IT would seem that there was very little remaining to be said on the subject of range and sighting, volumes having been written regarding the method of sighting, how to hold, elevation, windage and the many other minor details which are so important to the expert on the range. Yet these things, as a rule, mean but little to the hunter, partly because he does not study such matters as the “range bug” does, and partly because he feels that they really do not enter into his game. In a measure he is right; one does not have the time in the field to make an accurate estimate of the distance to the game, and to pull out a notebook to consider the windage tables and the jottings which one has made on the range, as to the minutes of elevation required, with the rifle in hand, for our particular style of holding. Even on the rifle range where we have the time to do such things in comfort, under ideal conditions, we do not hit it right the first time, at least we generally don’t, and in game shooting there is seldom more than the one chance for a standing shot. It is perhaps a knowledge of this that discourages the hunter from bothering much about it, and it is appalling how many enthusiastic hunters going into the woods every year for some form of big game shooting, do so in a haphazard, hit-or-miss sort of way, without ever learning what they or their rifles are capable of. When they do get a long shot, they shoot a little high, or worse, they monkey with the rear sight, without knowing just what they are doing, and if they miss, they go home and call it “just darned hard luck” instead of gross ignorance, which it really is.
After all, such a man is not any worse than the “range pest” with his pet theories on big game shooting, that he has never been far enough away from Camp Perry to try out. Half the time he has gained nothing of importance from his range work that would make him more competent than the slipshod hunter, because he does not use his head and apply what he has learned. He will often coolly ask me with an air of one who is just mildly interested to know, what some brother sportsman thinks, what I would consider the best rifle and load to take with him to British Columbia, where one would be liable to get shots at goats and sheep at four to five hundred yards! Just a little matter like that, a hop, skip and a jump, like five hundred yards, at a great big sheep! “Hasn’t he many times made a perfect run of ten shots on the twenty-inch bull’s-eye of the standard target at that range?” Probably, but he has gained little that will help him in the hills, unless he realizes that shooting at a positive range of five hundred yards is one thing, and that a mistake in estimation of the actual range of the game by fifty yards is enough to cause a complete miss, when one is reaching out at that distance. Show me the man that is such a wonderful judge of distance that he can do this. Another thing, it is the well-placed shot that brings home the bacon; when the smallest front sight made will almost cover a sheep completely at 500 yards, how is one going to place his shots at that range? Hitting an old “billy” does not mean a kill by a lot, and the vital spot is pretty small. I know from experience that at 350 yards a large moose will blur into a brown mass over one’s sights, and it is in consequence foolish to shoot at him; how much chance then has one of hitting a sheep at five hundred with any hope of dropping him? These shots have been pulled off now and then, generally by the grace of God and good fortune, but that is no reason why we should give them much consideration. Given ideal conditions, including lack of wind, perfect light, unobstructed vision, and a terrain over which one could judge his required elevation to within twenty-five yards—add to this that the shooter was holding 100% correct and squeezed off the trigger exactly right, and I will say that it can be done.
More than that, I know that it has been done in such a way and not by sheer luck, but I also say that there are a host of provisos to be considered, all of which must be handled correctly to insure success. So we don’t want to lose any sleep over trying to figure out just how possible it is. Very few such chances come to a man in a lifetime, and he needs a good many of them if he is to score on one. I read not long ago an article by one of our best known riflemen in which he disagreed with another crank, who had said that the micrometer sight was a useless addition to the hunting rifle, as there was no time to use it in the field. The first party said that he had killed over seventy-five head of big game, and had twice brought down his quarry with a well-directed shot at over 350 yards, which would have been impossible if he had not had a micrometer sight on his weapon. In a measure they both were right, and I have not the faintest hesitancy in saying that the man who claimed the two long kills did so, and under the same good conditions would do so again, but he happened to be one of those rare exceptions of which we have a few, that has had a wealth of experience on the range and in test work, as well as an unusual amount of hunting experience. He has shot more ammunition than the average sportsman would in a dozen lives, and he is a student of every shot. His knowledge of the weapon that he was using, his estimation of distance, and his knowledge of sight adjustment, would all tend to make him a more likely candidate to pull off such a shot than anyone else that I know of. So there is no reason to think that the average hunter should consider such shooting seriously.
However, there is no necessity for doing so. It is beyond the possibility of doubt that seventy-five per cent of the big game killed in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the whole of the United States east of the Mississippi, is killed at about sixty yards, and of the remaining twenty-five by far the most are not over a hundred. While for the West and Northwestern Canada, if we double the distances we will be pretty nearly right. There are exceptions; once in a while one does get a shot at a deer in a clearing, or at a moose in a large barren at three hundred yards and over. (I did, that’s how I know that he blurs into a brown mass at that distance, so that one could not place a shot.) But the point is, when these chances do occur, there is seldom any need of taking them without shortening the distance so as to insure success. This applies just as much in the West as it does in the East (and if you don’t believe it, it would be a good thing for you to see a seasoned old Scotch deer stalker at work in the “Hielan’s”). A real sportsman always appreciates that there is more to his credit in making a good stalk to within easy shooting distance, than there is in the killing of some poor brute at long range. He does not wish to take the chance of merely wounding an animal which may drag itself off, suffering the torments of the damned, that he may have the chance to go home and brag about the distance at which he killed it. We all take an honest pride in a successful long shot, and should keep on shooting as long as there is a cartridge left with which to stop a wounded animal that is either coming or going, but there is no excuse for taking excessively long shots except when facing starvation, and it goes without saying that at such a time the sportsman will play safe and get as close to his mark as possible. Most of our big game rifles are quite satisfactory as to accuracy within the capabilities of the average sportsman, and for those that are proficient enough to get the best out of their weapons at 300 yards or over, there are a few like those shooting the .30-06 that will give excellent results. The trouble is that those who have made fine scores at long range on the military target, but lack hunting experience, and the novice who has read of the marvelous accuracy of the modern high velocity rifle, all jump to the same conclusion, that with such a weapon they can kill at exceedingly long range.
I do not mean to imply that the rifle with a very high velocity, and a consequent flat trajectory, is not a great advantage over the low-power weapons of former days. The modern sportsman has fully 100 per cent more chance of hitting standing game at 300 yards, or running game at 100 yards, than his Daddy did with one of the old weapons with a slow-moving slug, that described a large arc in flight, but that does not mean that he can make kills with any degree of certainty at military range; he should be satisfied with a reasonable degree of increased distance. Despite the fact that his modern weapon will hold up, so that the nicety of judgment in estimating the distance to his mark is not as necessary as it was in the old days, it still remains true that the best of the modern weapons have their limitations, and that our ability to accurately judge range has not increased in proportion to the increased range of our weapons. The range to which the really first-class shot can attach any degree of certainty for game shooting is about 300 yards, and I am certain that it will not be increased until our trajectories become even flatter, and we get telescopes that are practical for game shooting; and despite their value for some short-range shooting they are far from being of serious value to the big game hunter today. To get the best out of his weapon the sportsman must study it seriously. To begin with, his sights must be set to group in the bull when he holds the front sight up into it and not as the target shooter does, holding under with a bit of white showing and the sights adjusted to group the shots in the black. The weapon if of high power should then be sighted to shoot point blank at 100 yards. Some prefer it sighted for two hundred and this is probably better for the open range in the West, but I prefer less. I have never believed that for either military or sporting shooting it was a good thing to have to make calculations both up and down the scale for other than the fixed range. If the rifle is sighted for the shortest range at which we will want to use it, it is naturally much easier to find the elevation necessary for the increased distances than it is to subtract up to 200 yards and to add from there on. My own Springfield is sighted for 100 yards, and as the rise and fall of the 180-grain bullet (which I use) is only ¾ of an inch at 100 yards and 3½ inches at 200, I have a danger zone with it that is about 7 inches in diameter up to 250 yards without sight adjustment, and this is as far as I will ever want to use it in the East, and is quite small enough, allowing for errors in aim on an animal as small as a deer.
This is the real advantage in the modern weapon for the novice who has had very little experience in sight adjustment. His bullet will not rise or fall outside of the killing area on his game at the ranges he is capable of hitting it, despite his errors in calculation of distance, providing he will leave his sights alone and not try shots at longer range. Whether one has his rifle sighted for 50, 100 or 200 yards he should target it at every fifty yards from 50 to 250, as by the groups that he gets at these ranges he will learn where to hold on game without adjusting for elevation; and he will then get much more accurate results than he would by merely trusting to its flat trajectory, that is, providing that he can correctly judge distances, and nothing will help one more to accomplish this than work on the target range. I am a firm believer in the sportsman knowing how to use his rifle effectively at the sporting ranges without sight adjustment. I believe that he will do just about as well if he knows the fall of his bullet at a given range, and if he has under or over estimated the distance and sees where the bullet strikes, as one often does, the correction can be made again by changing the allowance for the next shot. Invariably the game is moving fast after the first chance, and it is opportune to add that while a running deer only has to be led from 12 to 18 inches at 200 yards to insure a hit when using a rifle with 2700-foot muzzle velocity, providing that the gun is kept moving with the line of flight of the game, it nevertheless takes a lot of practice to learn to do with any degree of certainty at 100 yards. As to my meaning regarding the question of elevation—if we are shooting with a .30-06, using the .220-grain bullet, at a deer standing at about 200 yards estimated range, and we know that our bullet will fall about 5 inches from its present point-blank range, if sighted in for 50 yards, it is a simple thing, knowing the height of the average deer to hold just about at the withers so that we will hit about at the point of the shoulder which is the ideal spot.
A SPLENDID MOOSE KILLED BY THE AUTHOR WITH THE SPORTING SPRINGFIELD, AT 225 YARDS.
TYPE OF GAME GUN BY JAMES PURDEY & SONS.
The world’s standard of perfection.
Even though one can allow himself considerably more leeway in the estimation of range with the latest type of rifle, it is still important to judge as correctly as possible. A little study of the front sight as an impromptu range scale will be a great help estimating the range in the uncertain light in the woods, or in a hilly country, where it is always hard to judge correctly. The bead sight is always the best for game; some prefer a large one while others like as fine a bead as they can get, but if one will study his front sight at different ranges, he will quickly learn how big a spot the bead covers at 100, 200 and 300 yards. Also, the height of the front sight as seen through the peep, compared to the height of game animals at different ranges will be an excellent gauge. As an illustration, we will say that the height of our front sight from the base to the tip covers 3 feet at 100 yards. If so (and this is about what the front sight on the average rifle will do), it would be apparently the same height as a deer to the shoulder at that distance. Consequently, if the deer appeared to be half the height of the front sight it would be approximately 200 yards away. This can be worked out with an empty rifle very satisfactorily by aiming at objects at a distance, and then measuring them and the distance to them from where the sight was taken. I know of nothing more instructive to the sportsman than to get off on a hill and take sight at sheep scattered out in a pasture at various ranges. It is surprising how small even mild “old mooly” the cow will look over one’s sight at 400 to 500 yards, and it will go a long way towards discouraging the erroneous impression as to the practicability of killing game at those ranges if we check up to see how far out we were as to range on the small mark she affords. When some mighty hunter tells you of the wonderful shot that he made at long range, discount it by at least a third and lay the error to enthusiasm. If you think that he was sincere, and if convinced that he did do it, attribute it mostly to dumb luck. Remember that it is very unlikely that he ever measured it accurately, but at any rate don’t worry over-much about trying to duplicate it.