What went wrong? Opinions needed.

At Song Dogger... given the number of responses, you asked a great question... lots of discussion and suggestions have arisen...

I am new to this forum and to long distance shooting as well... but one suggestion I would like to bring attention to is by Canhunter35... If I can paraphrase what he said is this... you have to practice the shot you intend to take in the field... if prone / bipod is your preference, then you need to shoot the same way at the range. My suspicion is that you hold your rifle / look through your scope slightly differently when viewing prone vs shooting off the bench... and this is assuming that you were "precise" while at the range...
Congrats on feeling capable of taking a 600 yard shot. You are not there yet but sounds like you will work to get yourself there. But I too, would like to recommend not taking this shot until you are precise at the range over the same distances from the same shooting positions / conditions. Good luck to you.

Agreed, Canhunter35's advice was early and it immediately stuck in my mind. Others stated similar versions or expanded on it in a mature and helpful fashion, all very much appreciated. Only a few had attitude or ego muddying up anything useful they were trying to say.
 
Let's see if I can give you some food for thought on these misses. You mentioned that your ballistic compensator adjusted the yardage to 450 yards, but the actual line of sight is probably 500 yds and some change. You mentioned that you had a 1 degree slope and that you were shooting down hill. You also mentioned that there was a 10 mile per hour headwind.
We know that 1 degree is equal to 92 feet at one mile. If your target is somewhere near 500 yds then we know that your target was somewhere around 30 feet below your line of sight. 500 yds/1760 yds=about 1/3. 1/3 of 92 feet = 30 feet. If we were to draw a triangle with the apex being where you were shooting from , you can see quickly that the wind is not a head wind per se...it is acting as an updraft because of the slope of the hill.
We can input a 10 mile an hour wind into our ballistic calculator and for a full value wind our drift factor will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 minutes based on your 210 grain bullet. Now in a prone position, shooting down hill, that bullet will be traveling basically in ground affect...which means that the air is denser than you would expect. Now, if we take the bullet and view it as an airplane wing, traveling into a 10 mile an hour wind and that wind is affecting the bullet in a constant lift due to the slope of the land, I suspect that we have just exceeded 4 minutes of angle. 4 minutes of angle at 500 yards, that the bullet is actually traveling, puts the bullet about 20 inches above your point of aim.
From your description of where your bullets were impacting, dose this make sense?


I may have missed something in the thread(I re read so I do not believe so) but If I am reading this correctly this is not how wind will interact with the bullet in this situation. If the ground was relatively flat aside from the 1 degree slope the wind would impart the force at a 1 degree angle not 90 degrees as it appears you are suggesting. Again maybe I am missing something. This would have a similar effect as having a 1201 or 1159 wind from the side and yes it would move the bullets travel but it would be very little. Yes, if the wind is following a canyon wall up to the shooters position on the edge with a steep drop off the wind will move upwards having a rather large upward effect on the bullet but it does not sound like that is the situation he was in.

This is my favorite rear bag so far in size medium I have tried upwards of ten different bags I find that with the lightweight ones I occasionally get vertical. The sturdier the rear bag the more consistent you will be. You can become proficient with lightweight fill bags but it is more difficult.
http://www.thewilderness.com/wilderness-made-accessories/giles-rifle-rest-accubags-individual/
 
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I agree. I don't like mono pods. They drag on the surface and don't even seem stable to me. I had all kinds of issues with one. I am amazed that people can shoot with them. I don't think you see too many true long range shooters with them. Buddy's are different, the X design locks the rear of the rifle good and allows the butt to just slide thru on the shot. A bag is better, but if you are in a situation where a bag does work, a Buddy works well. Guy who makes them makes some great shots with them on Youtube. I think they can be a good 400~500 yards solution.
 
Hi Ron...
I tried to find a way to send you a private message, but I am not smart enough to figure it out. I would like to visit more with you on your thread, but would prefer to do it privately. If you could send me a text, I could then give you a call. 509-396-8480. Thanks.
 
Agreed, Canhunter35's advice was early and it immediately stuck in my mind. Others stated similar versions or expanded on it in a mature and helpful fashion, all very much appreciated. Only a few had attitude or ego muddying up anything useful they were trying to say.
 
I'm fairly new to long range shooting, learning most of what I know from internet research, including this forum. I'll expose myself to criticism in his thread, rightfully so, but I'm good with that if it helps me learn.

I have a Fierce Edge 300 Win Mag with a Swarovski Z5 3.5-18 x 44 shooting Berger 210 VLD target bullets sighted in with a 200 yard zero. I programmed my Leica Geovid HD-B rangefinding binocs using their ballistic calculator with inputs specific to this setup. Using the Geovid's feedback in MOA clicks, which self-adjusts for environmental factors (temp, pressure/elev, angle), I then shot the gun at 50 yard intervals out to 700 yards. It had ½ MOA accuracy out to 400 yards. Beyond that, the bullet dropped more than expected. I then lowered muzzle velocity in the ballistic calculator until the drop charts matched what occurred in the field, to within 1" out to 600 yards – that's all I needed since the scope's elevation turret stops at 53 clicks. I then reprogrammed the Geovid.

Last week, I ranged a bull elk at 413 yards with a headwind of 10 mph. Adjusting for a 4000' elevation difference and environmental conditions, the Geovid correctly called for 5.1 MOA of elevation. The shot missed high, maybe a foot over the back. The bull moved to 450 yards, the Geovid called for 6.2 MOA, but I purposely kept it at 5.1 MOA. Still, the shot missed high – twice. Still at 450 yards, I dialed it down to 4.0 MOA, and the 4th shot hit a few inches below the back and spined him. I shot 4 more times to finish him off, each appearing to hit high as he expired on his own. Nice bull down, but I just sat there in disgust. I've had several kills already at the same distance with a factory gun using simple holdover values.

8 shots, all high, each at a still, broadside, and very accommodating bull. I felt relaxed with steady crosshairs, verbally reminding myself to gently squeeze the trigger. I verified the 200 yard zero immediately before and after the kill - surprise, it's not the gun.

Here's a breakdown of likely factors, and where I need the feedback:

1 – I forgot to adjust parallax. The knob was set to 100 yards. After the sighs, cries, and rolling of eyes – could this cause shots to consistently hit 2 foot high at 400-450 yards?

2 – I shot at the bull prone from a bipod. The gun was sighted in and practiced long range on a bench with a Lead Sled (I've since read "no-nos" about that). During pre-hunt practice, I did verify point-of-impact with a bi-pod, but only a few shots at 100 yards, and from the bench, not prone.

3 – The bullets may have travelled through the tops of thin grass tufts about 30 yards from the muzzle. With the naked eye, it looked like the shots could clear it. But, through the scope, I occasionally noticed the scope slightly blurred at the bottom, likely from the grass bending and straightening in the head wind.

Advice, opinions? Bring it.
 
I had a similar experience many years ago whilst hunting goats in the mountains in Australia and I put it down to Thermal rises
Sometimes if the sun is behind you and you are shooting from one ridge to a higher ridge that is in the sun the heat rising from that land mass seems to raise your shot depending on the heat of the day
Here we are often hunting in 40 deg C so this is often a factor for long shots however we try not to do too many long shots as the terrain is too difficult to retrieve the game
 
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