Learning how to shoot long range?

[skywalkrNCSU]

Awesome, thanks!

[taliv]

great advice from koshin

i'll add that there are some new rangefinders on the market that are very reasonably priced. I don't own one, but the sig LRF is making a lot of waves due to its low price point and great reviews thus far. I do own one of the silencerco radius LRFs and it's done a great job so far, keeping up with my PLRF10c. it is mounted to the gun, which has some big advantages (very very fast, can range in the dark with NV) and disadvantages (will need a mount, you have to point your gun and the target to range it, seems like it might be easy to bump off zero)

[majohnson]

I was in your situation a few years ago. I had shoot handguns and shotguns competively, so there was some shooting experience. I had a Rem 700 rebarreled in 6.5 Creedmoor with a Kreiger barrel and pick up a Vortex scope. You can buy factory ammo or reload 6.5CM. It easly shoots well under a .5 moa with factory ammo. Now I have a rifle and scope that is a known quantity.

You mention you have a Kestrel, if you have a smartphone look and see if there is a ballistic software program for it. The other thing you need more so if you reload is a chronograph. On youTube there is a bunch of info so good some just a waste of time. You can shoot off sandbags to start and later pick up a bipod, I recommend Atlas they are expensive but you won't need to upgrade it. Practice dry firing until you are smooth you know just how and when the trigger brakes. From there it is range time. Once you have 100yd zero use your smartphone to figure out your dope. Ask questions when you need help, most guys are happy to help.

Until you are comforable using your scope and able to dial in your elevation and windage stick to ranges where you have known yardages. Then there are several different ways to calculate your distance. But worry about that when you are comfortable with shooting and can get consistent groups at different yardages. There is a saying that seems to be common, "Buy once cry once". Most importantly buy a book to keep track of everything. Storm and Impact both have log books, keep track of outing, range conditions and scope adjustments. In doing so you will be able to refer to previous outings data and it will help you when you run into simular conditions.

[Ttwwaack]

There is alot of good advice here. There are many facets to long range shooting and sometimes the specific area can be small and easily covered and others are narrow but require a major commitment of time to understand or semi-master. I'd say you biggest initial chunk would be termed as ground school. This can be covered in one book as mentioned above or covered in many. All this info I would consider foundation knowledge (positions, equipment, environmental influences and ballistics). In the old days, prior to Kestrals laser range finders and ballistic apps, the only way to learn this was through experiance perticularly wind/emviroment. Once you understand the basics well you can put that together with a good 22 and work at it. Once your positions are solid I'd start moving on to center fire but as you will see, rimfire at 1/7th the cost can provide alot of trigger time to keep the cobwebs off of your skills. When you start to hit problems/walls, try to identify your problems and try to work through them by yourself or with competant shooters or get some instruction.

I don't feel instruction is required right outta of the gate but is needed at some point in time to turn on the light bulb, identify a fault that is compounding a problem orshow the shooter a different way. As mentioned above, after the basics are covered and a rifle that is capable of repeatable consistancy your biggest problem is wind because it is always a variable.

For clarification, when I say a 22, I mean something that is capable, not grand daddy's ol single shot squirrel gun and a box of may pop Rem golden bullets that groups like a shotty @ 50m. You will learn with 22s that alot of accurracy is not in the yanker or the bow but in the arrows itself.

If you decide to reload, check out the reloading and ammo section.