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Limited long range hunting

Cat island law dawg

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Nov 11, 2014
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Have relatively limited long range shooting experience. Except for a couple of rare occasions never shot game at over 300 yards and usually much less. Have a standard rem BDL 7mm mag and a 300 weatherby stainless. Mark V. Somewhat confused by the technical aspects of specialized scopes and bullets. Leery of too many bells and whistles. Goal is to stretch capabilities to 500 yards in an ethical manner and user friendly. Scope and factory ammo recommendations appreciated. Primary game mule deer and elk. Optics quality a concern but can't afford 2500 scope
 
id look into the viper PST line for scopes. 500 yards for a 7mm rem mag is very doable. As far as ammo goes, it depends on what you are hunting. If deer then you simply need a bullet that flys around 1MOA and expands well (depending on your velocities. If looking to hunt larger critters (moose/ large bears) you will want a bullet that penetrates well such as a nosler partition. Reloading would be your best bet but if you dont reload, I would go to your gun shop and buy several different boxes of factory ammo to see which ones shoot best. If deer hunting...pick whatever bullet flyes best...no need to worry too much about expansion and penetration since velocity will most likely remain high at 500 yards. If larger game, again you will want to stick to better penetrating bullets.
 
Have relatively limited long range shooting experience. Except for a couple of rare occasions never shot game at over 300 yards and usually much less. Have a standard rem BDL 7mm mag and a 300 weatherby stainless. Mark V. Somewhat confused by the technical aspects of specialized scopes and bullets. Leery of too many bells and whistles. Goal is to stretch capabilities to 500 yards in an ethical manner and user friendly. Scope and factory ammo recommendations appreciated. Primary game mule deer and elk. Optics quality a concern but can't afford 2500 scope

Given your self imposed restrictions, I would look very hard at a Zeiss HD5 with the Rapid Z reticle. If you take the time to match the reticle to the ballistic curve of the ammo you are using, it works VERY well. I have two scopes with the Rapid Z 600 reticle, and can easily make hits on 8" steel plates out to the limits of the reticle. Of the ballistic reticles, I have found the Zeiss Rapid Zs to be far and away the most capable and intuitive. They have 5 and 10 mph wind value references on each line and it is very easy to get the lines to match your ballistic curve.

I also have and use scopes with tactical style turrets and reticles. Bushnell LRHS and SWFA SS. While they are definitely more precise, they take a good deal more effort to learn, and for me are not as quick on deer vital sized targets.

No matter what you go with, learn how to read the wind. Trajectory is easy, but the wind can be a real bugger-bear...

John
 
Have relatively limited long range shooting experience. Except for a couple of rare occasions never shot game at over 300 yards and usually much less. Have a standard rem BDL 7mm mag and a 300 weatherby stainless. Mark V. Somewhat confused by the technical aspects of specialized scopes and bullets. Leery of too many bells and whistles. Goal is to stretch capabilities to 500 yards in an ethical manner and user friendly. Scope and factory ammo recommendations appreciated. Primary game mule deer and elk. Optics quality a concern but can't afford 2500 scope
You have a lot of good scopes out there for less than 2,500 including the Leupold VX-7, nightforce, and many others.

If you have not already done so have a good gunsmith pillar bed and float them, put a good rail type scope mounting rail on and quality rings. The TPS rings and EGW HD rails make a very good combo at a reasonable price. Occasionally you can find the Nightforce rails on sale and they are great as well.

If you're going to shoot factory ammo instead of reloading you'll never be able to maximize the potential of either rifle but you should be able to find something that works well enough to get you close to 1MOA.

Weatherby Ammo for the Weatherby.

I've had good luck with Remington Priemier Ammo full power loads with the Scirocco Bullets in my 300wm's and 300 Rum's. I've had good luck with the Federal Premium as well in the Rum's and the STW's.

You'll just have to buy a box here and there and see what it likes best.

Welcome.
 
500 yards with those two cartridges. And you don't want to spend a lot of $ well you could get it done with a Nikon buckmaster bdc. There are better scopes but for 500 yard shooting and a 7mag and 300weatherby it would work fine.
 
No person on this forum or any forum can give you the magic recipe for YOUR gun and expectations. You can go as inexpensive as you like and hope for the best or spend a few dollars and be assured that you will have years of good product service....would not want to have issues with a cheap scope or etc. when on a once in a lifetime hunt. In most cases. people who go the inexpensive route end up spending more in the long run since they are not initially satisfied and opt for the better later. Learned from my own personal experience. On a tangent, sorry.

Select the bullet grain weight you want to shoot and purchase various factory loads to see how they perform out of your gun. Make sure you shoot out to the yardage you intend to shoot using good shooting practices (waiting between shots to let barrel cool, good rest and etc.). Just because you get a good group at a 100, it may not perform well past 300 and etc. If this does not work for you, then do as most folks eventually do and that is to hand load.

Also as mentioned, glass is not the item to be cheap on. Purchase what you can afford as long as it is by a quality manufacturer with a good warranty. For those mountain or rugged hunts, you want a product that can withstand heavy recoil, dependable and repeatable performance.

As for the gun, what you have is a good platform, but to ring the best out of it you need to at least bed the action. Extras such as this may make a difference between an ethical kill at range or a wounded animal.

Finally, practice, practice, practice. I can't say this enough. It is the only way you can know the capability of your equipment and your shooting limitations.
 
500 yards is really not that far by many standards. One bell/whistle you can eliminate on your scope would be the parallax adjustment (in the form of side focus or adjustable objective). Parallax error increases with scope magnification and range, so go with a scope that has a max magnification of 10-14 and you'll probably find a model without the focus adjustment. Leupold VX-3 4.5-14 and Vortex PST 2.5-10 are some that come to mind.

You could also get by with capped turrets and a ballistic reticle like Hondo suggests. Alternatively you could look for a scope with custom turrets available. This allows you to just dial your scope to the range you're shooting rather than consult a drop chart for your MOA/MIL adjustment and then dial in MOA or MILs. The Leupold VX-3 CDS has such a turret and I consider the glass plenty clear for 500 yards. These scopes are light weight and nowhere near $2500.

Other than that get your gun shooting close to 1" consistently and go practice out to 600-800 yards. Then you'll feel confident hitting stuff at 500 when a shot presents itself.
 
My 700 bdl will group below an inch, sometimes .60 on a regular basis with accubond and partitions. No such luck with hand loads in the 300. Does it's best with Weatherby factory 180 partitions but spendy. Remington factory stuff does poorly . Went scope shopping today. Nightforce were heavy and pricey as were higher end swaroski. Saw three that looked promising . Leupold VX6. Swaroski 3 and Ziess H5. 2-10 or thereabouts . Didn't get a chance to examine Viper yet. Some of the other scopes could be justified by 800 yard shooters but I'm not going there. Will continue to look at scopes and hand loads for the Weatherby that group well enough to practice . Thanks for the insight . Going for quality glass without the dials and adjustments. May have to have gunsmith look at bedding of Weatherby . It's in a aluminum block stock. Don't know what can be done with that
 
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