Wow this is fun!!!! I am kinda new to this Internet posting thing so you will have to forgive me if I don’t follow the protocol until I learn a little more of what is standard operating procedure.

First things first.

John Burns
Bridger Trail Video
Shooting Host
“The Best of the West”
www.TheBestoftheWest.net

The show starts April 7 2003 on The Sportsman Channel. The Sportsman Channel is a new channel featuring 100% hunting and fishing. It is free to any satellite or cable company to send out to their subscribers. Go to the web site and you will find the information on how to get it in your house. There are about 80 shows on board now.

http://www.thesportsmanchannel.com/

We also have been invited on to The Outdoor Channel to start January 2004 and are in negotiations with them.

CalNewbie,

I wish you were closer to Wyoming because I could prove you have the shooting skills to properly hit a deer at 500 yds under good conditions. It is not that hard if your rifle is setup properly.

Can you shoot a 1” group at 100 yds off a solid rest (bipod)? Most anyone can if they have a quality rifle that doesn’t kick their hat off.

What makes you think it is then so hard to shoot a 10” group at 500 yds? Have you ever tried to shoot at that range? Of course, if the wind is howling or you have just run 200 yds uphill at 10,000ft you might not want to take such a shot, but if the conditions are right it is not that hard.

I firmly believe this: I would rather have a new hunter shoot at 500 yds under good conditions than take them into the timber and have to make a 75 yd shot under pressure. It always makes me sad when some one takes a new hunter into a situation where they have to make a shot under time pressure because the animal is abut to get away. This is a sure recipe for disaster. When we set up at 500 yds the hunter has the time to calm down. We even have them dry fire on the animal if they are having a hard time relaxing, to help remove the chance of trigger jerking. For a beginning hunter, buck fever is the leading cause of a poor shot. It doesn’t matter if you are inside 100 yds, if you jerk the trigger BAD things happen. A jerk at 100 yds is a gut shot; a jerk at 500 yds it is a clean miss.

Because you saw a video that someone had a hard time hitting an elk has no relevance to what we are doing, in fact it shows what is out there. Our footage speaks for itself. I have mentioned it before but I will say again: We cannot afford to waste our filming opportunities on missing or wounding animals. If I was to wound an animal on video and had to shoot it multiple times we would not be able to use the footage. We could not get enough footage if we wasted tags just banging away.

Thanks for the great response.

121553,
Bobby,

I do agree there are to many guys hitting the woods without any idea how to make any shot. This is a problem going on right now. Do you really think a show that details how to do the things we do will increase this? I think knowledge is power. The more you know about long-range shooting the less likely you will be to take a shot beyond your capabilities. One of the things we will show is how to determine your own capabilities.

While we do have footage of animals being harvested at ranges in excess of 1000 yds we will not be showing that at this time. This extreme range shooting requires equipment beyond what is readily available. I am calling 500 yds to 800 yds long range for the purpose of this discussion. We will not be encouraging anything but just showing what can be done if someone puts in his homework. Of course people will try things they shouldn’t. You admit they already are. With more knowledge I hope the contentious hunters will learn something. The guys you have experience with are always going to be a problem.

The wind is the hardest thing to compensate for when shooting long range, but it is possible to get a good handle it. This is the area requires the most practice, certainly more so than the actual “marksmanship” aspect. We will cover this during the show.

The animal moving is a question I get asked a lot. At 700 yds the time of flight for a bullet out of one of the rifles we shoot is about 3/4 of a second (0.740 to be precise). This is enough time for an animal move. The body language of the animal is what you have to watch. It is possible to have a problem but I have never seen it happen in the real world.

Thanks for your input

sr.corndog,

We have footage with even traditional archery equipment (long bow and cedar arrows). We are not just about long-range. I shot an antelope and whitetail this year with an iron-sighted revolver (45 Colt) on video.

We have never had any meat spoil.

We use a lot of different rifles; one of the main ones is a 7mm very similar to the 7mm STW. It launches a 150 gr bullet @ 3450 fps.

Thanks for your response.

Txhunter58,

I love it when we get called to the carpet. Guys who do that are thinking. I am not going to post the phone number because I have to talk to our sponsors and don’t have the time to answer other questions, no matter how good they are. Sorry. My email is [email protected]

I know that a ½ MOA gun is not required to hit at long-range. If you miss your wind call it won’t help you at all. An elk has a 16” vital zone. At whatever range you are shooting, if your rifle will shoot an 8” group it (the Rifle) will never miss an elk.

I am not going to encourage anyone to shoot beyond his personal limits. As we all seem to agree some peoples limit is less than 100 yds. Should we limit our shots to that distance? No matter how close we set the limit someone will not have the ability and knowledge to shoot at that range. It never ends. It seems that everyone thinks we should show shots out to their personal limit and no further.

I am confused why it is unethical to shoot an animal at long-range? At what range does it become ethical and why? Is that also the same range you feel comfortable?

Oldelkhunter,

Lots of elk in NC??

What don’t you believe? Please be specific. I am saying we have the video of 500 yds-800yds shots (one shot kills). Do you think I am lying? How about a coyote at 1078?? What is it worth to you to find out?? It could just be camera tricks but who knows??

I think I need to send out a video to someone on this site and have him look at it and give an unbiased report.

Volunteers anyone??