wind at all to many variables.
Remember it's usually the first cold bore shot that counts and if your lucky to get a second shot I doubt you will even know were your bullet hit unless you have a spotter.

 

[Brydawg512]

YUP,.."guess-timating" and lots of range work ! After years of hunting and noticing bullet drops, in cold weather. I wish, I could give you more concrete evidence of WHY, but it would take extensive testing, with the many different Powders/ loads, to figure it, truly out ( some powders are more Temp sensitive than, others!). That's WHY I limit my shots, on Big Game to about 600-700 Yards MAX, because I know how much my Bullets drop and,.."DRIFT" in the wind, and I don't want to cripple any animals. Here in the Idaho deserts/ mtn's, I get to practice a lot and test my Rifles in the Wind, quite a bit, plus we shoot a few times in January / Feb when, it's,.. COLD ! I "work up" my loads in early spring when it's still pretty cold but, never get them too Hot for, any warm weather shooting. Next week I will be Hunting in Northern Ariz (Late Rifle, Elk) so I will get to test everything out !
The Temp's are similar, but elev. is 3,000 feet higher than, here and the WIND ???

Ok awesome! That's what I was thinking is it's just a matter of range time and practice. Well, noted and time to learn!

 

[Brydawg512]

Worry about getting good at shooting in no wind before learning how to shot in wind.
Shooting in the mountains across canyons is different than in the prairie, shooting across canyons the wind can change direction from were your at to the target. I personally wont shoot across a canyon if theres really any wind at all to many variables.
Remember it's usually the first cold bore shot that counts and if your lucky to get a second shot I doubt you will even know were your bullet hit unless you have a spotter.

Ok, thank you for the information!

 

[Plinker147]

LR shooting is all about wind, that will always be the biggest changing variable. Temperature and elevation unless it huge difference like sea level to 10K. Usual smaller 1/4 to 1/2 minute difference at 600 yards. But wind a can be 2 or 3 minute difference. 800-1000+ yard distances the more temp and elevation difference show up.

Once you get your true drops at the range you can plug in different temps and elevations to see the difference.

 

[Brydawg512]

LR shooting is all about wind, that will always be the biggest changing variable. Temperature and elevation unless it huge difference like sea level to 10K. Usual smaller 1/4 to 1/2 minute difference at 600 yards. But wind a can be 2 or 3 minute difference. 800-1000+ yard distances the more temp and elevation difference show up.

Once you get your true drops at the range you can plug in different temps and elevations to see the difference.

Ok thank you. So, once true drops are determined, creating different charts for different temps, elevations and winds possible for the different areas I hunt may be a good stary to finding a rough calculation for shot placement

 

[L.Sherm]

Just keep in mind there is LR shooting and LR hunting.

 

[Brydawg512]

Just keep in mind there is LR shooting and LR hunting.

Exactly. There is a line to draw. You can afford a miss on a target, but not an an animal which could result in a bad shot, suffering, etc.

 

[WildRose]

Wind will always be your biggest variable to deal with at long range as it will affect the flight of your bullet more than the others provided you have a decent drop chart or calculator app handy.

To even begin to understand how to read the wind and compensate for it requires a whole lot of time behind the gun shooting at various ranges under varying conditions.

The best thing you can do besides having accurate dope to dial is to keep good records of what you saw, how you read it, how much you compensated for it and how far off of your aimpoint the actual wind drift was.

While we rely heavily on Tech these days reading and compensating for the wind is still as much art as it is science, it requires feel as much as it does good weather data because the wind on a long shot can be completely different at the target than it is where you are set up for the shot and it's not unusual especially when shooting across varying terrain for the wind to change direction and intensity multiple times during the flight of the bullet.

Order this book it's a good start.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0990920615/?tag=lrhmag19-20

You will probably want to start saving now and at some point attend a good long range shooting school as well.

 

[dok7mm]

A Kestrel wind and weather devise will give you accurate data at your position. It will give you wind speed & direction, humidity, and absolute pressure.

It will not tell you the wind angle and speed at the target, but it will give you a base point to start. Mirage and vegetation movement, between and at target, can help fine tune your windage. Wind is the single most critical thing affecting long distance shooting and the hardest to learn.

 

[magtech83]

My point of impact at 100 doesn't change much with temp changes. Now if I went up a mountain it might. When doing LR, I just use my phones ballistic program to pull my GPS data/station data. If I have signal it will give me a wind temp etc.

It doesn't take much time to train yourself to what the wind is. You obviously know the difference in wind from a 0 wind and 30 mph wind already. Now you just need to fine tune how you look at wind variations. Google it. If the wind is blowing on a tree and only the leaves are moving, no branch movement, that's 0-5, branch movement 5-10, whole tree movement can be over that. Research wind reading then go for a walk and try to understand this. compare your guesses with a weather station to see if you're in the ballpark... It doesn't take much to get a hold of this, just some practice.