DEER hunting, how far would you shoot?

[hillbillydruggist]

I have just been given permission to hunt some land, half pines & half hay fields. it has a fixed blind with a shooting table/bench inside. I will be the only hunter.

I am thinking about setting up a rifle just for this, so how would you take a shot? long range caliber, bipod, solid rest, good trigger.


thanks

 

[NYlakesider]

I have just been given permission to hunt some land, half pines & half hay fields. it has a fixed blind with a shooting table/bench inside. I will be the only hunter.

I am thinking about setting up a rifle just for this, so how would you take a shot? long range caliber, bipod, solid rest, good trigger.


thanks

The best answer is your ability to shoot. All other parameters are secondary.

 

[Kurusu]

I have just been given permission to hunt some land, half pines & half hay fields. it has a fixed blind with a shooting table/bench inside. I will be the only hunter.

I am thinking about setting up a rifle just for this, so how would you take a shot? long range caliber, bipod, solid rest, good trigger.


thanks

I'm a 300 meter man. Can do it with iron sights or scope. In this small Country of mine it's hard to safely get longer ranges. And my "normal" range is 50 to 100 yards.

 

[BAM-BAM]

I have just been given permission to hunt some land, half pines & half hay fields. it has a fixed blind with a shooting table/bench inside. I will be the only hunter.

I am thinking about setting up a rifle just for this, so how would you take a shot? long range caliber, bipod, solid rest, good trigger.


thanks

You can only shoot what you can see....... use a rangefinder or walk the shooting area off.

Are you limited in the direction/field of view or do you have 360 degrees of field/sight?. Your available "field of engagement"/view will determine how you set up: ie shooting bench/rest vs from the shoulder will impact your ability to cover a full 360 field of view/fire.

For example; shooting from a tree stand...... anything at your 4-8 or 3-9 O'clock will be hard to impossible to engage...... you could find yourself limited to deer in the 120 degrees between ........ 10-2 0'clock!


In our area of Penn's Woods some shooting stands (on the ground or on stilts) have 4 windows allowing the hunter(s) to view and shoot 360 degrees. Some/most tree stands are located on the edge of a field with woods to their rear limiting a hunter to only being able to engage a target between his 3 and 9 O'clock..... but that's OK because the area to his rear is forested and deer may not be visible or one would have to shoot through heavy cover/branches. Your mentioned 50% pine cover on the property.... this is pretty much a safety zone for deer ..... again you can't shoot what you can't see/identify. SAFETY first!!!!!!!


As a FYI; most deer in Pa are taken at less than 100yds ......... many at 50 yds or less.

 

[perryhd]

I agree with lakesider. When I was deer hunting I was using a 30-06 and limited my shots to 225 yd. I feel I could have shot beyond that but I felt confident of a clean kill out to that range. With a 100 yd two inch high zero I could shoot to 225 yd without worrying about hold over.

 

[nachogrande]

AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE.

Archery hunting first, I carried over many of the same practices. WHY shoot at 200 yards if the deer is headed towards you & with a little time/patience you will likely get a MUCH closer shot offering. How well you know the land & have the deer patterned has much to do with it. DON'T SHOOT merely because you are afraid of going home empty handed! A so so deer far away and/or in a tough place to drag it from, got a pass from me.(lazy or smart???) The old saying of "the way to shoot a trophy deer, DON'T SHOOT non trophy ones". Patience & not feeling the need to shoot every one you see, go a long way. To answer your question, much would depend on your shooting skills, the terrain, & how much work that particular deer is worth to you. IMO! In app 30 years of hunting my longest shot was under 100 yards & made with a Mossy 500 smoothbore slug & was an antelope in Co. YES there were plenty of long shots available hunting old farmland in the East, but why? If pressed for a # & from a blind with a solid rest at a NON MOVING deer, 200 yards. AGAIN, sure my kill scores were relatively low & reflected not taking more shots than the ones I did, but who's counting?

 

[BearBio]

I use a 300 Win mag and have taken 2 elk at400 yards and a couple of mule deer at a mite further but I was a guide while in grad school and practiced on a steel pig at 500.

 

[Faulkner]

I have just been given permission to hunt some land, half pines & half hay fields. it has a fixed blind with a shooting table/bench inside. I will be the only hunter.

I am thinking about setting up a rifle just for this, so how would you take a shot? long range caliber, bipod, solid rest, good trigger.


thanks

Long range deer hunting is not my thing. I've taken dozens of whitetail deer and I can recall only one that was over 100 yards away. All the rest were in the 40 to 60 yard range.

Oh, and I've never lost a deer I've shot at. Never.

 

[vonn]

For a real trophy type buck I think a couple hundred yards is about as far as I can identify and evaluate horns accurately even with 14x magnification. Meat shots I take at 100 or less so that I don’t ruin any meat.

 

[paplinker]

My max range with my 30.06 is at 320yds if on a large hay bale. I have my whole area mapped out for distance so I know my adjustments for anything over 200yds. I am at a 4" drop at max distance.

I do have an advantage of shooting into a bowl area where I know a miss would not result in danger to other hunters. I would not take a shot that long into the woods.

 

[nachogrande]

EVER SHOOT ONE?

IDK if this is the case but IN THE BEGINNING I'm pretty sure ALL hunters were in a hurry to "get on the scoreboard". If true, get it over with, relax, enjoy the experience, NOT THE KILLING.

 

[woodsltc]

I hunt primarily in the southeast and have killed dozens of whitetail deer and by far most were under 100 yds. I've also been fortunate to hunt elk in Colorado and have never taken a shot more than 350 yds but I would feel OK out to 400 yds as long as I have a steady rest, a broadside standing target, and no wind.

I hunt primarily with a 30.06 and have shot that caliber for many years with a 200 yd zero ..... practicing shots from 50 to 400 yds on a regular basis gives me confidence at those ranges.


Don

 

[Absalom]

A bit of hunting philosophy:

It sounds like you have the run of this location, your stand already fixed, and there is no pressure or competition.

So if you just want an efficient kill, go out with colored tape and a rangefinder, put distance markers on trees or bushes, use a high-velocity flat-shooting caliber like 7mm Rem Mag or 300 Win Mag, put big optics on the rifle, practice and be ready for a clean kill at maximum distance.

However, someone like me would ask, where’s the fun in that? I’ve done most of my deer hunting with open sights, a .30-30 Winchester and some .45-70 Sharps replicas, and finally with a little .243 H&R single-shot on which I had to mount a cheapy Bushnell non-magnifying red dot sight because the eyes weren’t doing their thing so well anymore.

My longest shot was maybe 120 yards, usually a lot less. I just never enjoyed the idea of throwing a bullet at some brown dot only discernible through high-magnification optics.

If I were you, i would not spend much time setting up a fancy sniper rifle. Get some standard multi-purpose caliber like a .308 and a rifle you can handle and hit with. I’d spent some time on that land figuring where the deer usually come out. If that’s too far from that stand, there’s no law saying you have to stay in it.

But that’s just my take, worth every penny

 

[Farmer17]

Buy some cheap paper plates and put them out at various long ranges and when you can hit them consistently with 5 out of six shots you are in range for a deer.

 

[Harrison]

All of my deer have been between 50-150 yards. I would feel comfortable take a deer out to about 225.

 

[eb07]

Part of hunting for me is the stalk. I’m not into stands. So if I can’t make the shot within 100 yards it isn’t a challenge for me. Lightweight rifles. Handguns or bows. I glass. I stalk. That’s the challenge.

 

[perryhd]

Part of hunting for me is the stalk. I’m not into stands. So if I can’t make the shot within 100 yards it isn’t a challenge for me. Lightweight rifles. Handguns or bows. I glass. I stalk. That’s the challenge.

I would love to be able to hunt this way but my hearing makes stalk hunting almost impossible. As my hearing got worse it made even stand hunting difficult. When you can't hear any noise that you are making it's tough. The last several years that I hunted I hunted mainly clear cuts where I could see deer at a distance. I probably didn't shoot one out of twenty deer that I saw but I still enjoyed watching them even if I had to use a spotting scope to get a good look.

 

[steelslaver]

I have killed a lot of deer at around 100yds. A couple over 300 yds. But, from a bench if you had ranged everything you saw and were shooting good rifle and scope setup in something like a 300WM, say 500 yds, if you know your rifle and spend some time with it. Bench, rest etc. No wind. Beyond 300yds its about being able to hold steady, knowing the range and your rifle and ammo's ballistics.

 

[Bill Bates]

To the OP, with a bench and a good range finder I would practice out the maximum range you are likely to encounter. When you can hit a vitals size target out at the distance almost every time your good to go. I would sight my rifle into a maximum point blank range hat would keep my bullets path in a vital size target. For the calibers I use; that is somewhere in the 200 - 250 yards range.

My little 6.5 Creedmoor Ruger American is zeroed at 200 yards and I had Leupold custom engrave for my Mark 4 scope turret ranges for the load I use at about the elevation and temperature where I hunt. Out past say 300 yards; it is range the animal twist the turret, breath and wait for that perfect time to let her fly. I can it steel at 1000 yards on windless days with ease but I wouldn't take shot at game at that range.

I prefer my shots under 300 yards which with a good steady rest is a chip shot. I feel very confident, given very good condition, I could make a one shot kill at double that distance. Under ideal conditions I might stretch that out to the 500-600 yard range...make that perfect conditions and perfect doesn't happen often. So would i take that 600 yards or more shot, not likely. I know plenty of others that would stretch it well past that. I guess long range hunting is a matter of personal ethics. I try not to judge others personal ethics because they are personal. Me I know my limitations and what I'm comfortable with and that is more in the 300-400 yard range. I practice enough I know I can make that shoot nearly every time.

I can hit steel way out there but I don't worry about wounding steel and losing it. I have a good range finder and can dial my scope to the given range and hear that target ring. Steel doesn't move and marginal hit still rings.

My biggest concern with shooting much past 500 yards is flight time. The calipers I shoot all take about 1/2 second to fly 500 yards. A lot can happen when hunting game in a 1/2 second. Half a step can make the difference between a kill and a wounded suffering animal, maybe a lost animal.

So again, I try to keep my killing range to where I know I can make a clean kill. A somewhere someone said they preferred a long stalk to a long shot. I agree.

 

[Rosco Shooter]

I have access to a ranch in Kansas, and have a self-imposed range limit of 300 yards with my .270 with 130 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets. Several 10 pointers have come home with me.