Why should it?
Who are you to dictate to someone how they should enjoy their sport?
A bloke comes on here and asks a genuine question only to get told to take up another hobby... One of the blokes winding into him was the site owner no less!
You know what I am seeing more and more of in the stalking world? Pompous arseholes..
While i agree with some of wot u've said, the OP was given quite a hard time initailly. But it is also a type of topic/subject likely to get folk wound up and the sort off post u would post if a troll/wind up merchant.
But do u think it is acceptable to reccommend shooting deer at 400m as normal or advisable esp given the OP is new to stalking???
It turns out OP ay be quite a good shot and used to shooting at ranges but even still (as OP will know) so mutch can go wrong when shooting at those ranges. Esp when the target can move.
I know some people that do it, but they are vastly experienced so also know when the long shot is not on and have enough knowledge/experience to stalk in also when needed.
If u've only the long shot in ur skill set u only have choice of pulling trigger or walking away, which may possibly make u pull trigger when u should be walking away/ stalking closer.
With most skills/trades now so many decent modern advances in tools etc but always good to learn the old fashioned ways so when ur modern thing breaks u have something to fall back on.
No matter how good a shot u are ur chance of pulling a shot/wounding will rise massively at that range, wot if deer is hit and moves 50m further are u capable of a quick semi accurate 450-500m shot without dailing it in?
If u've missed a deer would u be confident 100% of walking over to POI and being able to check it was a clean miss (hair, blood etc). Not always that easy at short ranges in some vegetation, never mind 400m.
And obvously field conditions will be different to a range so accuracy may drop, althou at that sort of range u will have time to get comfy find a decent shooting position
I used to stalk with a very experienced lad and the ammont of deer he shot at and missed was staggering, and thats wot he held his hands up too, amazingly all were clean misses
used to shoot at wot i thought were crazy ranges.
He once bought a new rifle and was on about changing it cos he missed 6 deer on the trot with it, the fact the deer were on very far side of a long clear fell had nothing to do with it
U may well be capable of shooting accurately at 400m ut u will be more accurate at 200m and prob cloverleafing at 100m.
I don't reguard myself as a great shot but i don't miss much, i know my limitiations and like to make sure i get a clean kill, i don't bother with any fancy shots or long shots even on foxes, only thing i want is a dead animal after it.
I do think with internet too many folk are trying to impress themselves/mates/strangers online with shooting at ranges or heads, if my old head keeper caught me head shooting a fox at range he would of booted my a**e, chance of a f**k up increases and a missed fox. All that matters is a dead fox.
But then again 30 yrs ago mos folk would never really think of shooting at that range or taking brain shots the way they do now, no mods on cf rifles, scopes were often 4x32/6x40 was a big one and u just got on with it.
