941/935/813 yard antelope

RDM416

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Jan 31, 2005
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700
Location
Searcy, Arkansas
I got back a few days ago from my antelope hunt in unit 26 in WY. There were 4 of us and we had a great hunt. We all killed bucks pretty quickly.......... no big ones just decent bucks. I shot my buck at 406 yards then it was on to the fun part of shooting does at long ranges.

One of the buddies with me is also a long range shooter and we decided we would shoot our does at a minimum of 800 yards and I only had my dial up chart tested out to 1000 so that was my upper limit.

I was shooting a 338 Kubla Kahn built on a WBY action by Kirby Allen (Fiftydriver). The rifle is set up with a 27" Lilja barrel, McMillan A5 stock with a NF NXS 8-32X56 to top things off. I worked up a mild load for it this summer with Berger 300s. I am running them at 2875fps average and the rifle will stack them up with 1/4 moa groups.

My first doe I shot at 813 yards. It was late in the evening and the wind had died so it was just a matter of ranging her and dialing in. Perfect double lung shot.

My second doe was the next morning. We spotted her bedded down and ranged her at 941 yards. I had a variable crosswind blowing from 2 O'clock at 7 to 10 mph. I dialed in the elevation and wind and took the shot. I did not quite compensate enough for the wind as the Berger hit her just a little back and high.... a liver shot. She never got up from her bed and was dead in just a few seconds. Those Bergers open up a serious hole!

My buddy was shooting custom 300 WBY / AI built on a Remmington 700 action. He took several shots at does in the 800 to 900 range and was having trouble with his dial up........ he was shooting over everything. We were doing a good job getting the windage right but not elevation. He missed a doe at a little over 800 (about his 7th or 8th miss). She stopped at 935 yards and was just standing there. I offered to let him try my rifle and dialed in the elevation and windage and he took the shot, drilling the doe right behind the front shoulder going in and exiting through the offside shoulder.

That pretty much wrapped things up...... just a long drive back to Arkansas! Sorry, no pictures, we never even got a camera out the entire trip.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, sorry about the no pics. I'm not much of a picture taker in the first place and we were just having too much fun to think about it!

BH Hunter, I was using a swarovski range finder. When ranging at those distances I normally mount mine on my tripod or in a pinch use shooting sticks. You really have to get them steady to get accurate readings. I will also take a dozen or more (sometimes many more) readings, throw out the ones that are obviously wrong and eventually a trend will develop where the same yardage within 4 or 5 yards starts showing up pretty consistently. Accurate ranging is such a critical part of of shooting at those ranges. On antelope size critters a +/- 25 yard error can easily turn into a miss. My Swaro will range out to 1700 to 2000 yards in most conditions, just keep it really steady and take a lot of readings.
 
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