MrRowdy wrote:My range is a semi-private one with a max 100 yard bench but I just move back into the pasture and shoot prone in the grass. 200 yards is fine. It's not so much the distance at the range but knowing how to range properly and adjust you shooting for the given distance. Knowing you dope (bullet drop) for given distances and knowing what adjustments to make will prepare you and give you confidence to take those longer shots. A dope chart is an easy thing to make and carry in the field. On mine it shows the bullet drop in inches for every 50 yards out to 350 yards, it shows how many elevation clicks I need to adjust at each distance and it shows how many Mils a deer will show at each distance so i can range it properly. Not having a mil-dot scope makes it almost impossible to range your target properly unless you have an electronic range finder. My dope chart is about 2"x1" and covered in clear packing tape so it holds up better. Ideally a guy would want to "shoot his dope" to verify a ballistics chart but some of the charts out are so spot on that you can simply zero at whatever distance you like then follow the info on the ballistics chart and feel pretty confident that you'll get a clean hit.
A BIG 10-4 ON THIS POST!!!
I keep saying, knowing the range and being able to adjust the sights or have a ranging
scope and you're Good-To-Go!
If you consider, our factory ammo is still Supersonic at 440yds and it still has, well more than 2.68 times the Killing Power, as measured by Taylor, than a 223/SS109 ammo has at the MUZZLE!! Do you think you can kill an elk with SS109 ammo, which has a soft steel core, with the barrel pressed against the animal? If you do, then just imagine, you have 2.68 times that power at 440yds, your only problem is for you, to decide how to take advantage of that knowledge. Now imagine, at instead of 2200fps FTX bullets you hand loaded some to 2500fps, as many here have done so and even faster. At 2500fps, you are still supersonic at 510 yds and 2.81 times better Knock-Down than the SS109. As further proof that this is all possible, try this. I shot two crows this summer, on two different days, on my 200yd range one at about 100yds the other at about 200yds. Big deal right? I was using a Nikon OMEGA (
http://www.natchezss.com/product.cfm?co ... APG%20Camo ), which is on sale for 100 bucks. I went to Nikon's internet hunting sight and down loaded the "SPOT ON" Program and found out that it would be easy to accurately range to 400 plus yards. Again big deal a 100 yard crow kill and a 200 yard kill, until you know that I was using a 10 for a Dollar used semi-auto rifle in
22 LONG RIFLE!!!. A Junk-Amatic Rifle, shooting Junk-Amatic ammunition!!
Who shoots a 22 at 100yds, very few. Now who shoots a 22 at 200yds, besides no-body. What MrRowdy and I are trying to say is, if you do your home work and get out from under your paradigm, you will find a new world out there, with this cartridge/weapon combo, this is NOT just a sub-200yd weapon. Next years contest should show the way..
..t