The other day I was thinking about somthing. The X ring on a target is one minuit of angle. This means that a 500 yard target has a 5" X ring. At a Rifle match, if you want to win you better hope all your shots are in the X ring. Now a deer has about an 18" vital area, maby alittle smaller. Now I am not picking on any one out there. Putting a bullet in a deers vital area at 500 yards does not qualify as expert shooting. I am not saying it is easy to shoot deer at these ranges, quite the oppisite, and unsucessful shots are judged not by lack of crome trophies but by crippled and lost game. With this long range stuff there are some inherant problems. Unless the deer goes right down or you have snow on the ground what are the chances of finding where the deer was and picking up a blood trail?
If you are shooting a 7mm Ultes and you miss judge the wind by about 2 MPH you just paunched or missed. Miss judge the distance, miss or blowen off leg ,maby a hit on the fringes. We also have to think about how far the deer can move during the bullets time of flight.
I shoot thousands of round a year from all types and calibers of rifles and I really do not think I or for that matter any body else has any business taking these long shots. I believe 300 yards with a modern flat shooting rifle is the limit, and even at that distance only if you practice shooting that distance alot.
This 500+yard stuff, I do not know what it is hunting is getting close and personal, kind of like bow hunting. It certanly is not target shooting as a good target shooter would never pick so large a target. Most of all I wonder how many animals are wounded and never found with this long range stuff. It does not impress me, what impresses me is the hunter that shows me the deer with powder burns on its coat.