I have been perusing this board and a few others and picking up some interesting and useful information. But along with that comes more than a little Bull Excrement. One making the rounds is a 500 yard off hand shot at an elk. I read through some of the comments but dropped out when the pages got too long and too many to read. I may be retired, but I don�t have unlimited time. What I did do was use a ballistic program to run some calculations.

I used a 7mm, 160 grain Barnes X bullet fired at 3000 FPS at the muzzle. I picked that bullet because it has a high BC. I set the program to calculate from a 200 yard zero. I set the elevation at 8000 feet. Here are the results:

At 500 yards, remaining velocity is 2093 FPS.
Bullet drop is 39.28 inches. That�s better than a 3 foot holdover. Offhand?

A 2 MPH cross wind drifts the bullet 2.23 inches.
4 MPH drifts 4.47 inches.
8 MPH drifts 8.94 inches.
10 MPH drifts 11.2 inches.
20 MPH drifts 22.3 inches.

For those of you who have never hunted in the mountain, understand, that calm conditions are almost unheard of. That is as rare as a record book head.

Just for fun I ran the same bullet and same velocity at 700 yards. (I heard somebody boast about a 700 yard shot on an antelope. Not here. In person.)

Remaining velocity: 1750 FPS.
Bullet drop: 102.6 inches.

Wind drift:
2 MPH: 7.51 inches.
4 MPH: 15.00 inches.
6 MPH; 22.5 inches.
No need to take this any further. A mild breeze is enough to cause a complete miss or a wounded and lost animal. Forget shooting in a stiff crosswind. And in the mountains, there can be several crosswinds between you and the target.

Who holds over....Thats what target knobs and rangefinders are for

Roger you sir obviously KNOW NOTHING of LONG RANGE SHOOTING OR HUNTING!......that much is evident by the post you just put up sir.

As Boyd Heaton said.....Range finders and knobs coupled with the hands on experience of making such shots is what it is all about.

I posted to the long range thread on another forum, because off handed at 500 yards is something that very very few shooters can accomplish. Simply meaning to be able to hold the cross hairs on the kill zone at that range is near impossible for 99% of people who hunt.

Now long range hunting and shooting off a good solid support, isn't as big a challenge as it might seem to those that are trained and experienced in the ART of making such shots realality on the range or field.

Now when I was in the military some years ago, I had the good fortune to meet a couple of soldiers that could in fact hit a man size target at over 800 yards no questions asked. These guys were not only good, but sensational in my eyes.

I shot 3rd highest in my battalion at the time on a KD range. I was no way in their league of ability understand. So weather your a Nah or Ya sayer makes no difference, because their are those that can do at 600 yards what you can do at 200 yards with a rifle on a rifle range or in the field hunting.

[ 12-24-2002, 23:06: Message edited by: Chigger ]

Just curious guys, but if you have time to range & adjust your target knobs, why would you attempt to take a 500yd shot "offhand"?
Having said that, w/ a good rest, known range & a good shooter, a 500yd shot is possible, but probably not desirable. Sure you can hit the elk, but can you cleanly kill it? Terminal performance goes down pretty fast after 400yds unless you are shooting one of the super mags (JMO). Most of us can get closer though, that's why it's called hunting & not shooting. Go ahead, flame away.

[ 12-24-2002, 23:30: Message edited by: fredj338 ]

To no one in particular.

People you have no idea what your talking about. Must of us dont use normal anything. Most guns are custom rifles chambered in overbore cartridges. Take your program and input a 30cal. 240gr bullet with a B.C. of. 740, or a 338cal. 300gr with a B.C. of .797, at 3,200fps and see what happens to your beloved "terminal" performance. Anybody that can shoot a prerrie dog at 150yds of a bench can learn to shoot an elk at 500. Even 700yds is an simple shot at a 3 foot target. Not offhand mind you.

Fred,I can get closer also.But shooting a deer out of a treestand at 50 yards year after year gets alittle boring and is alittle to easy.Another thing,with the guns I shoot.I have more energy at 1000 yards than a 243 has at 50 yards

And no,I don't shoot 500 yards offhand....

Long range and love it. Oh ya I use serria match kings on big game also. If you can not or don't want to then don't.

P Dog,just had to say the "M" word.Did'nt you??

Well there is one thing I never here enyting about: will the bullet open and funcjon as it schod at that range? I can tell you gays that there are more then one known byllet tupe that dont hold what they promes whwn it comes to opening at slow speeds!!!

Caine- If a bullet will perform at 300 yards out of a 30-06 it will perform about the same at 500 yards out of a 300 ultramag,30-378 or 7.62 warbird as the impact velocities will be very close to the same.

Well that is one of teh tings i was thinking about, knowe for a fact that remington bullets that were gatantid to open i 3006 speeds at 400yards did not open as they shood at 240m (ca 270yard) are not all agenst long shoots. But have seen too menny stange shooting around.. And som weery good shooting. A frend of mine is a sniper in the Norweian s.f. and is a meber of the 1000m club( not an easy club to get in too!!) and he will not shoot at distances over 400m at deer siced targets in a live hunting situasjon.

Tell ya what....you guys go ahead and play with your knobs...while you're doing that, I'll just sneak a little closer.

Tumbleweed,while your sneaking,I'll be killing

Tumbleweed, while your starting off a puttin the sneak on that big old mule deer or majestic bull elk, somebody else out there has just positioned his cross hairs on the animal and pulled the trigger saving you the effort and work of skinning it out in the field later.