Texas Long Range Shooting Schools | Can You Go Too Far?
How far is to far? At our Texas Long Range Shooting Schools, we teach you to shoot out to one thousand yards in our level one class and out to one mile for our level two class. Does that mean that we are advocating shooting out to animals at those distances? Absolutely not, but does that mean that it can’t be done or shouldn’t be done? That is where the controversy comes in. Some are of the school of thought that if you can’t get “close” its not hunting or for some even ethical. What would you consider long range? Three hundred yards? Five hundred yards or is it further? In our opinion there is not just one straight forward answer, there are too many variables and it will vary from shooter to shooter.
The first things a hunter must understand is the limits of his or her rifle, optic and ammo combination and their own limits with their set up. This is exactly what our Texas Long Range Shooting Schools teach you. By spending time with our instructors on a dedicated range you will learn where your limits are and the limits of your equipment. Let’s say with your particular rifle that you brought to one of our Texas long range shooting schools you were very consistent and shooting tight groups out to five hundred yards but at six hundred yards your groups opened up or you possibly were not consistent in hitting the target, we have now found your limits and want to continue to work out to that range to make sure you can hit the mark each and every time you pull the trigger.
Now that we have a baseline for where you are consistent we have other factors to consider. We teach our students that consistency is the biggest factor to being successful on the range, setting up the same way every time, going through your mental checklist of things you need to do before sending a round down range or especially at an animal when you are hunting. However, the biggest inconsistency in long range shooting is always going to be the wind. It is never the same the same speed or from the same directions, this is why we spend so much time covering how to read wind in our Texas long range shooting schools. You will soon learn that even though you can consistently hit that five hundred yard target, the wind is going to play a huge factor in determining whether you should pull the trigger or not when it comes to hunting something with a heartbeat.
Even once you feel comfortable with certain wind calls, now that we are shooting at more than steel and the shot really counts we have other factors to consider. At the distance you are shooting when hunting an animal what is the velocity and energy that bullet produces when it hits its mark? Is it high enough to ethically take that animal with one shot and not just wound it or do you need to get closer? One of the things we do to know for sure is look at the data provided by the ballistic app we use. The most common number used for minimum velocity needed to ethically take an animal is one thousand foot pounds, now this is assuming you are already using a quality hunting bullet that does what it is designed to do, which is kill ethically and quickly with one shot.
If we take a look at the 6.5 Creedmoor with a 140gr bullet with a muzzle velocity of approximately 2800 fps you will see on a ballistic chart that you have 1000 ft pounds of energy at over 900 yards. So with our furthest range that we have determined we are comfortable with at five hundred yards we know we will be well with in that threshold of 1000 ft pounds of energy, in fact at 500 yards you would be just over 1600 ft pounds of energy. This is a topic we could spend much more time on and this is just a brief overview of how far is to far. To learn more about topics like this and how to apply them in the field you need to attend one of our Texas long range shooting school. Give Outdoor Solutions a call at 918 258 7817