90's technology

[Heavyiron]

Looking back, i was reminded on how far shooting had come and how the average old guy, i was reminded by a new shooter. Could only hit at about 3 to 400 yards. Ignorance is bliss they say.
Back in the 90's, sierra had ballistic programs before most of us had computers at home. So this is not a new invention. I was reminded looking thru my collection the other night night. That i had a shepherd scope, way before long range shooting was popular. I still have the scope mounted to a 7mm rem mag. The whole system allowed me with the ballistic charts from sierra, to hit up to 600 yards. After a lot of playing around, i went back to the old system. Of point blank range. I made almost a near miss at 600 yards after the deer i was sniping. Moved forward after the shot Leaving a gut shot. I did finish the deer off but blamed my ignorance on being able to shoot to that distance. But not predicting, last minute moves from animals and the wind swirling too.

 

[Greatgrandad]

All I can say is this old man made his first 600+yd elk kill back in the 60's, and many of us were shooting pdogs way out there back in those days and many after also. I began Nat'l Match, Palma and 1,000 yd shooting in the early 70's with 1,000yd BR coming sometime after. Those continued for decades after.

As for computers, I built my first home computer in the earlier 80's with the help from a friend who was into computers at the nearby University. It did not take long before I had ballistics software uploaded from the old 5-1/4" floppies, and then I printed out various bullets and load charts and put them into a 3 ring binder.

Many of us old mil guys learned how to judge range via using the old mildot scopes we had, and then a few hunting scopes came out with BDC and we learned how to use those.

 

[Heavyiron]

Technology of today with adjustable turrents seems to be the way to go. Everything now is in fast mode.

 

[yobuck]

Well fact is that we did have adjustable turrets, but only on target scopes like Unertle, Lyman, Bausch & Lomb and a few other lesser known brands.
And the early long range target shooters and hunters were using them, myself included.
If you were to have visited the 1000 yard matches at Williamsport or Camp Perry you would have found that what was being used by all scope users.
The main thing was the scope block spacings in order for the scope to have 1/4 minit clicks.
7.25 inches O/C was the number, anything more or less required
making a chart for that particular gun, which was done anyway, except a friend couldnt give you his as a starting point.
Fact is that even in the 70s very few people knew about that.
For hunting, the B & L 6x24 Balvar with an aftermarket rear adjustment system by Kuharsky had an advantage in that you could dial down for a larger field to locate the target, then dial up to what your comfort level was up to 24x.
And we also had range finders, very good ones in fact from the military dating back as far as WW1, known as infantry range finders.
Certainly you cant carry them around in your pocket like modern day lazers, but fact is that they are very accurate for those hunting from a fixed location.
As for binoculars, there isnt anything today that can rival the large WW2 Jap ship binoculars, or the German anti air craft binoculars, and i did say ANYTHING.
Problem with them is that they are big, and heavy, meaning you dont carry them around with you, and they are a fixed power.
Permanent locations only, not far from a vehicle, with only a few exceptions for a very few smaller versions.
Problem today is getting that stuff repaired should the need arise.
So in the 50s and 60s some guys had that stuff, and were using it for long range hunting in places like PA.
Before the internet there was a publication called Shotgun News,
It was a newspaper pertaining to guns and gun related things.
Sorta like looking thru the want adds of an old news paper.
It was published every 2 weeks, and they alternated the regions of the country to receive it first.
Alex Hoyers brother Jules, lived in Idaho, and he ran a constant add in every issue, ( Large Military binoculars wanted, highest prices paid. ).
If they needed cleaning and repair he sent them to a guy in Williamsport by name of Harry Kieser, who earned his living repairing and selling large military binoculars and rangefinders.
So the equipment needed to do this stuff was there, and people were using it from not long after the end of WW2.

 

[lancetkenyon]

I passed up a lot of "too far" shots on game when I was younger, having no rangefinder.
I would say I passed shots from 250+ to 450+.
On my only Coues hunt, I passed a shot on a (what I thought then) small buck. After it walked off, I wondered if I would have made that shot. The next morning, I was back in the exact spot, but the buck was not. I took a shot with my 7STW pushing 140 NBTs @ 3400 at the rock he was standing just above by holding the top of the heavy post in my duplex. Crushed that rock dead center. Man was I ****ed.

I did get an opportunity at that buck 2 days later, my last day to hunt. So I took that small buck somewhere between 200-300 yards I would guess. If I only knew then what I know now...I would have probably had such bad buck fever I would have missed him if he was at 50 yards!

 

[yobuck]

Well the key is and has always been a spotter, telling the shooter where his shot landed, and making the necessary adjustments, wether it be a hold or by dialing.
Good binoculars on a tripod are best for that purpose.
A single spotter will work, but not as well as binoculars.
We were given 2 eyes for a reason, and not using them is a handicap.
I would say that everybody here has the ability for making very long shots.
Whats lacking is the system for doing it.

 

[imyourhuckleberry]

Years ago I was told that the 22lr was only good for 50 yards and I was very surprised how many believed those statements without testing it out themselves. When I first purchased my Remington 513T after sighting it in, I moved to the 200 yard range and started shooting at that distance. I was getting all kinds of looks from those older than me then and on occasion now I do get younger guys shooting asking me why bother shooting the 22lr at that distance.

There is a lot to learn from this, specifically being able to see how wind affects its trajectory and I found out that high velocity rounds in the 22lr seemed to be more accurate at 200 yards than the subsonic rounds. I attribute that to less time for the wind to affect the bearing surface of the bullet over the slower bullet thus having more time to affect its trajectory. I have no scientific proof as I am not a scientist who never got a college degree. But I know I can hit clay targets and its fragments more frequently and with less rounds than using subsonic rounds like CCI, wolf target, eley, and RWS rounds. So with that deduction I make my statement that the transonic stage does not have much of an effect on the 22lr at 200 yards, well 240 yards to be exact.

 

[Quintus]

Yes, in the 90s there were 1k matches and a Sierra bp and some dialing scopes and mil-dots. Access and exposure to those items were very limited. There were also range finders, but as far as I know only for military use and restricted GPS was just being introduced to the public. Setting a gun up for a 1K match is alot different than shooting a deer from a field position at 689 yards. Assuming you could calc the distance accurately, few people had access to acquire accurate ballistic data on the load they were shooting let alone calc the environmental inputs and inclination angle. If you regularly killed game past 500 yards in the 90s, congratulations. You're swimming in a small pool breathing rarified air. As for prairie dogs in the day, I believe the artillery term is 'bracketing'. I believe the range determination term was 'guessing'. I believe the term for first round hits at 500 yards (or was that paces?) was called 'lacking' or 'lucky'. Even at 3800? FPS the 55gr Zipeedo blew around a bit.

 

[yobuck]

Yes, in the 90s there were 1k matches and a Sierra bp and some dialing scopes and mil-dots. Access and exposure to those items were very limited. There were also range finders, but as far as I know only for military use and restricted GPS was just being introduced to the public. Setting a gun up for a 1K match is alot different than shooting a deer from a field position at 689 yards. Assuming you could calc the distance accurately, few people had access to acquire accurate ballistic data on the load they were shooting let alone calc the environmental inputs and inclination angle. If you regularly killed game past 500 yards in the 90s, congratulations. You're swimming in a small pool breathing rarified air. As for prairie dogs in the day, I believe the artillery term is 'bracketing'. I believe the range determination term was 'guessing'. I believe the term for first round hits at 500 yards (or was that paces?) was called 'lacking' or 'lucky'. Even at 3800? FPS the 55gr Zipeedo blew around a bit.

Friend, you couldnt be more wrong with your opinion.
And i dont say that as any type of ridicule.
But you simply werent in the right part of the country to know what was happening.
Yes, lazer rangefinders as those we know today werent available.
What few lazer rangefinders people had were mostly Russian, and all of them had been STOLEN by someone from the military.
And none of them were eyesafe for use.
But very good rangefinders were being used, that were sold as surplus items from the military.
And every country involved in both WW1 and WW2 had them.
As for distance, from the early 70s till today, very few of our shots have been 500 yards or less.
Most have been from 500 to about 1200.
Many of those have been by young shooters with little to no experience at all shooting at those distances.
In fact there have been a few instances where we have killed several different bucks within minits with young inexperienced shooters well beyond 500 yards.
Fact also is that we were killing far more deer in the 90s with younger people than we are today at the same places.
And that has to do with 2 things, less deer, and antler restrictions.
I would say that the deer herd in the area we hunt has been purposely reduced by more than 50 percent since the 70s.
And there are 2 reasons for it, trees and elk.
Both being more sacred than the deer herd by those in control.

 

[Quintus]

Friend, you couldnt be more wrong with your opinion.
And i dont say that as any type of ridicule.
But you simply werent in the right part of the country to know what was happening.
Yes, lazer rangefinders as those we know today werent available.
What few lazer rangefinders people had were mostly Russian, and all of them had been STOLEN by someone from the military.
And none of them were eyesafe for use.
But very good rangefinders were being used, that were sold as surplus items from the military.
And every country involved in both WW1 and WW2 had them.
As for distance, from the early 70s till today, very few of our shots have been 500 yards or less.
Most have been from 500 to about 1200.
Many of those have been by young shooters with little to no experience at all shooting at those distances.
In fact there have been a few instances where we have killed several different bucks within minits with young inexperienced shooters well beyond 500 yards.
Fact also is that we were killing far more deer in the 90s with younger people than we are today at the same places.
And that has to do with 2 things, less deer, and antler restrictions.
I would say that the deer herd in the area we hunt has been purposely reduced by more than 50 percent since the 70s.
And there are 2 reasons for it, trees and elk.
Both being more sacred than the deer herd by those in control.

Nope, I understand and believe what you are saying, but you are who I am referring to swimming in a small pool. I cris-crossed the country in the 90s and hunted alot shot a ton more. beyond 400+ yards was not a common practice for most, or even believable by alot of folks. Now it's just part of the course.

 

[jseandsje]

The glass is better now on scopes, but the adjustable turrets and advanced reticals were there. There just weren't as many companies doing it then.

There were long bullets around then. Not nearly as many as now. People didn't talk about bc as much. A lot of people just shot their drop chart. Bullets are more streamlined now, but to 400 yards there is no difference in terminal performance vs 90's, with the exception of TTSX bullets.

People didn't worry about temperature sensitive powder as much. Couple bullets in your pocket for long shots on cold days.

Winchester and Remington made good brass back then.

They were using bolt actions back then (ha ha). And some were just as good as what we have today. They even knew about pillars and bedding epoxy!!

1:8 twists weren't invented recently. Competition shooters used them and gunsmiths new how to use them, believe it or not there were barrel makers back then (ha ha). Mainstream just caught on later

Range finding technology has been the game changer. Enabled the long range nich. Other than that 1990's technology hasn't changed a lot just more refined.

The blockbuster in all this has been marketing. We are much, much better at convincing hunters that they need something that most don't.

I really did not intend to tick anyone off, rather, than at least for the folks that weren't there, to realize we weren't in the dark ages in the 1990's, or even the 1970's, for that matter.

To finish, gonna speak about a late gunsmith named Phil Brewer, and his late side kick Bobby Tanner. In the 1980's, they had custom reticals, and custom spotters that they used for range finding. Phil built variou 6mm wildcats, and Even made a few bullets.
Phill was a retired engineer .
Phil and Bobby had their run of every farm in a 20 mile radius. For ground hogs.

If they saw a groundhog up close, they would get in their truck and drive away, until they were at least 500 yards away

And they seldom missed. From bags on the hood of their truck.

There are few today that can do what Phil did.

How's that for 40 year old technology.

 

[yobuck]

Nope, I understand and believe what you are saying, but you are who I am referring to swimming in a small pool. I cris-crossed the country in the 90s and hunted alot shot a ton more. beyond 400+ yards was not a common practice for most, or even believable by alot of folks. Now it's just part of the course.

Well you are correct to a large degree in that.
Fact is that for the first 20 years i hunted i didnt realize what was going on either right under my own nose.
Not untill a group of guys moved into the very place we had been hunting for years, and were filling the camp with bucks in less than a week.
I made up my mind to meet them, and i did.
They had knowledge i needed, and i had knowledge of the area they needed.
So it became a shortcut for both of us.
But i soon found out something, they werent a bit better as shooters than we were.
But they had the method and equipment needed to help them do it.
Which is something most people refuse to accept..

 

[JustMe2]

Looking back, i was reminded on how far shooting had come and how the average old guy, i was reminded by a new shooter. Could only hit at about 3 to 400 yards. Ignorance is bliss they say.
Back in the 90's, sierra had ballistic programs before most of us had computers at home. So this is not a new invention. I was reminded looking thru my collection the other night night. That i had a shepherd scope, way before long range shooting was popular. I still have the scope mounted to a 7mm rem mag. The whole system allowed me with the ballistic charts from sierra, to hit up to 600 yards. After a lot of playing around, i went back to the old system. Of point blank range. I made almost a near miss at 600 yards after the deer i was sniping. Moved forward after the shot Leaving a gut shot. I did finish the deer off but blamed my ignorance on being able to shoot to that distance. But not predicting, last minute moves from animals and the wind swirling too.

Do you realize that using point blank range does not account for your group size dispersion. Using point blank range means more than 50% of your hits will be outside the kill zone at max range. Your deer movement gut shot explanation may actually have been caused by your group size dispersion and the deer moved after being hit badly. Here's a good Outdoor Life video explaining the shortfall of using point blank range.

Source: YouTube https://share.google/PdCMNM9pBEpEg6KUm

 

[JustMe2]

I passed up a lot of "too far" shots on game when I was younger, having no rangefinder.
I would say I passed shots from 250+ to 450+.
On my only Coues hunt, I passed a shot on a (what I thought then) small buck. After it walked off, I wondered if I would have made that shot. The next morning, I was back in the exact spot, but the buck was not. I took a shot with my 7STW pushing 140 NBTs @ 3400 at the rock he was standing just above by holding the top of the heavy post in my duplex. Crushed that rock dead center. Man was I ****ed.

I did get an opportunity at that buck 2 days later, my last day to hunt. So I took that small buck somewhere between 200-300 yards I would guess. If I only knew then what I know now...I would have probably had such bad buck fever I would have missed him if he was at 50 yards!

Lance, I had the exact same experience on Coues deer in Arizona. Also kicked myself later after shooting a rock and letting a trophy Coues buck walk. Those small deer and small trees are deceptive when judging distances before the advent of laser rangefinders.