Is Long-Range Shooting at Animals Ethical Hunting?

Modern hunters are all too willing to gamble on long shot opportunities.

More than a trend, long-range shooting at big game is, like it or not, here to stay. Modern rifles, scopes, and bullets are capable of killing cleanly from distances that were unheard of to our grandfathers.

If you’re willing to eat, sleep, live and breathe the long-range shooting lifestyle, fair enough. I’ll never naysay a hunter that’s put in the hard yards to become an honest-to-goodness precision rifleman. However, few hunters put in the time to become accomplished shooters, and at the moment of truth, they simply don’t have the skill to predictably place bullets through vitals.

Common Progression of Long-Range Hunting

Usually, a hunter with a traditional rifle equipped with a traditional scope—a 3-9x or similar optic without dial-up turrets—shoots beside a buddy that’s kitted out with a premium, modern rifle. While the first hunter has to work to keep bullets on a paper plate at 300 yards, his pal is ringing steel gongs all the way out to 1,000 yards—with what seems relative ease.

Intrigued, the traditional hunter thinks back on all the deer and elk he could have shot if he, too, was able to kill at those extended distances.

Research ensues. A purchase is made. With help from a gun shop employee or well-meaning friends, the cutting-edge rifle is fit with a premium long-range scope, bipod and a few other bells and whistles. Several boxes of long-range hunting ammunition are purchased, and on a clear, windless morning the once-traditional hunter is off to the range.

From the concrete shooting bench, the rifle prints tiny groups. A ballistic app provides dial-up solutions for extended distances, and high-BC bullets ring faraway steel. Steel plates the size of an elk’s vitals aren’t safe, even at 1,000 yards.

Ignoring Common Field Positions?

Knowing most game isn’t shot from concrete benches; the hunter is savvy enough to try shooting long from field positions. That proves to be much harder, but still possible, especially when laying prone. The hunter practices, deliberately picking wind-free mornings so as to most effectively work out his system. Then later, windy days so as to learn to read wind and compensate accurately.

Enthused with his new-found long-range capability, the hunter is soon off to the hills to hunt. A mule deer or pronghorn buck drops to his first shot from 750 yards. This works! Then a late-season cow elk falls to another shot, closer, but still far by traditional standards. The hunter is a new man; endowed with far-killing capability.

As the next season approaches, the once-traditional hunter is now the inspiring friend shooting steel targets out to 1,000 yards. The ripple effect continues, as other hunters see and covet his far-killing capability, and purchase modern shooting equipment for themselves.

Most don’t practice as much. Others don’t practice at all, including our hunter’s kids, wife, and close friends. Still, he figures, he can coach them through a long shot if one presents itself.

Persuaded by Size

October comes, and with it an early winter storm, turning the landscape sterile with a skiff of fresh snow. Mule deer feed aggressively against the cold snap that follows. Early rut stirrings prompt a big buck to prowl amongst does, moving through broad sunlight against his near-nocturnal nature.

Encouraged to apply by our passionate hunter, a friend, youth, or wife drew a tag, and together they’re sitting across a canyon from the big deer. It’s nearly 900 yards, and just a breath of wind stirs; thermals pulling cold air down the canyon.

It’s far, but they can’t get closer and at the shooting range the rifle reliably pings steel at that distance. Laying in the snow, shivering both from cold and excitement, the lucky tagholder squirms behind the scope, trying to find the deer in the crosshairs.

“It’s so far,” he or she whispers.

Pressure and Encouragement

“Yep, it’s a long shot,” the hunter responds calmly. “But the rifle’s good for it. I’ve dialed for you. Hold on the back of the deer’s ribs to compensate for the wind and just slowly squeeze the trigger.”

Succumbing to pressure, the beginning hunter tries. But the technical long-range shooting skills to successfully pull off such a shot are just not there. No forward pressure loads the bipod. There’s no cheek weld to provide a consistent sight picture and relieve tremors from tense neck muscles. The shooting hand clenches the stock with a death grip, torquing the rifle. The spirit level on the scope indicates that clench has canted the rifle.

Forgetting to breathe, the hunter begins to panic slightly as vision narrows and trembling accelerates, and mashes the trigger.

Vectored fractionally off course by the tilted rifle and the death grip torquing the stock, the bullet impacts far back, just in front of the hip. Glaring through his spotting scope, the experienced hunter barks, “Too far back. Hold on the shoulder and shoot again!”

Panic Stricken

With rising panic, the beginning hunter feverishly tries to work the bolt, eventually managing to get another cartridge chambered. The hunched-up buck has moved a few yards, and the shooter initially can’t find it in the scope. Finally, there it is, and the trigger gets mashed again. It’s a miss, low. The fountain of snow and dirt resulting from the bullet impact spooks the buck, and frantically it bounds over the ridge into the next canyon.

Morning turns warm, and the skiff of snow melts before the beginning hunter and the long-range mentor can make their way across the rugged canyon. Tracks are indistinguishable, and there’s no blood from the gut-shot wound. Although they search for the rest of the day and most of the next, the buck is nowhere to be found.

Years later, a kid searching for arrowheads happens across a giant buck rack laying half-buried under a pile of tumbleweeds in a ravine. Even rodent-chewed and bleached to chalk by the sun, it’s impressive in size. Lion kill? The kid wonders as he hooks it over his shoulder and trudges on.

While rhetorical, similar stories play out all too often in the wide-open West. Here’s the takeaway: Cleanly killing at long range requires top-shelf skill. Just as musicians and motocross racers and skateboarders and dancers practice to earn the right to ploy their art, long-range hunters must practice extensively before putting their craft to the test at the moment of truth.

Develop Your Skill

You can’t buy skill. No matter how cutting-edge your long-range “shooting system” is, unless you’ve put in the long days and hundreds of rounds of shooting to master it, you have no business banging away at faraway animals. If you’re going to shoot long, walk those miles and earn that right.

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