Just Curious on your thoughts Guys..

[Brendan Mathews]

I took a Shot at a Deer this year that was standing at 738 yards, he was facing frontal to me, I have proofed this gun out to 1200 yards and only shot one other Bear at 490 yards in a whole, I went fast as he was a big 4 pt and dialed my elevation but I forgot to check my windage, rookie mistake? I looked back at my kestrel and it told me to dial .5 MOA to the Left... When I looked at my gun later and checked the Dial I was set to .5 MOA to the right, at 730 yards this obviously made a big difference and I missed him twice, I did not film these shots and spent 3 hours looking for him since I thought the rifle was dead on... I never found the deer or blood and concluded I did not hit him, I am in Oregon so the jungle is thick and hard to see into it unlike open country.

So my question is to you guys was how many inches to the Right of him do you think I was hitting by being dialed .5 moa Right instead of .5 MOA Left, I was 1 MOA off what the Kestrel said to do.

Shooting a Gunwerks 7mm RM Right hand Twist Barrel Scope: NF SHV 5-20

Thanks for any input!

 

[belldar]

enough to mis the deer. 7.5 inches roughly? It is good to make it a habit when shooting critters at long range to take your time and take a good shot(broadside). There is something mentally taxing to taking long range front on shots, to me anyway. Check and recheck As you usually have time when they are out there that far. Not trying to be that guy as I have been there myself. I also don't dial windage but use my MOA hash marks to adjust Windage so it takes more error out of the shot(heart racing, dialing in scope wrong Etc..). Just my 2 cents. Learn from it and you will connect the next time. It's A LOT different shooting at range steel vs shooting for that nice buck you have been after
one last note. In my experience when right Handed persons miss on a deer that get them a bit excited it usually ends up right as a right handed individual will pull right when squeezing the trigger at times. a person may be so Zoned in that they don't realize they do it. I try and get those individuals to do a dry fire or two to calm their nerves a bit before taking the shot when time allows.

 

[Beardeddeer91]

1 MOA at 738 yards = ~7.68 inches (1 MOA is ~1.04 inches at 100 yards). This is of course assuming everything else is perfect, including the wind being consistent at the point your kestrel is reading it all the way to the deer.

 

[trigger puller]

When I am taking a long shot I will dial my dope and then hold wind, I will also take a few breaths to calm down. If I can't take a broad side shot or slightly quartering I will wait.

 

[Bucklowery]

Agreed ^^^^^^^

 

[100percent]

****....

 

[hunter67wa]

There is nothing fast with a long shot as there are a lot more things to go wrong. I like others wait for my shot that I want. I like to take a couple of dryfire shots to see how my follow through is doing and I hold for wind not dial.