The Truth About Making Long Shots Out West

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Advanced shooting capability is often crucial to making the most of opportunities when hunting the West. Unlike the East, South and Midwest, where most deer are killed inside 100 yards, shot distances in the West tend to be long, chances are often fleeting and shooting positions must be quickly improvised. This is dictated by the terrain, the habitat and the game populations. Let’s unpack these characteristics and take a closer look to understand what hunters are up against when prepping for a Western hunt.

BIG SKY COUNTRY

The country is big. Particularly in the Rocky Mountains and the arid high desert that makes up much of the remainder of the Western states. When hunting, you may find a trophy mule deer buck or bull elk 450 yards away across a canyon with no way to get closer. If you have the right equipment and skills, that’s a perfectly doable shot.

Opportunities are few and, in most locations, hard-earned. Population densities are typically far lower than whitetail deer anywhere else in the country. Just finding a buck, bull or bear can be extremely challenging. You’ll want to be prepared to make the most of any shot opportunity you’re presented with—even if it’s far, and available shooting positions are few and uncomfortable. This is particularly important because unlike whitetail hunting, you can’t hold off when a shot opportunity is particularly challenging and reasonably expect to have a better opportunity at a deer. When you see a big buck or bull during the season, it may be the only time you’ll see it all season long.

Be prepared to give that opportunity everything you’ve got to close the deal right then and there.

RIFLE, CARTRIDGE AND OPTIC

Being prepared begins with having a capable rifle, optic and ammo setup. For starters, your shootin’ iron must be accurate. Your grandpa’s classic Savage 99 that prints three-inch groups at 100 yards is cool, but it’s not adequate for cross-canyon shooting in the West. You’ll want a powerful rifle that regularly prints three-shot groups of one inch or less at 100 yards.

Your rifle must be light enough to carry all day long, through rigorous terrain. Jack O’Connor wrote that the ideal weight for a ready-to-hunt mountain rifle was about 7.5 to 8 pounds, and he was right. The modern precision rifle trend has introduced a lot of very accurate rifles to consumers, but many are too heavy to hunt with. Shop for an accurate rifle with a bare weight of 7 pounds or less.

Your rifle’s stock should have ergonomics that enhance your ability to shoot it well. This means dimensions that minimize wrist torque and muscle stress when in improvised shooting positions and that position your head and eye in alignment with the scope.

Because shots are so often beyond 200 yards, and frequently beyond 400, your rifle must be chambered in a long-range-capable cartridge. Don’t tar and feather me, but this does not include the .243, .30-30, .308 Win. and cartridges of their ilk. Pick something with legs in a robust caliber. Most savvy Western hunters prefer a magnum 7mm or .30 caliber. If you’re determined to use something smaller, pick a fast 6.5mm cartridge, and load it with tough, controlled- expansion projectiles.

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Again, this is for shooting far. We’re not talking Texas hogs in a thicket or whitetails in Wisconsin’s big woods or even Roosevelt elk in Washington’s rain forests. Next, you’ve got to mount a capable scope on that rifle. Classic optics with a simple duplex and capped turrets are not suitable. Get quality, and demand long-range features. A well-designed hold-over-type reticle will suffice, but a good dial-up turret with a zero stop is better.

When shopping, don’t get lured into a high-magnification scope. Clarity, lowlight efficiency and resolution are more important. Something like a 2-10x up to a 3-18x is perfect. Scope weight should be less than 20 ounces, which rules out all the multi-pound tactical optics engineered for military and PRS shooters. A favorite is the 3-15x44 Leupold VX-5HD with CDS-ZL2 turret.

RIFLE SETUP

With the puzzle-pieces for your ultimate Western hunting rifle gathered, it’s time to assemble and tune them. Mount the scope in light, strong bases and rings, as close to the action as possible so as to enable a consistent cheek weld to the stock. Add a quality anti-cant scope level bubble, to help you avoid tipping the rifle—a mistake that’s catastrophic at longer distances.

Choose an appropriate bullet. If you plan to hunt a wide spectrum of Western game, ranging from pronghorns to elk, optimize your bullet for the biggest animals. It’ll kill everything else just fine. And forget that nonsense about deer cartridges and bullets being adequate for elk—they’re not. Those will get you by on a classic broadside shot, but if you have to take a quartering-to-shot through a massive shoulder knuckle, 10 inches of heavy muscle and then ribs before even getting into the vital cavity, deer bullets just don’t work. Pick a heavy-for-caliber, controlled-expansion design. There’s a reason they sell such bullets.

Hornady’s monometal CX, Federal’s Terminal Ascent, Barnes’s LRX and Nosler’s AccuBond are all good choices, among others.

Sight in at 200 yards. Anything closer is a waste of a perfectly good flat trajectory. Measure the velocity of the bullet you’ve chosen, in your personal rifle. Input your hunt location’s atmospherics into a good ballistic app and crunch your ballistics. Familiarize yourself with them, particularly bullet drop at extended distances, and the distance at which retained velocity and energy drop below recommended minimums for clean, ethical kills. For me, that’s 2,000 fps and 1,500 ft-lbs.

Many modern Western hunters choose to fit their rifle with either a muzzle brake or, better yet, a lightweight, compact suppressor. Either will minimize recoil, enabling a good shooter to spot his or her own impacts at extended distances. That can provide crucial information when making follow-up shots—and of course aids in target re-acquisition.

Lastly, equip your backcountry hunting rifle with a good lightweight bipod. I prefer quick-detach versions, because I dislike crawling through scrub oak brush and alder thickets with a snaggy, heavy bipod permanently attached. The best I’ve used is Spartan Precision’s six-ounce Javelin Pro Hunt bipod.

SHOOTER CAPABILITY AND TECHNIQUE

You can’t buy skill. No matter how good your rifle, optic and ammo are, unless you become a capable extended-range shooter, you’ll never make those cross-canyon shots.

Be humble enough to work on fundamental shooting form. Even the best shooters regularly return to polish foundational skills. Take a class, if possible. Watch well-reputed resources online—such as how-to videos—and practice the techniques you observe. Do a lot of dry-fire training.

Once your rifle is properly sighted in, focus on practicing from various field positions. Master the most stable ones— prone with a bipod or over a daypack. Work on the faster, but less stable positions next, such as sitting with your rifle rested over a log or a tripod. Become adept at incorporating on-hand assets and terrain features such as backpacks, tripods and stumps to build rock-solid improvised shooting positions.

If you haven’t already, learn correct breathing and trigger control. Heave three or four deep breaths as you prepare for the shot, to oxygenate muscles and sharpen vision. You’ll have 7 to 10 seconds to squeeze the trigger before your oxygen is depleted. Glue the crosshairs on the kill zone, and maintain a razor focus there while you squeeze that trigger.

Squeeze with the whole hand, with a “firm handshake” sorta grip. Loose grips work great on 14-pound match rifles chambered in mild 6mm target cartridges, but magnum long-range hunting rifles require a firm grip to achieve consistency during recoil.

Although you’ll know the rifle will fire within seconds, you shouldn’t know exactly when. Squeeze the trigger slowly, so the shot surprises your reflexes. Follow through by keeping the trigger pegged rearward as the rifle fires. On that note, follow through by keeping your eye looking through the scope as well, watching for your bullet’s impact and getting the crosshairs back on target ASAP. Then, work the bolt aggressively but smoothly, keeping your eye in the scope and the crosshairs on your quarry. Always plan to take a follow-up shot, so you won’t be surprised when that shot is needed.

BALLISTIC SAVVY

With a proper Western rifle and your fundamental skills tuned up, you’re ready for some extended-range work. Before anything else, you’ll need to crunch your ballistics and shoot at long range to validate your trajectory. Pick a highly rated ballistic app such as Applied Ballistics’ “Ballistic.” (Creative, I know.) Input your environmental factors and build a profile using your rifle and load’s specifications. Watch instructional videos and spend a lot of toilet time in the app, familiarizing yourself with the various functions.

Using the app, programmed with your loads’ ballistics and set for the altitude and temperature at which you expect to hunt, calculate your ammo’s maximum ethical terminal performance range. This will be different than your personal maximum shot capability. Max ethical terminal performance range is based on retained velocity and energy. The velocity is necessary to cause your bullet to expand on impact, so it doesn’t just poke a pencil-size hole through and cause a slow, lingering death. The energy is necessary to impart hydrodynamic shock that destroys tissue and shuts down the game animal’s operating system.

Manufacturer’s minimum velocity numbers and the opinions of 6.5 Creedmoor disciples may suggest that less is adequate, but common sense generally holds that 2,000 fps of velocity is a solid minimum speed, and 1,500 ft-lbs is a reasonable minimum energy. That’s for elk.

Your ballistic numbers will tell the story. Cartridges such as the 7mm PRC will have 1,000-yard-plus ethical killing capability. Others run out of steam shy of 400 yards—for example, a short-barreled 6.5 Creedmoor or .308.

Ideally, have a custom turret cap engraved for your scope’s elevation turret, showing yards. That way, out to 600 yards or so you can simply range your quarry, dial your turret to the appropriate distance and hold center on the vitals. Optionally, or additionally, print a hard card showing drop in MOA or Mils—whatever your scope is built for—and tape it to your rifle stock. Use the ballistic app in the field when there’s time, but never rely entirely on an electronics.

Phones are fallible, and apps are too slow at the moment of truth. If you can afford it, purchase a rangefinder or ranging binocular with an onboard ballistic calculator and atmospheric sensor. Once programmed, it will incorporate distance, altitude, temperature, shot angle and delineation and provide a real-time solution that accounts for Coriolis effect and spin drift and aerodynamic jump and all those other fine details.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

With the theory of ballistics mastered, it’s time to take your system to the range for real-world validation. Find a long-distance range, even if you have to drive across state lines. Work your rifle and load out as far as possible, taking your time and allowing your barrel to cool every three or four shots. Shoot early in the morning, during the springtime, or you’ll do a lot of sitting and waiting.

With your ballistics validated, take your shooting to the ground. Get off the bench and work on field positions. Shoot from every conceivable position. Time yourself. Push yourself. This is the fun part, and the part where you expose all the human weaknesses in your system. Without knowing what those weaknesses are, you can’t work on them.

From every position, work your rifle out in steps to ascertain just how far away you can hit an 18-inch steel plate representing an elk’s vitals. Take notes, and work on those positions in dry-fire practice at home. From your best field position (mine is prone with a bipod), see if you can achieve ethical accuracy out as far as you calculated your load’s maximum ethical distance to be. Even if you’ll never shoot past a self-imposed maximum of, say, 600 yards, shooting farther is tremendous practice.

Sound like a lot? It is. And it’s absolutely crucial if you’re going to shoot long on game. You’ve got to live, breathe and dream long-range shooting to become an ethical long-range hunter. If you’re not willing to put in the time and effort, you have no business shooting long on game.