I dont go on all those forums but have hunted a bit where 4-500 yard shots are not uncommon. I respect Cortanas knowledge on targets but the kill zone on a deer is bigger than a softball. Shooting with wind, trying to shoot standing, I doubt many hunters feel comfortable with a 500 yard shot. When everything is right though its very doable to kill a deer with one shot at 500 yards with a 130 grain bullet from a 270. My old weatherby with 55 grains of IMR 4350, according to my chrono, is shooting about 3100fps. best guess from charts at 500 its traveling about 2000 fps with 1200 ft lbs of energy. Eyes on hands on hunting experience they dont go far. I dont use a lot of equipment. Sighted in dead on at 300 long paces. If close I aim at the bottom of the bread basket. If far I aim at the spine. Either I break its back cause its closer than I thought, or the bullet drops into the bread basket, or I will miss clean cause its further. Fail to see anything unethical about it.

Ok so I'm not really talking about the cartridge more less the whole set up stock.out of the box....wait so now your basically agreeing with me th....mmmmkay

Wolfie
I'd consider my self quite skilled or maybe better said knowledgeable on a few topics at least above average and when these topics come up for discussion on a forum a good amount of the responses I just have to shake my head at. I think well over half the stuff on youtube isn't worth watching and forums are worse. I'm not super knowledgeable about long range shooting but I know enough based on my experience to have some idea who knows what they are talking about. And yes I listen when Boone talks shooting but alot of people (even those that claim to) don't have his skill set, knowledge and most important experience. I'm not saying no one should take a 600 shot in any situation I'm saying in reality most that think they ethically can, can't do it.

Take horses for example, they have been a large part of my daily life since I was a kid. They have been a passion and a business for me for over 30 years. Theirs a few on here that I respect their opinion when it comes to horses and horse things but when the topic comes up on here alot of the comments seem pretty off to me but the general public gobble those off comments up just like fact especially if a lot of sentences are used.

My weatherby is stock except for being glass bedded. My old 300 win mag is stock except for a timney trigger. Its my go to elk rifle. Quit reading all that nonsense and go hunting.

And like I've stated, I agree with that sentiment.

I do not feel you should be trying to take game especially at distance or with more....... whatever you'd consider achery , I don't wanna say primitive but you know what I mean , ways without a lot of practice and with the proper gear.

Like me , I'm not just out there slinging arrows at game right now because I don't feel like I'm ready.

What irks me is when people just flat out say You can or it's not . Again maybe I just hold people to to high of a standard of being able to have the sense to say " hay I've never done this let me learn prep not just start slinging bullets "

Also idk I feel like most should be able to filter out the BS kinda quick or at least be able to question it. But then again seems most people just believe whatever their told and have no kinda bs detector so....idk
Maybe I am I lil smart in some ways

And I have trouble identifying a doe at 100yds sometimes and y’all talking about shooting things at 500+ yards, lol. In those cases the optics better cost about 3-5 times more than the gun. If I’m gonna spend that kinda money it’s gonna be able to shoot in the dark too.

Last time I went to the local gun range I was shooting from a bench. no problem hitting 18 inch by 18 inch steel. Not on the edges either. Out to 500 Dont have a bench when hunting but in the mountains I watch from a big rock or something. Here I like places like this. If a good broadside standing still shot happens I will take the shot.



Rifle is my 300. Dont remember why I grabbed it. I was deer hunting. Probably just wanted to hunt with it.

3-5x ? I honestly feel like that a old metric that needs to get reassessed. Honestly $300-$500 can get you stuff that would have been $1500 10years ago.

I wanna start posting my test again of all the ones I mess with.....but I swear it never seems to be productive

We probably are seeing most thing from about the same angle just debating about the finer points. I think with out some experience on a topic most people are terrible about sorting out the bs especially if it's some one that uses big or alot of words. I even see it in the trapping community once in awhile.

Popcorn anyone?

Yeah in all fairness I do tend to key in on fiber points of something, I need to work on that honestly

Here my 5000 ft perspective. Take Cortina, world class thousand yd shooter, world class at reading the wind , shoots more rounds at a thousand yds than most everyone and I've heard him say twice his max ethical hunting range is 600 yds. He says too much can happen beyond that distance for him to be taking a further shot. And that is the sentiment of quite a few other people.
Now I assume if Mr Cortina was on a ranch doing control work on say pigs or sheep killing coyotes and he had a shot on said animal at a further distance and animal wasn't coming closer he'd probably take the shot and probably hit some of them but hunting under sporting conditions 600 is his max.

Now say you have another guy who's on a forum that's never won a single thing at a long range competition, shots less rounds at long range in a year than Cortina does in a month, but claims to have killed 10 big game animals at a 1000+ yds and says it's perfectly ethical.

Which person's knowledge are you going to value the most?
Say if you had a dozen forum guys with that same resume, are you going value their opinion higher than Mr Cortina?

Now if someone like say Boone that I have more knowledge (which is more than just what he posts on here)of there experience and skill tells me he can put 8 out 10 shots in the vitals of a deer under hunting conditions at 800 yds id put value in that opinion.

Making a shot and making a shot reliably enough to be considered ethical in sport hunting are two different things in my opinion. And everyone's opinion of ethical can very also.

I believe I've heard Cortina say that 1000 yd cold bore first shot impacts are very difficult to accurately make yet there's 100s of internet forum guys that claim it's not a problem. I believe when he stated this it was in conversation about LR hunting so im assuming when he said accurately hes meaning in the context of ethical shot placement. I guess a guy just picks who's opinion he values until he actually sees a person attempt it.

That's some pretty sweet shooting at 500 yds. Will you be able to shoot in the hunting situation with the same kind of rifle support your practicing with?

So when it comes s to the Internet stuff there's a lot of ways to verify someone. And if your not trying to verify someone before you just do what they tell you ....your kinda a idiot. Idk mabye it's because I grew up on the Internet and I understand that people do,flex fake lie and larp all the time is what this is such a odd thing for me to thinks is even an issue.
My main deal is just keep asking questions and asking for pictures.
I honestly don't care who anyone is supposed to be if you can't give me specific data points and show me some pictures I'm probably not gonna listen to you . If Everything you say is just straight up definites with no in betweens or similar then yeah I'm super wary. If you come at me talking like your the best thing ever .....yeah no
My biggest red flag is when someone gets upset with further questioning. If I I ask for clarification or more details and they get upset I don't just take them for there first word then yeah BIG BIG red flag

Ok so say I go and ask hay what's a good bullet for pigs. If someone says something like "O FMJ IS GREAT ! ALL YOU NEED I KILL TONS OF PIG WITH THEM"

I already know that FMJ isn't really a hunting round so that's just suspicious. All you need puts me on edge too

So id ask stuff like " how many do you usually kill ? " What's shots are you taking as far as placement? " " What size pigs are you usually going after " "happen to have any pictures of the kils ? Wound channels ECT" and so on. If your really someone with listing to this type of info should be easy enough to give.Usually stuff like that will weed out the BS and fakes super quick .
Most of the people who actually do stuff are very humble and have nothing to hide and 9/10 times stheir more then happy to go into a lot of depth and happy to show you . Again like Boone or ridgerunner .The fakes not so much.
I honestly feel like a lot of stuff should be fairly obvious. Like looking at my posts if hope people would very easy be able to understand I'm just a chill goober thing to have fun, but people still think I'm trying to be a expert or something so guess not lol.

Also another thing about this does come to having the personal ability to know yourself and limit yourself I've listened to most of Eric's pod cases and interviews and point blank he honest about his capabilities and his comfort zone ,but he's also agreed that there are people who can confidently make these shots but , again, these are not average people

But back to Eric. Some I have to say is he's specialized in target shooting and he's admitted to it. That's his world . Now take guys who are highly specialized in LR hunting well there's a lot that does over lap...but. like I I wanted to learn about shooting and killing with trad bows the best ....I'd still take notes from a award winning compound bow shooter , but that guy who's in the woods slaying deer with a recurve the way I want, well what he says will have more bearing on me. And honestly Erik I feel is a great role model when it comes to this. He's constantly talking to people who do stuff , they might not be at his level in class but their at ta high level ain't other stuff so he listens to them and tries to get those good nuggets of info.


Idk again I feel like a lot of this is just common sense and don't get the need to keep beating the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) outta a dead hose but I think I need to start lowering the standard of people lol

Nice seeing a actual conversation and not just a massive wizzing match for a change Huh ?

Wolfy, when you went through basic, what states did the best shooters come from
I know in boot camp all the high shooter came from 2 states
My M16A1 shot a 5" group at 500 yards from the prone position
I wanted to keep that firearm

Boss man I honestly cannot remember for the life of me. I think alot of our tip shooters where city girls though. Most of our worst one where hard headed country guys who thought they knew everything lol.

That being said in my unit 34 out of 40 was counted as bare minimum even though it was like a 80 on the scoreboard. Was wild when I got moved to a quarter master unit and 60% of them struggled to keep a High 20 something score

My take on this topic boils down to this. Each shooter has their own capabilities. Some have better capabilities than others, but still know their limits. It is imperative that each one of us knows our limitations and act accordingly.
It is all too easy to read up on LR hunting and catch "the bug", and let one's ego get the best of us and start doing stupid things without respect for the animal which we are trying to kill.
Carlos Harhcock's name was brought up. I would not want to go up against him at 500 yards if all he had was his prized J C Higgins 22 repeater. We are all not Gunneys. We need to let that sink in and discover that our skill levels are and act accordingly, but still have the goal of improving our knowledge, skills and abilities to be able to ethically reach out further.

Pictures do speak volumes. Half the time it’s for braggin rights, which I can include myself in, but when you are talking about the nuanced nitty gritty it sure makes it easier to understand. I love posting photos.

And I gotta say I really appreciate all th stuff you've posted regarding trad archery, really helped me out in a few instances