Is Long Range Precision Shooting Destroying Hunting As We Know It?
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 7 months ago
It’s called hunting, and it’s fun. Of course, you ultimately need to put a bullet through a squirrel’s quarter-size brain, and your gun is the tool for tying the process together. But if you’re going squirrel hunting mainly to show off your custom rimfire, the redneck who’s using iron sights and knows how to identify and creep up on the sound of pignut husks peppering the ground can probably teach you a thing or two.
That squirrel hunting has become overlooked is a hell of a statement about modern hunting culture. “You hunt squirrels?” people say to me. “That’s cool. My grandpa used to hunt those.” Instead of woodsmanship, today’s hunters seem to value and obsess over gear, especially guns and cartridges and optics. We pore over information about bullets and twist rates and custom turrets so that we’re ready for that 400-plus-yard shot we’re sure we’re going to get—but we forget to pick our feet up and whisper on the way there. We buy choke tubes and reflex sights and pattern shotguns with $10 shells so we can kill a turkey from 70 yards—but in the process, we fail to learn what a drumming turkey sounds like because we have never listened to one that’s been completely fooled at 15 steps.
When you see a bunch of outdoorsmen gathered around a phone these days to look at pictures of a buck or bull, the question you’re almost bound to hear is: How far was the shot? If it was a close shot, the hunter’s reply is usually sheepish: “Oh, he walked by at 40 steps. Kind of hard to miss that.”
I’m sorry, but there’s something wrong with that. Getting close enough to count coup ought to be the mark of a good hunter—not something to defend because it makes the shot too easy. If that’s not obvious to you, then I think you need to try the most overlooked hunt in North America. And when your buddies break out their phones to compare critters, make sure you show off a photo of a limit of squirrels and brag about sneaking in to 20 yards for six clean headshots with your .22 and 4X Walmart scope.
Funny. My youngest son was saying that same thing to me just this morning. Oh, he knows a thing or two about long range precision shooting. He was a DM and he went through Scout Sniper training.
But he would still rather shoot at 20-40 yards than 250 or further. Because that’s hunting.
On September 24, 2019 at 11:46 pm, Joshua Smith said:
All the guys I see that take hunting very seriously for the sport and thrill of it (and not just the meat harvest) wind up ditching the guns and bow hunting at very close range. At least in wooded areas.
On September 25, 2019 at 11:35 am, revjen45 said:
“And when your buddies break out their phones to compare critters, make sure you show off a photo of a limit of squirrels and brag about sneaking in to 20 yards for six clean headshots with your .22 and 4X Walmart scope.”
For a .22rf I prefer a fold-down tang mounted peep sight.
_revjen45
On September 25, 2019 at 3:58 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
For those interested in keeping the old ways alive, there is a rather excellent You Tube channel whose proprietor is known to the public only as “GunBlue460.” He is former U.S. Army (saw action in Vietnam, if memory serves) and also a retired police captain. Whoever this gentleman is, he is a treasure house of knowledge about the past eras of firearms, hunting, and other such things. Oh, and he is also a Christian.
GB460 coaches his viewers not to buy too much gun for their deer hunt, remarking that more deer have been taken with the venerable 30-30 lever-action than any other firearm/cartridge combination, and that when a scope is necessary, seldom does the hunter need more than 4x power.
He is a proponent of shooting the old-fashioned way, from field positions, and devotes several videos to the proper use of a sling when doing such. He disparages hunters who rely upon shooting rests, insisting that mastery of your firearm must include knowing (not guessing!) the maximum distance at which you can put a shot into the boiler room (vital zone) of a white-tail deer.
A clean kill being necessary for ethical reasons and also so that you don’t end up tracking the deer for an extended period and ruining the meat, which is often what happens when the animal is wounded.
In many places in the eastern United States, a 50-yard shot is a long one for taking that special whitetail; the terrain and ample vegetative cover see to that. In the western states, it is a different story – and GB640 recommends calibers suitable for those longer shots, i.e., .270, 6.5 Swedish, 7-08, 30-06, 308, 243, etc. as circumstances and preference dictate. Or stick with the trusty 30-30…
If you want to do it old-school, you still need to use a field position for your shot, and know your capabilities to the yard.
Colonel Merritt “Red Mike” Edson, U.S.M.C., Medal of Honor recipient and a hero of the Battle for Guadalcanal, spoke about what he would have done differently if he had the chance to prepare his men for the fight all over again.
Edson said that he would have emphasized marksmanship – both individual and team – even more, but in addition, field-craft and the detection of the enemy. He rated the tasks of the infantryman in the field by difficulty (most-difficult first): Detection of the target, closing with and ranging the target, and firing upon it.
Note the order – field-craft is the most-difficult skill to learn, i.e. detecting a hidden enemy (or in the hunter’s case, deer or other game animal), and then stalking it until one is within range.
Long-range hunting is a viable sport, but it does turn the old hunting virtues on their head. Detecting the prey is from long range; there is no need for stealth or field-craft in approaching it; a game camera may even be used. Likely as not, a laser range-finder comes into play, too. Finally, setting up and taking the shot.
Of course, one has to live in an area with the terrain for LR hunting to do it in the first place, and not everyone is so blessed.
If you are stuck in Pennsylvania or West Virginia or Tennessee, don’t despair. Famous test-pilot and WWII P-51 Mustang ace General Chuck Yeager once wrote that he considers his childhood varmint hunting and use of a shotgun for water fowl and skeet-shooting to have been critical parts of his development not only as a hunter but as a fighter pilot. Specifically, how to line up and take a shot at a small target and also how to take successful deflection shots, as one would with a bird or a clay pigeon in flight. Yeager grew up poor in rural West Virginia and often had to hunt for his breakfast in the hours before daybreak.
On September 25, 2019 at 8:08 pm, Jeffersonian said:
I seem to recall reading that Jeff Cooper’s First Rule of Hunting was “Get close, then get closer.”
I seem to also recall that Erich Hartmann, top-scoring fighter ace of all time, had essentially the same rule.