Your DOWN-RANGE TARGET-STORE

  You don’t need all that fancy shooting gear to have fun! Grandpa’s old 30-06 deer rifle with a 3x-9x scope will do just fine, for starters. A quality AR15 will surprise you with it’s capabilities beyond 600 yards. Buy a box or two of not-the-cheapest ammo. Find a safe hill side off a bit of distance to shoot at. Make the distance just a bit longer than you feel comfortable with. I’m confident you will get comfortable very quickly. Pick a natural object for a target, white rock, ant hill, patch of sand or just spray paint something white. Step off or best guess the distance, doesn’t really matter, yet. A blanket for prone shooting or an old camp table for a bench rest, pick-up truck tailgate works. And something for a front rifle rest. Make certain the ground has sparse vegetation and is dry so your shots will kick up some dust to show where you are hitting. Make your best guess for holdover on the cross-hairs in your scope and shoot. See where it hit, a spotter helps here, then try an adjustment, shoot again. Within a surprising few shots you will be within a few feet of the target, maybe inches. Then several things always happen; first you will be smiling, second you will be looking for another target farther away to try. Bragging comes next, then wanting to compete. 

The key to any shooting style success is to be consistent. The way you hold the rifle, the ammo, your trigger squeeze, your breathing, recoil management, wind reading and other things must be the same as possible with each shot. You must be consistent for your bullet impacts to also be consistent. Extreme long range shooting requires a higher level of repeatable shooting. Little inconsistencies at long range induce big misses. This takes understanding and practice, which is fun shooting. Extreme Long Range Shooting is unlike any other type of shooting. And the reward of learning it and doing well is a whole new level of accomplishment. Real Bragging Rights! Just be certain to have FUN.

Try it just to see what it feels like to hit something that was formerly at a crazy distance, then start thinking about better equipment. Soon you will be clanking steel at 1,000 yards, with a bigger smile.

Shooting Extreme Long Range, ELR, involves doing a lot of little things that, in total, make a huge difference.

The very first initial step in ELR is to make some choices in how fanatical you want to be. Would hitting a target occasionally at 500 yards be satisfying or do you aim to be the world champion shooter at a mile? Lots of goals between those two. Just a first guess will do, anything you decide here can be completely changed any time you want later. Roughly making a choice here will help guide you through purchasing equipment that will serve you well later and stay within your budget. Read and follow the “INTRODUCTION” page to help you decide if ELR is really for you.

Going all out for equipment can be expensive and may include buying things you don’t really need or are inappropriate for your style of shooting. Going cheap can mean equipment that won’t give you the level of performance you require later and might make you re-buy. Your quality hunting rifle and lower power optics will work for a while. Ask around, watch YouTube videos, read and mostly shoot. 

Some shooters are completely all in. Everything is the best money can buy. Every step is analyzed, weighed, examined, sorted, measured, grouped and then triple checked. An 11” group at 1,000 yards is a disappointment. I frequently wonder if they are still having fun anymore, perhaps. Some shooters are so loose that hitting steel at 1,000 yards even once is a big thrill, I was. I am certain they are having fun, but are left wanting more, I was. Luckily, there is huge ground in between these two, that’s where we live. Hitting a 16”x16” steel target at 1,000 yards half the time with a bit of a variable cross wind is our goal, hopefully someday I’ll get there. Close, but not yet. But, I am ALWAYS having FUN. 

      EXTREME LONG RANGE Shooting

        An Introductory Guide  -  BOOK

          Available On This WebSite.

CONTENTS  PAGE

1 Introduction

2 Getting Started

3 Rifle & Caliber

4 Optics

5 M.O.A.

6 Wind

7 Target Vs Hunting

8 Maximum Point Blank Range

9 Ballistics

10 Targets

11  Team Shooting

12  Equipment

13  What We Shoot - Equipment

14  A Woman To Women View

15  Painting A Target

16  Keeping It Fun - Teaching Others

17  Reloading - Notes

18  Precision Reloading Steps

19  Glossary

20  Strelok Images

21  Precision Reloading Chart

A WOMAN To WOMEN VIEW

  The first time I tried ELR was early summer and I was concerned how I would look with a purple bruised shoulder in summer wardrobe. To my surprise the recoil with that rifle, a 6.5 Creedmoor - Ruger Precision Rifle, was negligible. The weight of the rifle (15.3#) worried me until I learned that I did not have to hold it up. It sat on a front tripod and rear sandbag, so all I had to do was lightly move it to the target and gently squeeze. My Grandfather let me shoot a Colt 45 when I was 10 years old and I could barely pull that stiff trigger, not a problem with this rifle (2.2#), only a light finger kiss on the trigger. Finesse, not muscle mass, is the ticket. It’s a Ballet kind of thing, not a Texas Stomp thing.

I can do this !!!

Many women have very little experience with this manly sport, so there are no preconceived wrong ideas to unlearn. Women typically listen better and follow instructions more easily. As such we can become fiercely competent competitors. Its kinda fun out shooting the manly man macho hunter. 

RIFLE: Look for a heavy free-floating barrel to control vibration and help dissipate heat. A fast lands twist should match the chosen caliber. A muzzle brake greatly reduces recoil and therefore flinching. The fore grip should have a flat smooth bottom side to allow repeatable recoil slide on a tripod. A sling mount eye can unevenly snag a tripod sandbag and create inconsistent recoil motion. A place to mount a bipod, if mounted forward of tripod function. A long scope mounting rail is handy, most include a 20 MOA angled rail for better long range scope adjustment. A removable box magazine also. By far the most popular and accurate configuration is a bolt action. Semi-automatic actions have been improving and some have good accuracy. The trigger is critical. You are trying to hold the rifle still and at the same time trying to move the trigger. A light smooth trigger pull lessens this conflict, it’s a must. A good adjustable butt stock is very important. To shoot well you must be comfortable holding the rifle. To do that it must fit you. A place to mount a rear monopod may be something you will want. The butt pad should absorb recoil. A tripod and rear sandbag are very popular. A bipod with a rear monopod are mounted and handy. We use both.

CALIBER: The .308Win is a great caliber and was for decades the standard for 1,000 yard match shoots both civilian and military. It is still a good choice. There are, however, better calibers out there now designed for extreme long range shooting. The 6.5 Creedmoor has become wildly popular and is what we shoot. It was created specifically for long range  shooting and it does exactly that. It is good out to about 1,200 yards. At about that distance it goes sub-sonic and becomes unstable, as do all projectiles going thru the transonic zone. A good quality AR15, with a quality barrel and a  match grade trigger is amazingly good out to a  little over 800 yards where it goes sub-sonic. Stepping up to 68/69 grain match bullets will significantly flatten out it’s trajectory. And therefore it’s shootable distance. There are many existing great E.L.R. calibers available with more new ones coming out, shop around.

If you want to reach out even further, then research the magnums. In the 1,500yd to 2,500yd++ range the 338 Laupa is the go to caliber. It kicks a bit, in the shoulder and the $ billfold. A heavy barrel & a long chamber 300 Win Mag with a muzzle brake is easily a mile shooter with less recoil. On that caliber properly setting the bullet jump will make a big difference. The 300PRC is a hot new caliber. The .416 Barrett single shot is a hot round and is under $4,000.00 (2020). $7.60 per shot may effect your decision. Then there is always the King of all. The 50 BMG Barrett for pure maximum everything.

  RIFLE SCOPE: Quality matters in ELR shooting, a cheap scope will give cheap performance. That does not mean you must spend a fortune, there are many good quality scopes available at reasonable prices. Spend some time looking. Try to get at least 18x power. We use a 6-24x50 Vortex that cost under $650.00 (2020) and gives remarkable service. Frequently I shoot at 18x to reduce the effect of heavy mirage and have good visual of a 16” target at 1,000yds. There are several systems for calculating ballistics and setting your scope. By far the easiest is using MOA (see the section on MOA on pg 13). If you are going to use the MOA system get a scope that has both turrets and reticule marked in MOA. Then shooting ballistic calculations get simple. Install an anti-cant level on your scope, because a canted rifle shoots unpredictably. A scope mounted level on the receiver has half it’s turret turns up and half down. With ELR you do not need those down clicks, tipping the scope with a 20 MOA sloping rail will effectively give you more up and less down. Some ELR rifles now come with a 20 MOA rail. My scope has only 4 MOA down from zero and 56 MOA up. I can set my 100yd sight-in with included turret shims and have a positive repeatable zero return. I can turret out to 1,250yds, with a 55 MOA up setting.

BARREL TWIST - The barrel rifling helix grooves are what spin the bullet. The rate of spin is shown as one turn in so many inches. 1:10 designates the bullet makes one(1) rotation in ten(10) inches of barrel travel. Usually, within a caliber, a range of bullet weights can function with the same twist. Many bullet boxes are now showing the suggested twist rate, especially long range designed bullets. Know your barrel’s twist rate when purchasing bullets.

The Ruger Precision Rifle is a great example of a long range rifle and at a remarkably low price, it is what we shoot. It has several calibers to chose from, now including magnums. There are many new high quality ELR rifles now available. One friend, Jeff, has gone old school with a modern Model 1873 lever toggle-action 44-40 Winchester caliber with folding vernier sights. First produced in 1873, it became known as “The Gun That Won The West”. With smoke-less black powder, handloaded, it can be a really fun challenge out to 400+ yards. There are many ways to enjoy challenging long range.

  RANGE FINDER - A really handy thing to have. Get one that is rated well beyond your expected maximum range. That rating is with perfect terrain to reflect the laser back, a rarity in the field. I figure to get easy returns at about half its rating, and with several tries, returns at 3/4 its rating. Holding it very steady helps. Most will also give you the angle of the range. Bullets hit HIGH when shooting angled either UP or DOWN. The steeper the angle or greater the distance the higher the impact. Enter that angle into your ballistic calculator and let it calculate the True Ballistic Range (TBR). If you do not have a Range Finder yet, use your vehicle odometer or phone GPS function or an APP Map Ruler. If you have a riflescope with an MOA reticule you can use it as a range finder. Instructions to do that are under the MOA section on page 15.

If your range finder just won’t read where you need it too, here’s a few tricks/tips. 1) The distant target is small and hard to range and if ranging nearby vegetation or terrain also does not work, reverse the ranging. Go to your target site and range to your vehicle at the shooting site, it makes a much better laser reflector (Assuming you have another way to get to the target site without using the vehicle).  2) If your range finder does not have the distance capability you need, go to a point about half way between your shooting site and your target site. Range from there to your shooting site then range to your target site and add the two numbers together. 3) There are now APPs for your phone that allow you to click on points (shooting site / target site) on an included map and will give you the distance between, in units of your choice. We use one called “Maps Ruler”, there are others.

M.O.A. IS MINUTE OF ANGLE. A Minute Of Angle is an angular measurement. There are 360 degrees in a circle and 60 Minutes in each Degree. So a single MOA = 1/60th of one degree. A 1 MOA angle spreads out about 1” per 100 yards. The width of that angle gets bigger as the distance gets greater. The angle width at 100 yards is 1.047”. That is so close to being 1” that it is acceptable to round off. That amounts to a 1/2” error at 1,000 yards. When you are good enough to complain about a 1/2” off at 1,000 yards, call me - I want some lessons! We will use 1” per 100 yards from this point forward. 

Here is where the MOA system becomes useful and easy. 

AT: 100yds 1 MOA = 1”

200yds 1 MOA = 2”

750yds 1 MOA = 7.5”

1,000yds 1 MOA = 10”

No math required. Also easy to remember!