New to long range shooting

davis21b

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Messages
7
Location
Mississippi
Hello, I,m new here and sorry this is probably a common question but, was wondering what yall think would be the best for me. I'm trying to get into long range shooting from about 500-1,000 yds +. I have a few questions. I have been trying to research all when I can and I still have awhile before I will be home to get started so i will continue to research for awhile. I have been debating on a Savage 10 fcp-k or i have been thinking about a Tikka T3. I was going to go with 308 but, a friend suggest i look into some different calipers. So, now I'm looking at 308, 300wm, 270, or 270wsm. Any thoughts and opinions would be highly appreicaited. Thank you.
 
I love .308, pretty soft recoil, and accurate out to over 1k yards, if the shooter can do their part. That said, I'm thinking about making a 300WSM to add to the collection
 
That's a lot of territory to cover. Most bolt action rifles will work well for long range. Savage offers a lot of good caliber selections in twist rates for long range hunting, a barrel nut so you can swap barrels yourself, and a reputation for good out of the box accuracy. Aesthetically, they are pit bulls.

The Tikkas have a lot going for them. They are silky smooth, accurate, and have rigid stocks. The recoil lug leaves something to be desired.

Rem 700's are very simple to work on, attractive, and accurate. For future customs, the 700's offer unmatched availability of services and components.

Caliber selection is about what you want to shoot, how far you want to shoot, how much recoil you're comfortable with, wether you reload, and barrel life.

There are a ton of good choices for various applications.
In 6mm for coyotes, varmints, and f class, I like the 6x47Lapua. A close factory round is the 243.

For all purpose hunting and plinking the 6.5mm's are great. Low recoil, great external ballistics. The 260 is the most common. The 6.5-284 is available from Savage and is a great long range round. But, barrel life is reduced.

The 308 has great factory ammo available, unmatched versatility and barrel life.

The 7-08 and 270 win are the next step, offering moderate recoil, versatility and good ballistics.

The 280AI is a great round with superb ballistics and mild manners.

The 7WSM and 7-300WSM offer easy 1000 yard performance on targets and game.

The 300 WSM and Win mag fill the bill for larger animals and / or longer ranges.

Then we have the 338s for big game and extreme ranges.

The choices are endless. The good news is, anything you like will work for long range.
 
Sappers, Combat Engineers I am a 12B in the Army. Basically we are infantry with explosives. We do alot of stuff now we are route clearance. We clear the way hince follow the the sappers and to clear we have to lead.
 
@davis21b,

Some good advice so far. Allow me to expand on that some.

-- 1) Practice, practice, and More Practice! You can not get enough Trigger Time. Pure and Simple sir.
-- 1a) Pick a round that has truly great barrel life.
-- 1b) Also, pick a round that you can get superbly accurate ammo for over the counter. Reloading is even better for accuracy and it is cheaper on you. Trigger Time is King.
-- 1c) Pick a round that will Not Beat You Up while you learn! It needs to recoil enough to make you pay attention to proper form, but not enough to make you flinch.

-- 2) Do not try to cheat your way to the top. Buying a "Laser Beam Of Death" can certainly be entertaining, but it will not Really do you any favors in the long run.
-- 2a) Buy a set of wind flags, and learn to use them. The calibre you choose should be "Good Enough" in the wind but not "Fan-****-Super-Tastic". You actually want the bullet to get blown around a little, so you can work on Wind Reading Skills. Wind Reading is probably THE single biggest reason people miss shots beyond about 500 yards or so. Learn it right the first time around, then later you can buy that fancy Laser Beam and you are ahead of the game.
-- 2b) Learn to deal with Mirage.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suggestions:

--- .223 bolt action with at least a 28" barrel with a 1:7 rate of twist set up to shoot the 90 grainers with a powder like Varget, ARComp etc. Even the 90 grainers get blown around in the wind quite a bit, but it definitely will make 1k yards, and the barrel life will be good. Ammo is fairly cheap too.

--- 6.5x47 Lapua bolt action. Fantastic ammo over the counter. Easy to reload for. Good barrel life. Very Very Very good round out to 1k yards no matter how you cut it. More recoil than the .223, but still nice and mild.

--- .260 Remington = You are borderline cheating now.... barrel life will be reasonable, but probably not what most folks deem Fantastic. Lapua is making brass for the 260 these days, so YAAY !! :) **** nice round!

--- .308 Winchester = The Gold Standard by which all others are measured. Some are Platinum, some Silver, some Bronze, but the 308 Win is Gold :) That said, either the .260 or the 6.5x47 Lapua will make it look "Sad and Mad" beyond about 700 yards or so. But hey, with the 308 you really will have "Good Enough" on all fronts to learn what you need to, and learn it well. Also, the barrel life is Fantastic.

Ok, sorry for the book, but I was lucky enough to have some one explain this to me when it was time for me to begin learning LR shooting. I thought I would pass it along. Some folks get too caught up too early on ZOMG BOOOOM !!!! Laser beam of Death... and it bites them in the *** hard, sooner rather than later.

Have a good one,
Gary
P.S. Buy the absolute best scope you can possibly afford, even it it costs you twice what the rifle did!!! Not all scopes are even remotely the same and a poor scope will kick your *** hard when stretching beyond about 500 yards or so. You do not really NEED a scope higher in power than 24 at most, 14x - 16x if the glass is REALLY GOOD is plenty. Higher than about 18x and you really begin to have to deal with Mirage, also the higher the mag range the worse things like your Heart Beat will distact you .... :)
 
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I just ordered some optics. I got a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50FFP. I got a GREAT deal on it. It is back ordered so want have it for a few months but that dosent really matter right now cause I wont be home for awhile anyway. There warrenty seems hard to beat and I just couldn't pass up the deal I ran across.
 
Nice optic my friend :) I am pretty sure it will serve you well! Vortex has great CS just in case you should run into a problem. Good company to do business with.

Keep a strain on it,
Gary
 
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