Why would you not sight in at 100 yards?

[tmwtrfwler]

At 300 yards elk running full out you hold dead on shoulder.No Way. You would have had to Lead him quite a ways.

I double lunged him which is of course a bit back from the shoulder. just telling you what happened from the hunt. keep in mind I said he was originally at 225 yards and where he fell was at 300yards. So it proves my point that in a hunting scenario a MPBR works to perfection. That means I shot him somewhere b/w the two distances....No thinking involved. Shoulder the gun and it works. Done.

put it this way. MPBR and my experience as a waterfowler sure helped kill the elk. didn't stop my swing, follow through and MPBR all did the job.

 

[LVJ76]

This has been my exact point in several posts on this subject.

Know your gun. Know your quarry. Know your point blank distance and swim be free. For many ppl that first 400" elk or 200" Whitetail is a humbling experience. I'm sure this story has repeated itself many times over the years, but I witnessed it once. A bull moose stepped out. My friend ejected every round in rifle without ever pulling the trigger and was so disconnected he then turned and asked where he hit it. The guide pointed to the live rounds all over the place. Poor guy didn't know whether he walked to work or carried a lunch.

And he was a seasoned hunter. I'll give those who insist on cranking knobs that it is potentially more accurate than point blank but not in any hunting situation I have ever witnessed. The more you have to think about when the adrenaline kicks in the less you are thinking bout the shot.

On a caribou hunt my buddy Larry with the big scope with turrets gets so excited he forgets to turn the knobs. The Boo is at 350. His gun is sighted at 100. Damned if he couldn't hit bottle caps at 300 from a bench with a rest and X number of up clicks.

Sadly he was so dependent on the CRANKS he had no idea how low he would be with his hundred zero at 350 because he was used to turning the knob. So he held a foot over the back when a few inches would have been fine. He missed his first three shots so badly the Boo just turned end for end every time a bullet zip over. With every miss Larry raised his aim till he was holding two feet over the Boo. On his 3rd shot the guide tells him he's missing high. With his next and last shot he gut shoots the poor beast. It runs 30 yards straight left.
I dropped to a knee, put my crosshairs high lung and dropped it when it stopped. Point Blank.

All anyone needs to do to understand Point Blank is to think bout the millions of trophies shot from the pre-turret days 25-years ago back to the advent of screw-on capped scopes. I hunted then and until I put a military Unertl Marine Sniper scope on a 40bx 300 win mag and began shooting deer at 600-900 yards Id never turned a elevation adjuster on a hunt in my life.

The End.

The scopes that are now available to us hunters weren't available a few decades ago. I grew up hunting mostly coues deer and Javelina using the old school kentuky windage and we had to know how to judge/guess distances by looking at trees and other things to get an idea, range finders weren't available back then.

On these smaller game animals the MPBR circle is much smaller, say maybe 5 to 6 inches max, so still need to aim high a bit but not much, just a couple inches and you're good.

My scopes all have hash marks and I know just which one to use say a 500 yard shot on a specific magnification setting. Can't use the same hash mark at 12x and 3x, good luck with that. This is something many hunters and shooters don't know.

 

[Gcan]

At 300 yards elk running full out you hold dead on shoulder.No Way. You would have had to Lead him quite a ways.

I hate to be a nudge but an elk running 20 mph at 300 with a bullet with a 2900fps muzzle velocity needs 122" (10') lead.

Just saying. I have no doubt the elk was shot. Its more likely that it stopped for that split second that seems like they didn't stop at all.

I shot one of my best deer on a dead run. I was sitting on a ledge about 20' up watching a tangle. Something scared a squirrel, the squirrel scared up the buck and the buck came at my 7:00. He was running full out but jumping logs as he went. I saw a large downed pine in his path and ambushed him. I shot him right in the heart at 80 yards as his front feet hit the ground on my side of the tree. His chest was almost still while his butt was still moving 10-15 mph over the tree. So I shot the front of him standing while the back half was running.
But I technically shot him running.
Hunting is full of contradictions.

 

[LVJ76]

I hate to be a nudge but an elk running 20 mph at 300 with a bullet with a 2900fps muzzle velocity needs 122" (10') lead.

Just saying. I have no doubt the elk was shot. Its more likely that it stopped for that split second that seems like they didn't stop at all.

I shot one of my best deer on a dead run. I was sitting on a ledge about 20' up watching a tangle. Something scared a squirrel, the squirrel scared up the buck and the buck came at my 7:00. He was running full out but jumping logs as he went. I saw a large downed pine in his path and ambushed him. I shot him right in the heart at 80 yards as his front feet hit the ground on my side of the tree. His chest was almost still while his butt was still moving 10-15 mph over the tree. So I shot the front of him standing while the back half was running.
But I technically shot him running.
Hunting is full of contradictions.
View attachment 134247

I've shot several running Coues deer and Javelina, and here is what I've found,

At 100 yards I lead it around 6 to 8" with my 7x08 and a little less with my 7mm Rem Mag, at 200 yards I lead it little over 2 feet. At 300 it's around 3 and a half feet. These are on an animal running full speed.

I've done tons of dove, quail and duck hunting in the past which helped tons on learning to shoot moving targets, also used to practice on moving silhouettes at 350 meters.

The 10' lead at an elk at 300 yds is way off, you'll hit the elk behind it.

Coyotes are great for practice on moving targets, they are fast and small, and fun to shoot. If you can hunt hogs in your area in open fields that's a another great way to practice on moving targets.

When shooting at moving targets there's what we call the "follow through" which means you keep swinguing the rifle/shotgun when you are pulling the trigger. Otherwise if you stop you fall behind and miss the target or end up with a gut shot or hit a hind leg.

 

[tmwtrfwler]

I can only tell you all what happened. The elk was running from left to right, I put it on his shoulder, pulled the trigger, followed through the shot like I do bird hunting, and he stopped dead in his tracks. Was he running as fast as he can? Didn't have a radar gun but he was running for sure. Was the crosshair dead on his shoulder or was it on the brisket....hard to say as it all happened fast. But there was certainly not a huge lead on him.

What I do know is that I instinctively shot a running elk as he ran and it fell at 300 yards. That wouldn't be possible of not for using MPBR. That's why I shared the story. We've all seen crazy stuff in the field. Can I replicate this shot again.... who knows but I am sure a lot of luck was on my side that day.

 

[Gcan]

I've shot several running Coues deer and Javelina, and here is what I've found,

At 100 yards I lead it around 6 to 8" with my 7x08 and a little less with my 7mm Rem Mag, at 200 yards I lead it little over 2 feet. At 300 it's around 3 and a half feet. These are on an animal running full speed.

I've done tons of dove, quail and duck hunting in the past which helped tons on learning to shoot moving targets, also used to practice on moving silhouettes at 350 meters.

The 10' lead at an elk at 300 yds is way off, you'll hit the elk behind it.

Coyotes are great for practice on moving targets, they are fast and small, and fun to shoot. If you can hunt hogs in your area in open fields that's a another great way to practice on moving targets.

When shooting at moving targets there's what we call the "follow through" which means you keep swinguing the rifle/shotgun when you are pulling the trigger. Otherwise if you stop you fall behind and miss the target or end up with a gut shot or hit a hind leg.

Shot some skeet in my life. As I recall I was a fair 100/100 shooter, not so good at sporting clays. Always dropped a couple. Shot a lot of animals running too over 55 years of actual hunting and competitive shooting. (See)
So if we want to get into the weeds lets.

While I find 122" to be a lot of lead, it matches my experiences pretty closely. At 300 yards a bullet leaving the muzzle at 2900 fps has a time of flight of .35 seconds. An elk traveling at 20 mph right to left will cover 10.26666' in .35 seconds. If swinging the gun at the same speed as the elk was traveling worked as advertised a shooter should need virtually no lead at all. But then deceleration enters into the equation and lets not forget the lock time, the time it takes pressure to move the bullet, the .1-.2 of a second from the time the brain says fire to the time the finger pulls the trigger. All this means that two ppl shooting the same gun would probably need different leads to hit the same spot on a moving target.

Assuming a shooter can match the speed of an elk that runs at 25 mph and can run at 45 mph while his chest is rising and falling 20 to 30" inches a couple times a second and keep still the cross hair aimed ahead of him at a point in space, pull the trigger and not stop the gun, the lead theoretically is not 10 feet. It should be zero plus the deceleration of the projectile over distance/time converted into lead. The variable is a few inches. So still a theoretical zero lead.

I cannot imagine actually shooting off hand at any running animal much past 100 yards. Although I have. I use the swing thru method. But more often than not it has been at an animal that stopped for a millisecond.

The 10 foot lead is based on the ambush method which is often used for walking humans. I know at 12x my vertical hashes on the cross are x feet at 100-200-300 etc. As a rule I would not shoot at a running animals under any circumstances at 300 yards. But a walking animal would always be an ambush shot for me using my right left hash marks and always a center chest hold. The point of the ten feet is to demonstrate that at 300 yards from the time you pull the trigger, whether swinging or ambushing that animal will move 10' @ 20 mph. The ethical kill zone on an elk might be 14". If your swinging lead estimation is off just a few inches you will wound that animal.

Yes, we swing a shotgun, but unlike a rifle bullet, a shotgun gives us a shot string that may only be an inch or two long at 20 yards but gets longer and wider the farther out because different parts of the string decelerate and expand at different rates. So you may screw the pooch and still break the bird with the back or side of the string which now has length and width, both of which convert to an ever increasing likely hit window. Not so with A rifle bullet that is 1-1/4" long and .308 wide. So whether you use the Churchill method, swing thru, sustained lead or the Force, what works for a shotgun at 20 yards is not going to work for an elk at 300 off hand with a rifle.

The attached photo is of the entry point on a full 40-mph running red hartebeest at 123 yards. In the neck. He didn't bleed. Died so fast the blood looked like a red wax seal on a document. He was running away, not across but up and down a couple feet at a time. I fired the bullet at a spot about 4" above his head and he jumped right into to it. I ambushed him. The gun was not moving up and down but I will concede that years of upland, waterfowl and clays shooting didn't hurt.

If you or anyone can consistently make running shots you have a gift that is not teachable and also falls beyond the ability of 99% of people.

 

[James L Holzhauer]

In Africa you learn to keep your scope at low settings at all times. If the target is far away there is always time to dial in. I try to dial no more than to see the whole animal clearly. Once you make this mistake you don't forget it

 

[tmwtrfwler]

I won't defend what happened and the current debate is why I didn't provide all the detail when I first posted of the successful trip when I returned in a different post. I know it's not the smartest shot but in the moment it happened.

It happened as I said and it was the best shot of my life. Probably the luckiest too. Regardless it happened and here's the pic. Enjoy. Now back to the original topic. MPBR works best for hunting

 

[Gcan]

I won't defend what happened and the current debate is why I didn't provide all the detail when I first posted of the successful trip when I returned in a different post. I know it's not the smartest shot but in the moment it happened.

It happened as I said and it was the best shot of my life. Probably the luckiest too. Regardless it happened and here's the pic. Enjoy. Now back to the original topic. MPBR works best for hunting

It does happen. I'm not doubting it at all. That was the point of the hartebeest photo. If id simply wrote I shot a running hartebeest in the neck at 123 I would have gotten the same response you got. Sometimes Ppl just make astounding shots.
Nice Elk.

 

[memtb]

It does happen. I'm not doubting it at all. That was the point of the hartebeest photo. If id simply wrote I shot a running hartebeest in the neck at 123 I would have gotten the same response you got. Sometimes Ppl just make astounding shots.
Nice Elk.

In my lifetime I've managed a few remarkable shots....and even more, "remarkable" misses! memtb

 

[tmwtrfwler]

In my lifetime I've managed a few remarkable shots....and even more, "remarkable" misses! memtb

I've got enough miss stories to make this site need more bandwidth. This one is still hard to believe it happened for me.

 

[skipglo]

I am a huge fan of Max. Point Blank Range for Hunting. I do enjoy dialing when having fun on steel at the farm. But hunting I go with MPBR....here's a good example why:

I went on my first elk hunt outside of Cody, Wyoming with an outfitter (I'm from Virginia and have grown up hunting waterfowl and whitetail). To prepare I zeroed my rifle (a Nosler 280AI with a Leica 2-10x50) using the Maximum Point Blank Range method. My rifle was zero'd at 260 yards so anything up to 350 was within a 9" circle. Perfect for an elk's kill zone. My feeble mind can't waste time counting MOA's or calculating under pressure for a quick shot nor do I want to shoot an animal over 400 – 500 yards anyway based on my skills (hardly ever have over 200 yd shots in VA anyway). I was with a great friend of mine and a couple guys he knows (I don't) from previous trips out west. My buddy tagged out a couple days before this event so I was hunting with our guide and one of the other guys. We were sitting on a rock face about 400-500' above the lower fork of the Shoshone River watching a group of elk filter through a funnel down to the river bed. It was an amazing spot.

Long story short(ish) I was playing backup to this guy because he won the coin toss to shoot first that day. He was laying prone on the edge of this rock face looking down over the elk. He had this bull dead to rights at 225 yards as it came through the willows on the river bed. He had his scope dialed to 20 and was waiting for a good shot (way too much magnification for the distance). He kept tinkering with his scope for ranges on his turrets and questioning himself. For 30 minutes the bull thrashed willows and wouldn't step out or present a broadside shot. My rifle was laying on my pack about 2' to his right loaded and ready to go in the event I had to back him up. The agreement was if he hit it he would put a second round in if necessary. If it were a clean miss I would be free to shoot so the bull didn't get away.

A shot from up river boomed from another hunter in our group somewhere and the bull and his herd took off (running from our left to right). My buddy shot hurriedly and it was a clean miss. He then yelled he couldn't find it in the scope (because he was dialed in so much). I was sitting on a rock behind his feet to video his shot approximately 6' away from my rifle. I quickly dropped my phone and ran to my rifle. I was standing as I picked my rifle up. From a freehand position I found the elk (scope was on 2 power), found the shoulder, put the crosshairs on it and let it fly. I hit just behind the shoulder penetrating both lungs.

The bull stopped dead in his tracks from a full run. I racked another round in and hit him again and he fell over dead as a hammer. I ranged him at 300 yards as he lay dead. I'm certain the first shot was lethal but everyone told me shoot until they fall. I turned to the guide and asked what the heck just happened! It was unbelievable. My buddy was laying on the ground in disbelief. I was standing there in disbelief. The guide gave me a wink of approval as he didn't want to celebrate too much considering one guy was crushed and I was ecstatic.

Sorry to appear a bit negative here...held on the shoulder,hit within a few inches of the shoulder at 300 yrds with a bull on a dead run....your bullet would need to be traveling at roughly 9300fps

 

[skipglo]

At 300 yards elk running full out you hold dead on shoulder.No Way. You would have had to Lead him quite a ways.

Actually on a dead run at 300 yards..... approximately 18 ft if the bullet is traveling 3000 fps to hit JUST BEHIND the shoulder.

 

[LVJ76]

Shot some skeet in my life. As I recall I was a fair 100/100 shooter, not so good at sporting clays. Always dropped a couple. Shot a lot of animals running too over 55 years of actual hunting and competitive shooting. (See)
So if we want to get into the weeds lets.

While I find 122" to be a lot of lead, it matches my experiences pretty closely. At 300 yards a bullet leaving the muzzle at 2900 fps has a time of flight of .35 seconds. An elk traveling at 20 mph right to left will cover 10.26666' in .35 seconds. If swinging the gun at the same speed as the elk was traveling worked as advertised a shooter should need virtually no lead at all. But then deceleration enters into the equation and lets not forget the lock time, the time it takes pressure to move the bullet, the .1-.2 of a second from the time the brain says fire to the time the finger pulls the trigger. All this means that two ppl shooting the same gun would probably need different leads to hit the same spot on a moving target.

Assuming a shooter can match the speed of an elk that runs at 25 mph and can run at 45 mph while his chest is rising and falling 20 to 30" inches a couple times a second and keep still the cross hair aimed ahead of him at a point in space, pull the trigger and not stop the gun, the lead theoretically is not 10 feet. It should be zero plus the deceleration of the projectile over distance/time converted into lead. The variable is a few inches. So still a theoretical zero lead.

I cannot imagine actually shooting off hand at any running animal much past 100 yards. Although I have. I use the swing thru method. But more often than not it has been at an animal that stopped for a millisecond.

The 10 foot lead is based on the ambush method which is often used for walking humans. I know at 12x my vertical hashes on the cross are x feet at 100-200-300 etc. As a rule I would not shoot at a running animals under any circumstances at 300 yards. But a walking animal would always be an ambush shot for me using my right left hash marks and always a center chest hold. The point of the ten feet is to demonstrate that at 300 yards from the time you pull the trigger, whether swinging or ambushing that animal will move 10' @ 20 mph. The ethical kill zone on an elk might be 14". If your swinging lead estimation is off just a few inches you will wound that animal.

Yes, we swing a shotgun, but unlike a rifle bullet, a shotgun gives us a shot string that may only be an inch or two long at 20 yards but gets longer and wider the farther out because different parts of the string decelerate and expand at different rates. So you may screw the pooch and still break the bird with the back or side of the string which now has length and width, both of which convert to an ever increasing likely hit window. Not so with A rifle bullet that is 1-1/4" long and .308 wide. So whether you use the Churchill method, swing thru, sustained lead or the Force, what works for a shotgun at 20 yards is not going to work for an elk at 300 off hand with a rifle.

The attached photo is of the entry point on a full 40-mph running red hartebeest at 123 yards. In the neck. He didn't bleed. Died so fast the blood looked like a red wax seal on a document. He was running away, not across but up and down a couple feet at a time. I fired the bullet at a spot about 4" above his head and he jumped right into to it. I ambushed him. The gun was not moving up and down but I will concede that years of upland, waterfowl and clays shooting didn't hurt.

If you or anyone can consistently make running shots you have a gift that is not teachable and also falls beyond the ability of 99% of people.

I apologize if I came of claiming your wrong, not my intention, it just seemed like 10 feet is too much, I'm not good with calculations and this is how I was thought from a young age.

Now here is why I say this, I've shot several deer at around 300 yards, if it is further than than that I am more likely to not take the shot but it depends. On these shots I've taken I aimed about a foot in front if it's nose and all shots were right on the boiler room.

The javelina I shot last season was a little over a 100 yds away going full speed from left to right and with my 7mm Rem Mag and a 140gr Ballistic Silvertip at around 3,250 fps I aimed at the center of its head and hit it right under the ear, thats about 5 inches from aiming and firing point. Now I dont have a mathematical explanation for it but it works

I've done Silhouette Shooting competition, smallbore and high power for over 30 years and this is done off hand, no prone or kneeling to shooting like this. I've shot one deer while kneeling and not a single animal from prone position, haven't even tried it, and up until a few months ago I've been thinking about trying it.

I'm not saying your math is wrong, just that my method works for me. Now, the shots I take are the ones I can make, not some hail mary shots hoping to get lucky. If you have taken any like these when you pull the trigger you know that animal is going down.

Now I shoot several thousands of rounds between .22 LR, 223, 7mm-08 and my 7 Mag per year, all done of hand, this is to make sure that when I pull that trogger my quarry is dispatched fast and humanely.