Extending Your Comfortable Effective Range

[brant89]

Thought a thread about extending your comfortable effective range might be a good addition to some of the basic shooting instruction threads. These questions would be directed towards the experienced guys to help out those of us who may have caught the long range bug in the past year or two who might be confident at say 600yd but not so much at 800yd. Please be more specific than "range time" (ie. reading wind, shrink current 600yd groups, change reloading practices, etc.)

#1: What is the best way to extend your comfortable effective range?

#2: What should a newer LR shooter do to make the most of their available range time?

#3: Are there specific excersizes that could be done at home to aid in this?

 

[Browninglover1]

Number one suggestion is get off the bench and shoot from real positions. I practice long range prone the most because it is the most solid but without shooting from sitting or kneeling positions you'll have no idea how far you can shoot from those positions in the field.

Also one thing that helped me was to quit shooting groups once you have a load worked up. I find it much more effective to practice hitting small targets than shooting small groups. This can be accomplished by shooting 3/4" stickers at 100 yards or 8" plates at 1k yards. I have been pleasantly surprised how much better I shoot now that I focus on hitting small targets compared to when I worked at shooting tiny groups.

 

[roninflag]

what rifle/scope? i would say shooting in f-class matches. 500,600, .......1000

 

[yobuck]

Number one suggestion is get off the bench and shoot from real positions. I practice long range prone the most because it is the most solid but without shooting from sitting or kneeling positions you'll have no idea how far you can shoot from those positions in the field.

My 14 year old granson killed his first buck this year at 810 yds. He was on a lookout
about a half mile from the vehicle. He shot it from a portable shooting bench same as most other long range deer are shot in PA. Could he have killed it from a prone position on the ground? Probably not. Are we planning on teaching him how to do that? Probably not. Why would you want to shoot at an animal from anywhere but
your strongest position?

 

[CB11WYO]

Tagging in...

 

[brant89]

I would agree with browninglover that one should know their limits in different shooting positions, but for this thread I was only thinking about prone position as that is probably the strongest field shooting position available to most. I never shoot off a bench so prone position is what I'm looking to improve.

As far as the small targets goes, I can see where that would make sense. I have a field where I am able to shoot out to 1k and usually paint a 2-3" circle on my 12" gong as an aiming point.

Roninflag, I'm currently working with a .260AI on a savage target action with a Viper PST 6-24x50, but noticed similar limitations with my .223 rem., same scope.

 

[Browninglover1]

My 14 year old granson killed his first buck this year at 810 yds. He was on a lookout
about a half mile from the vehicle. He shot it from a portable shooting bench same as most other long range deer are shot in PA. Could he have killed it from a prone position on the ground? Probably not. Are we planning on teaching him how to do that? Probably not. Why would you want to shoot at an animal from anywhere but
your strongest position?

In your case that's great! Practice from positions you'll be able to use in the field. I won't ever have the option, nor will most western mountain hunters, of shooting from a bench. I should have taken into consideration other areas where that is a viable option. Still doesn't change my statement though that you need to practice in positions you will encounter in your hunting grounds. For me that means getting off a bench, for you that is obviously different but I would suggest practicing off the bench you'll have access to in the field.

 

[kbaerg]

One thing I will add that is something I do, is when I take my 1 shot at say 800 yds is to figure out why and what caused my miss. I have seen some just make corrections and not really think about what caused said miss. For me it's usually our good old wind blowing or I failed to hold rifle correctly. I will say I think it still comes down to practice though.

 

[406precision]

Document your rounds down range...every shot should be logged in your data book.

From cold bore to the last shot of the day we like to write each dialed yardage and wind , a picture of the target and the bullet impact and each corrected yardage and wind if correction was needed. You will have alot of useful info and you can use this info to help establish your maximum effective range.

Jordan@406

 

[yobuck]

Document your rounds down range...every shot should be logged in your data book.

From cold bore to the last shot of the day we like to write each dialed yardage and wind , a picture of the target and the bullet impact and each corrected yardage and wind if correction was needed. You will have alot of useful info and you can use this info to help establish your maximum effective range.

Jordan@406

I would have no argument with this statement except to say that in a (hunting) situation, most of it will be thrown overboard. Especially in a case involving an
animal in the rut.

 

[406precision]

I'm not sure I follow...I don't use my log book when I'm in the field hunting..I use it to establish my MER before I go out in the field. If you dont have solid data previously established..you have no baseline to establish or extend your MER.

Good solid data and practicing on targets of known size and realistic demensions from field positions is the only concrete way of knowing what your capable of in the field.

Jordan@406

 

[FearNoWind]

...

#1: What is the best way to extend your comfortable effective range?

#2: What should a newer LR shooter do to make the most of their available range time?

#3: Are there specific excersizes that could be done at home to aid in this?

For my students, I'd start with the list of recommendations posted by Browning. I also endorse the ideas expressed by kbaerg.
Hunters need to make a distinction between target shooting and hunting; two very different disciplines.
For extending the hunter's confidence in personal effective range, use an 8 or 10 inch target (I prefer 8) at 100 yards. When you can hit that consistently (10 out of 10 shots) move it to 150 yards and go through the same drill. Every time you achieve your goal of 10 hits on target out of 10 shots fired, move it out another fifty yards.
Do that for every position you expect to use in the field. My bones won't allow me to fire from kneeling position and I am useless at off-hand, so I'm limited to sitting or prone. If field conditions don't support sitting or prone I simply don't take the shot.
Exercises done at home would include the drill of standing with the rifle slung over the shoulder or held as it might be in the field, moving into the shooting position and bringing the rifle to the shoulder into shooting position and on target. Do that without dry firing.
When you can do that repeatedly, bringing the rifle to the shoulder in one smooth movement without having to readjust the rifle, you're ready to add the dry firing element.
Remember to triple check the rifle to make sure it's unloaded, leave any ammunition in another room and away from your practice area, check the chamber with every change in position to make sure it's unloaded. When finished practicing, leave the rifle unloaded in storage.

 

[HARPERC]

I have a plan, I can't say it will work, but it has a logic to it. 1) Work on my physical short comings, flexibility, strength, and endurance. Scheduled time with a trainer is paying some dividends with field positions.

2) Formal shooting instruction. I've never had an outside reference point for what I do.Signed up for 2 schools looking at a third. I'm signed up for both the 406 Precision, and Non-Typical Outfitters this year.

3) Better record keeping, and keeping score, related is to add video at times so I can see what I'm doing from another vantage point.

 

[WildRose]

Thought a thread about extending your comfortable effective range might be a good addition to some of the basic shooting instruction threads. These questions would be directed towards the experienced guys to help out those of us who may have caught the long range bug in the past year or two who might be confident at say 600yd but not so much at 800yd. Please be more specific than "range time" (ie. reading wind, shrink current 600yd groups, change reloading practices, etc.)

#1: What is the best way to extend your comfortable effective range?

#2: What should a newer LR shooter do to make the most of their available range time?

#3: Are there specific excersizes that could be done at home to aid in this?

If you have an accurate rig and load it boils down to two things.

Having the right dope.

Getting the basic fundamentals of marksmanship exactly right.

Things are fairly straight forward out to around 600yds but from there things get more complicated as your errors are magnified pretty well exponentially.

The hardest part is putting together a rig and a load capable of MOA or better accuracy. That is no easy feat.

Next is getting your wind calls correct on a consistent basis. The wind is the biggest hurdle we all have to get over at long range because it can change speed and direction several times between you and your target.

Even if you get proficient at reading the wind you must then get your calculations correct so having a good ballistic calculator is really essential.

All of the above requires a great deal of practical experience in the field.

Nothing builds confidence like consistent success and that is only achieved with a lot of trigger time doing things right again and again.

You know you are there when you do occasionally blow a shot and are completely surprised that you did.