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Picture of NormanConquest
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Back in the day there were 2 rules of thought. He was correct or full of it. I was of the latter for quite some time,with respect. However I knew Bill Jordan + he said it was true. Bill was never a braggard or liar. I had a good friend in the Williamson County S.O. who was a shooter before he took service. We went out to my place + he procceded to show me how to make long range revolver shots with his model 29.A couple of ranging shots sure. Then divide the difference between the last POI + your front sight + Bingo.He did it for me 3 times at what I would estimate at 500 yds. 500 paces I know. Made a believer out of me.Killing power at that range is debateable but the shot can be made.


Never mistake motion for action.
 
Posts: 17357 | Location: Austin, Texas | Registered: 11 March 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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If the bullet will get there, then you can do amazing things with "ranging" shots - but so what? It is walking them in. I see guys hitting the 36 inch gong at 200 yards with .45 APCs, but they don't do it the first time, and even when they hit it, the groups are not very impressive.

I have no doubt Elmer might have killed that deer at 600 yards. I once shot a PD at 573 shooting sitting with a bipod, holding 5 dots high and one dot in the wind. Hit it on the first try...the guy from Bushnell was amazed. While I was smart enough to read the mirage and have some idea of the drop (it wasn't my rifle), to say it was lucky is an understatement - even more so because we couldn't measure the range to the PD. I ranged the only tree at 350 or so, and estimated how much farther the PD was. My guess was right but that too was lucky.


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Posts: 7570 | Location: Arizona and off grid in CO | Registered: 28 July 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Oh I agree.I find it mostly an element of luck;not that some knowledge of ballistics are unimportant.But one can slice it too fine.I could'nt make Elmer's shot more than I could have Billy Dixon's. Lets face it though,the legends keep us alive,+ something to strive for.


Never mistake motion for action.
 
Posts: 17357 | Location: Austin, Texas | Registered: 11 March 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Elmer should not have used a live target to see if he could hit a deer at 600 yds. He should have used his hat. The target would have been bigger and and the experience more ethical.
 
Posts: 261 | Registered: 02 December 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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He was shooting at a wounded animal with the firearm he had on hand and had confidence in. I believe that is totally ethical.
 
Posts: 887 | Location: Wichita Falls Texas or Colombia | Registered: 25 February 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I believe he was the man.
 
Posts: 1278 | Location: The Bluegrass State | Registered: 21 October 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Oh that hat. I remember a cartoon by Buck Brown in Playboy in the late 60's about 2 cowboys behind a rock with arrows stuck everywhere. The one says to the other."They're still out there,I can hear them laughing at your hat."


Never mistake motion for action.
 
Posts: 17357 | Location: Austin, Texas | Registered: 11 March 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Maybe old thread but couldn't help but comment. Roger Clouser wrote a series of articles about LR handgun shooting using Elmer's lined front sight and thought it was fascinating. Ed Wosika wrote a 9-pg. article on it years ago also that was excellent. Never seen the math behind it written up though. Thought I'd give it a go with a Ruger MK III several years ago, so had my gunsmith etch 2 lines across the front sight, then measured the 3 units vertically with a set of calipers, and the sight radius, then converted to equivalent MOA measurements. Then ran a ballistics program for my load and matched it to the front sight like a mil-dot system, and lo and behold, it worked at 225 yd. distance we tested it at. We were all around a small bush at that distance...anyway if you're gonna try shooting at that distance it does work better than guessing.


Steve
 
Posts: 926 | Location: pueblo.co | Registered: 03 December 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by sscoyote:
Maybe old thread but couldn't help but comment. Roger Clouser wrote a series of articles about LR handgun shooting using Elmer's lined front sight and thought it was fascinating. Ed Wosika wrote a 9-pg. article on it years ago also that was excellent. Never seen the math behind it written up though. Thought I'd give it a go with a Ruger MK III several years ago, so had my gunsmith etch 2 lines across the front sight, then measured the 3 units vertically with a set of calipers, and the sight radius, then converted to equivalent MOA measurements. Then ran a ballistics program for my load and matched it to the front sight like a mil-dot system, and lo and behold, it worked at 225 yd. distance we tested it at. We were all around a small bush at that distance...anyway if you're gonna try shooting at that distance it does work better than guessing.


Steve, as far as I am concerned, you are the man when it comes to LR shooting with a handgun.


Don't Ever Book a Hunt with Jeff Blair
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Posts: 7570 | Location: Arizona and off grid in CO | Registered: 28 July 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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If one shoots enough good things can happen.

One just has to look at the handgun silhouette to realize on can hit targets a long ways out there.
 
Posts: 19313 | Location: wis | Registered: 21 April 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Thanks John. That means a lot to me coming from you sir! Miss reading your articles in TVHM. That's definitely one that shouldn't have gone belly up, dang it!

Interestingly I can null out the math these guys are using, all except the "little click" that Wosika writes about in his landmark article, "Shooting Your Pistols Accurately at Extremely Long Range", but i'll get it as soon as I get some time to work on it.


Steve
 
Posts: 926 | Location: pueblo.co | Registered: 03 December 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by sscoyote:
Thanks John. That means a lot to me coming from you sir! Miss reading your articles in TVHM. That's definitely one that shouldn't have gone belly up, dang it!

Interestingly I can null out the math these guys are using, all except the "little click" that Wosika writes about in his landmark article, "Shooting Your Pistols Accurately at Extremely Long Range", but i'll get it as soon as I get some time to work on it.


I tried to buy the mag but they wouldn't share financials; never could figure that one out. Oh well...


Don't Ever Book a Hunt with Jeff Blair
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Posts: 7570 | Location: Arizona and off grid in CO | Registered: 28 July 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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You have to remember that Elmer lived with guns his whole life and shot what he had at long distances.
He didn't just one day pick up a handgun and start hitting small targets at long ranges. He honed his skills over decades of shooting.
He is the main reason I got my first 44 Mag. A Ruger SBH with the 7.5 inch barrel. I got so hitting a car fly wheel hung on a fence at about 250 yards off was not so hard. Even off hand.
Would I try a shot such as Elmer would, NO. I don't have that kind of confidence in my skills.
I only had the 44 for around 11 years.
Leo


The only way to know if you can do a thing is to do it.
 
Posts: 316 | Location: Lebanon NY | Registered: 08 February 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Reviving an old thread here. I think the possibilities here are truly fascinating. Everytime I go into a sporting goods store I lean over the pistol counter and look at the back of the front sights. There're always so many of these little white circles staring back at me just waiting for some enterprising young guy who can see the mathematics behind angular geometry to calculate downrange shooting solutions dividing the front sight marks into little subtension units relative to the sight radius or as Elmer did it putting the target on top of the front sight where the radius then is measured from the eye to the front sight from a consistently reassumable position. Very few I've ever heard of have ever done this sort of math and matching it to a ballistics program, but it oughtta' work with a relative degree of accuracy. Been researching it myself lately using a Crosman 1377 pistol and painted front sight, and it hasn't been too far off out to 80 yds. Actually been using the front sight as a rangefinding tool as well, and it worked pretty good the one time I tried it. Anybody else doing this sort of stuff?


Steve
 
Posts: 926 | Location: pueblo.co | Registered: 03 December 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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You remember Col. Charles Askins article titled
"Elmer's Little Mortar"?
 
Posts: 383 | Location: Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada | Registered: 25 March 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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