What went wrong? Opinions needed.
- Thread starter Song Dogger
- Start date
Help Support Long Range Hunting Forum
Hi fellow shooters... I'm new to this long range shooting and from the comments I've read, I basically have a lot to learn. Two years ago I went to NZ to hunt a chamois buck. I had a Vortex 4-16x diamond back HP with a ballistic reticle and hash marks that work only on 16x power. The chamois was 456 yds and walking. I practiced from 100 yds up to 500 yds and beyond months before I went hunting. Shooting a total of about 800-850 rounds out of my Sauer 101 in 308 Winchester, berger 165 grain VLD's. Now anyone who hunts chamois know they don't stand long, are hard to see especially when they are in the shadows with their winter coats. I had a hard time picking him up so my mate turned my scope down against my protest. I kept turning it back up and he was scolding me to leave it down. In the chaos he turned it down and I got a very nice broadside shot at 497 yds. Using my 500 yd hash mark I missed!! In disbelief because I made that shot hundreds of times before. I sent another round and a third before the buck decided to run away. My spotter was telling me I'm super high like a meter or 2 high which at that time I couldn't comprehend to aim low. All this took less than 10 seconds from the 1st and 3rd shot. It bothered me for weeks and I couldn't actually sleep because I knew I did everything correct!! But a month later after editing the video he sent me a copy. Watching it over and over I noticed my scope was on 14x!!!!! From that day on I only have exposed dial turrets or plex reticles and NOBODY touches my rifle or scope, not even to shoulder it. I now know what went wrong and I will be back to get that chamois buck. But this time with a Fierce Edge in 26 Nosler, a nightforce 5-22x NXS firing 143 ELD-X... I chose that round because it gives me an advantage with the wind. I tried shooting a 160 gr Matrix hunting VLD but I can't get it to shoot better than 1.5" at a 100 yds. But now at least I know what went wrong... sorry for the long story.
Wedgy
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2013
- Messages
- 3,216
If you are going to use the reticle for holdover as you are doing, look into a FFP scope so the holdover is constant throughout the power range.
You have a SFP scope where most generally dial the distance and hold the crosshairs at POI.
Your current setup is fine, you learned a lesson and you won't make that mistake again.
Thanks for sharing.
You have a SFP scope where most generally dial the distance and hold the crosshairs at POI.
Your current setup is fine, you learned a lesson and you won't make that mistake again.
Thanks for sharing.
WildRose
Well-Known Member
Welcome Banga. Are you a Kiwi by raising or just visiting?
As for your error, don't worry about it, anyone using such a scope in that manner is pretty well guaranteed to do the same thing at some point and most of us more than once.
Sharing those stories does nothing but help those afraid to ask questions or worse afraid to admit they've made such a simple error for frear of being thought to be a fool.
The finest shot I've ever known was an absolute master with every kind of weapon he ever touched and considered not to just be an authority on all types of weapons and their uses but an absolute unchallenged expert not by guys on the street and rednecks in the bar but every true expert on any weapon or weapons that ever met, observed, studied or read him.
He was a part of our family though not actually related and he was largelyl responsible for any good character trait or knowledge of the outdoors I acquired before my military days.
One day he made a shot on a running and I mean flat out running coyote that had 12 people on the harvest crew stand flat stunned and flabbergasted.
With his 7mm bdl 7mm RM, cheap Bushnell scope from the mid seventies he carried in the combine, he spotted the coyote bailing from the field just in front of truck about a quarter mile ahead of the combine.
WIthout even parking the combine he simply stands up, braces for the shot and just as it rolls slowly to a stop pulls the trigger and the back of the coyotes head comes completely off.
A guy standing there asks him how on earth he makes something look line that so easy, and he says, "I've mad every mistake in the book twice, once because I wanted to see what happened and then again to make sure I will never do it again. Then I go home and read everything I can on the subject, put everything I can learn into practice and figure out for myself exactly how to do it right.
This is how great athlets shooters and other professionials go from averate to great to becoming so gifted at what they do they make it all look completely natural.
Share our mistakes and how we fixed them so others can benefit from our exerience, I don't know anyone that doest learn best from actual examples rather than just pure theory.
Thank you for your kind response. I actually bought several FFP scopes but I had a hard time shooting them at low power (under 8x-10x) because the reticle is so small and cluttered looking. For my personal preference I really like SFP but with a dot, plex or simple reticle. I can use the exposed turrets to dial in my elevation and for wind. To me i find it easier to remember and calculate that way. I live in Hawaii and there's not much game animals in public land so I find myself shooting steel and rocks and got interested in shooting long range. Our resources here are slim and nobody wants to teach what they know, so I find myself reading more than I ever did in my life. I made so many mistakes in equipment and invested so much money into optics and ammo I could had bought a brand new truck, no joke. I appreciate the advice and I thank you for your time. Aloha, Kalsey
Aloha Wildrose,
I'm from Hawaii and live on the big island. I do a lot of my shooting in a rain forest (100 yds) then I take my setup to the lava fields where I can really stretch the shots out far. I like the early mornings when there is almost no wind and once it picks up I start to shoot closer instead of wasting bullets and getting frustrated. I have the kestrel wind meter and tie 3' ribbons every 100 yds and try to estimate the wind to how the flag next to me is moving and compare it all the way out to my target. I know it's cheating but I'm slowly learning how to read mirage, grass, leaves and different wind patterns. I mostly shoot a 308 because it's easy to load for, bullets are cheap and I can buy brass for half of any other caliber except a 223. I have a 6.5 CM and big magnums which are way easier to shoot in the wind but ammo is expensive. I believe I shot the barrel out of my sauer 101 308 Winchester because the accuracy has been getting worse and at long range the bullet doesn't make a clean hole. But after seeing how much a new barrel cost I could buy a new rifle!! I love that gun so much but I cannot see paying 3/4 of a new sauer 101 just for a new barrel. I also wasted a lot of money buying cheap brass that I thought was good but only lasted 3-5 reloads. But at the same time I bought expensive Nosler brass and have inconsistant tensions. I can actually feel the projectile go in regular and then some go in super easy. I had a friend anneal some for me but still the same. But I guess I have to keep reading and find out why it's like that. Thank you for your your kind response and your time to reply. I enjoyed your story, it must had been amazing to see it in person. Aloha, Kalsey
I almost ignored this...and before I respond perhaps you could clarify your comment? Did you think my post was directed at you?
WildRose
Well-Known Member
Man I"m sorry to hear that you live in a paradise where the firearms laws are so insane you might as well be living in France or the UK. THey don't even believe the 2nd Amendment preserves anything other than the most heavily restricted privilege they may dole out as rarely and stingily as possible. What a failure of freedom and liberty not to mention basic common sense.
You need to take a loaded round, minus powder of course and smoke it heavily then load it into your action and see where there is heavy wear/scraping to determine the contact points where it's binding.
My suspicion would be the neck/shoulder area and that the "tension"is neck tension or possibly your brass being too long since you say it's so consistent.
Take a few of your loaded rounds and measure the neck thicness several places on each of them and see what your average is, and the exteme variations.
See if hose that are the largest are the tight one's, if they are you may need to turn necks.
To see if they show to be too long, see if you can see any evidence of contact along the frontal edge of the mouth of the case. If ther is, your brass may be too long.
While you're doing all of this take a look at the case mouths of empty cases to see if you notice any obvious differences in the thicness of the case in the neck or not pretty well competely semetrical thickness all the way around.
THe way I do this is by measuring the inner diameter several places, take an average subtracked that from the outside diameter and you have your average thicness all the way through the lot.
For themost consistent neck tension you want that variation between cases so you may need to throw some that are too thin out, find a good mid point and turn all of your brass to that size.
Personally I like a neck loose enough I canpretty well seat the bullet by hand meaning with your fingers. then I use a " factory Crmp die and snug it just enough to ensure the bullets don't walk in the magazine . If they do, this can cause you serious issues if you ever need to slam one in the chamber quickly.
Take a look at those things and then let's discuss it further.
WildRose
Well-Known Member
No it was nothing I just screwed up a post, I'd misread your post, so my reply wasn't appropriate or necessary and we can't delete.
Sorry for the confusion.
I will definitely look into that before I toss aside some good brass!! Once again I appreciate you taking the time to explain to me. Sometimes it's so obvious that I over look it. Like buying a whole new 20 moa base because it wasn't fitting snug.... the problem? The screw was long so the base wasnt snug and wiggled ever so slightly with bullets holes all over the place. The screw was touching the barrel when torqued. Lesson learned!! Lol
Aloha, Kalsey
yobuck
Well-Known Member
Well Aloha to you also, if I remember correctly that means both hello and goodby. Ive been to Hawaii several times, and would live where you do if I chose to live there. I really liked Kona, and was fortunate enough to have a very successful Marlin charter while there in the late 80s.
Anyway as for scopes, realize that its only been since the 80s that dials appeared on rifle scopes, other than target scopes like Unertle, which most reading this have probably never even seen, let alone use. Most of the wonderfull brands that we take for granted today didn't even exist as recently as 1990. So scopes like Leupold for example were often sent to a place like Premier Reticles for a custom multi dot reticle. They needed the bullet info, the velocity, and the elevation where you were most using the gun. You could also have windage dots installed if you chose. Most of us just chose the multi dots at 100 yd spaces out to 1000. You did have to pick the power choice for them to be on, which was as you said your issue. Dialing is no question the more precise method. But there is also nothing faster than just holding and shooting, and there are times when that is necessary. When I was 70 years old I killed my first and only PA black bear @ 700 yds with a first round hit.
And without that reticle in a 3.5x10 VX3 Leupold it would never have happened because there wasent time enough for fooling around dialing. Was there any luck involved? Sure there was, lots of it, starting with seeing the bear in the first place.
Theres always an element of luck when hunting, and especially when long range hunting.
WildRose
Well-Known Member
Kalsey, visit the reloading forum and you'll see all of those covered in great detail. If you have questions people here will bend over backwards to help you.
None of us are born knowing all of this stuff and it's not like you can even begin to gather the knowledge on all of these subjects in just a few years.
I can take a 12yo off of the street anywhere in the world hand them an AK or M4 and make a militiaman out of them in a couple of days.
I can take anyone that want to learn to hunt out and even if they've never fired a rifle before in their life we can spend an hour at the range, then hit a blind or stand and have their first deer or hog in the freezer in an hour.
LR Hunting is like rocket science. I mean that literally so not only are we working hevily in physics here to master the subject in order to even get there we have to become extremely technically and mechanically educated with a lot of hands on experience to go with all of it to put a decent rig together and diagnose problems. After you spend a few decades on all of this you even get to where you can prevent most of them but only after having worked you way through all of them many times along the way.
Tony Formicola
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2017
- Messages
- 87
Not to belittle your diligence but you should have had that worked out before you went hunting. The technology, kinks, misses and problem solving are all part preparation. I say this with the utmost respect and hope others who a getting ready will take note. Always practice with actual rig from field positions at all likely and max distance before packing!
WildRose
Well-Known Member
We all gotta learn.
