You can have the best scope known to man and one puff of wind will cause a miss at extreme yardage, and it doesn't take much either.
I'm talking about me, the rifle/scope and not a complete weather station.

Stepchild

Absolutely right about the wind. I was out with my grandson in the Utah desert yesterday trying to connect him with prairie dogs out around 340 yards, but the strong winds were blowing those little 52 grain 22 cal bullets around too much for an 11 year old rifleman to handle. Don't know that I would have done any better myself. It didn't matter that it was a spendy, proven rifle with 24x euro glass. That wind has no respect!

I.S., You got a BUSHNELL ELITE 4200 in 6-24 with old model glass. Pretty good stuff though!! And as far as the "varmint reticles, BDC's, LR Reticles"...........you folks need to learn how to use the scopes you have with "MOA" markings on the turrets, a chronograph and BENCH TIME!! Dial and Dust!!! Forget "clicks!!" Get your mindset to "MOA" and go toast vermin!!! GHD

GD, I think I understand what you are saying. I tried a range finding/compensating reticle for a good while, and finally sold it. It was pretty worthless for accurate range estimation, and the range compensating aspect was not up to the task either for small varmints. On elk it may have had some value I guess. Could well have been operator error as well. Twisting turrets works for me.

GD,

No. It is a nifty old original B&L, when they were a company building their own optics, 6-24X Balvar. Big honking external adjustment scope.
I got one of the new Bushnells in 6-24X and a new one 8-32X though.

If you subscribed to Precision Shooting Magazine twenty years ago you would have read about my rangefinding scope design.
Have you heard of Dick Thomas and Premier Reticle in Winchester, VA? He was a Leupold specialist, and was their east coast warranty station for many years. Anyway, Dick specialized in boosting Leupold scopes. He took a good glass 6.5-20X I had and boosted it to 18-42X and converted it to a first focal plane model. The POI then cannot shift as you run up or down in magnification. Cannot!
He made me a custom reticle with windage lines 3 moa left and right of the vertical cross hair, and 1/8moa dots 3 & 6moa high, and 3,6,9, and 12 moa low of the cross hair intersection. Dots spaced an accurate 3moa apart are awesome for long distance ranging, especially with the Geovids to double check.

I had always been a .25 caliber fan, still am. I had this project long range live varmint rifle underway. I took the 6,5x68Shuler cartridge case, blew out the taper, reshaped the shoulder to 32-degrees, and necked it down to .25 caliber. Called it the 257 Banshee. Good natured dig at the Irish ancestry Editor, one David Brennan. I got Jerry Simonson interested in making VLS-style bullet making dies, got J4 to make a run of jackets, got Jef Fowler to make these sleek 110gr bullets with a BC around .65. Had a sleeved Remington 700 built in an old style unlimited synthetic stock with a 3" wide fore end. Did my fire forming/load testing, and the rifle would shoot in the mid-.2"s at a hundred, and under an inch at 300. Empty rifle weighed seventeen pounds.

I went to Ken Oehler's Chronograph School at his ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas. Learned how to operate an M43, and bought one. That let me chrono loads from the muzzle to 300 yards with his new acoustic screens. Then I could accurately predict BC's and make data printouts for drop from 25 to 1000 yards in 25 yd increments and verify them at the range. Got it working, and had complete confidence in the numbers.

The next spring, I am at SHOT Show for the magazine, and make some friends at Leica. The original Geovids have just been released to the civilian market and I schmooze my way into taking a pair home for a long-term test by convincing them I need to evaluate them both for varmint and big game hunting.

That summer I killed several Rockchucks at over a thousand yards, Geovid verified, first shot hits and kills in front of witnesses. Missed quite a few too, but killed a lot at a half mile or a bit more.

My moa version is every bit as accurate at the mil-abortion system, except counting distance in 3moa blocks is simple.

Rich

Rich,
I have no doubts as to your experience and abilities, however, regardless of all that Mother Nature has the last word.
DMCI, a regular here can probably make 1st shot kills with the best but he has a weather station coupled to a lap top loaded with mucho data and while that works for him,i'm old school and shoot more ammo before the first hit but that's my style, me the rifle/scope and a spotter don't hurt either. I might be behind the curve but ,oh well.

Stepchild

Idaho, I subscribed to Precision Shooting back then. I sure remember reading about the .257 Banshee. Do you still shoot it? Exciting round, in my book.

stepchild2,

It took me several years to get to that stage. The first really accurate rifle I had built was a 700 in a 40X stock with an old Redfield 3200 external adjustment 16X scope. 27 inch barrel, Hunter Class taper in 257 Roberts.

In 1988 I went to give blood at a church drive, and had bought the new Gun Digest a couple days earlier.
It had the article "Assault on Palmisano" by Dave Brennan and Tooley. That was my undoing.

The article was about some shooters who felt that it was un-American to shoot some roosky assualt cartridge in bench rest. They talked Federal into making a run of 30-30 cases to match tolerances, with a small primer pocket. The 30 American. Noted gunsmith Seeley Masker developed the 6MM Seeley Masker Wasp. It was pretty much the old Donaldson 22 wildcat necked up to 6MM. It coincided with a severe shortage of 6PPC brass. Guys shot them so hot they would pitch them (loose primer pockets) after a weekend shoot. At the Super Shoot one year guys were holding the primer in the loose pocket with their right thumb as they chambered it to get one more reload from the brass.
Fred Sinclair sent me a thousand cases when he built my PPC. I sold a couple hundred to guys like Tony Boyer and Alan Hall so they could shoot the match with new cases. Oops, cart before the horse.

Anyway, I spent two hours that evening running a very nice Yellow Pages lady all over Connecticut in search of a David Brennan. Found him, asked about the magazine, and he sent me a couple copies.
He also asked me what we did for fun in Idaho since the Speer Election Day BR matches stopped.
You know how wordy I am, I sent him a seven page (on legal pad) note about shooting Rockchucks out to a quarter-mile and half a dozen pictures.
Woo-Hoo! He printed the letter and the pictures and sent me a check for fifty dollars!! He also said, "learn how to shoot B&W film."

So, I did, and it all went from there. I learned a tremendous amount of long range shooting, stuff like arbor presses and dies, and tight neck chambers, and Jewell triggers, and all that neat stuff. I got to attend SHOT Shows, and play with all sorts of neat stuff. Went to Hunter Bench Rest matches with my 257, couldn't make weight, but they let me shoot anyhow so I could see what was happening. A gentleman named Vern Johnson from the Portland area let me shoot his spare rifle one time. Bad thing to do. I had to have one. Steve Kostanich built me a HBR in 308W, and the next year Fred Sinclair built me a 40X in 6PPC, and it was downhill from there. I was at Precision Shooting for a little over eleven years.

It was a blast, being in on transforming the magazine from a BR Match Report monthly to a wider coverage three times the size journal of rifle accuracy. Boyd Mace had a killer 6-284 Prairie Dog rifle in Rock Spring, Wyoming, and there just was a lot of neat stuff happening.

Rich

Cobrad,

yes, I still have the rifle, new barrel, and it shoots even better.

Rich,
But regardless
of caliber, Mother nature still rules the roost,ya think? Love ya Buddy. And before somebody says somrthing cute, I ain't a fag,

Stepchild