Stalkerboydy!
Relax mate, chill out! Take a pill, have a lie down. There, there. You too NigelM, all good, no need to argue. To be fair stalkerboydy, you started it mate… but there was no intention to offend with my little play on words – it’s called a pun – but clearly it wasn’t very funny. Or maybe you’re the kind of bloke that is easily offended? Who knows? If you want properly offensive posts, try any number of the other forums out there, they are full of it, which thankfully this one generally isn’t.
Mum’s away this week so this morning I snuck out with my boys for quick hunt, not usually allowed on a school day, don’t tell on us. A fine frosty morning after weeks of rain and mud… look what we knocked over… pestilence on four legs, they are dropping their kids now the little parasites. Good old .243 doing what it does best. The first two were knocked over at 385m quite steeply downhill, fairly breezy from 22h00, lower neck shots and dropped on the spot. The second mob was close range stuff (~40m), five goats in four quick shots, with one of those highly enjoyable 2-for-1s. Sierra Prohunter 1540 100gr as usual.
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Now stalkerboydy… at 385m, downhill, quite windy, do you think I used my rangefinder to establish my drop? Do you think I used my anemometer to check the windage? Do you think I entered these variables into Strelock on my phone? I didn’t dial it in to my scope because this one doesn’t have ballistic turrets and I use the BDC reticle instead. Do you think I had my boys checking the trees between the shooting position and the point of impact for wind gusts? Do you think I took my time to settle my breathing to make sure of the shot? You bet I did, all of the above. Just like normal. Teaching my boys the most important behaviour of all – patience.
Maybe you’re old school, not into the tech or the science, but let me tell you from one bloke to another (and we’re probably not far off the same age): the tech and the science make for a way more competent medium range shooter. By that I mean 250m-700m, though in practice both my standard .243 and .308 are limited by energy / twist / bullet weight so I don’t shoot deer beyond 500m. If you’re wanting to shoot long range, then it’s a given that you are all over the science and the tech (hopefully).
No one should be shooting at animals beyond their maximum point blank range without understanding the science and using the tech. And it helps greatly to understand MPBR as well. For me the science behind the sport makes the sport a great deal more enjoyable… it fills a hole on cold winter nights, books educate me, working with ballistics and load programs checks what I’m doing in the shed, and very importantly tests my thinking when I’m considering buying a new calibre / barrel length / twist to make sure it can do what I want it to do. And above all, at 250m+, understanding the physics behind each shot gives me a whole lot more confidence that I can make the shot count, and I don’t miss very often mate, very very rarely. If I don’t have the time to set up the shot properly, I don’t take it. Simple. Game will wander off half way through me phaffing around... you know what? I couldn't give a toss, I'll get them next time, or just around the next spur, whatever. This is the big difference between the hill country shooting, and the closer, heavily wooded bush shooting. In the hills I have time on my side, in the woods it’s all on in a flash. In a woods gun, I prefer a heavy pill delivered from a short rifle with a fast acquisition scope, and right now I don’t have that rifle… Hence the interest in TC Encore Pro, Bergara BA13, the Ruger #1.
I’ve said it before on this forum – and to anyone that will listen when we’re out on the hills – I don’t agree with using heavy magnums as a default weapon for light to medium bodied game. And I can waffle on for hours on my soapbox about calibre, projectile choice and the most important variable of all – the point of impact. But I’ll spare you all that as its already been said… several times.
To illustrate the point, somewhere there’s a video that I will see if (a) I can locate and (b) get permission to use on here. It was taken on my neighbour’s property at his “bush range” several years ago. The situation was a precursor to a deer hunt on a third party’s property where the land owner had experienced problems with blokes pitching up with .300WMs and the like, and wounding deer because… they couldn’t shoot them accurately at the ranges they wanted to shoot. Nowhere near enough practice, skill, understanding. So old mate has a trick up his sleeve – before you’re allowed to take your large magnum in a lightweight synthetic stock and point it at deer, you need to demonstrate that you can hit a dinner plate at 400m. And this video is painful to watch man, really cringeworthy, because this “shooter” with his large magnum– he can’t hit the f^kking plate at 300m. BOOOMMM! All over the place. Holy sh*te is this bloke ****ed off, excuses for this, excuses for that... Just like johngryphon says above -
they never seem to equal the results that they have advised previously…
But this won’t bother you too much stalkerboydy, because as you say you’re shooting heaps of goat sized muntjac at 30-200yds with the .300WM, which to me is like driving in tacks with a club hammer, but if that’s what works for you then all good. It’s just not for me, or NigelM, or a great many other shooters I’ve hunted with all over the world, where knowledge and skill with far lighter calibres has generally been the order of the day for small, light bodied game.
Anyways, I’m sure whitevanman is having a good chuckle at us getting all shirty on his Ruger #1 post. I’m more guilty than most for dragging posts off topic and preaching from my soapbox, but hey, it’s all good, I don’t mean to offend, and I certainly don’t take offense easily either! Now I’ll head back to the shed to carve up these goats for dog tucker, and a Jamaican goat curry for me and the boys, I’ll be inspecting the carcasses for meat damage, and as usual not finding any to speak of, one of the beauties of the .243 with the correct projectile… accurate as hell, punishing on the animal and kind to the carcass.
Yours most sincerely
Little Shadow
