Popeye,

Your right about practice. To shoot the longer ranges you need to practice them to see how you' re weapon and ammo choice does at those ranges.

On the other hand, I have shot many deer in the 200-300 yard range sucessfully, and I practice very little at those ranges. The key for me is a steady rest and an awareness of the conditions (i.e. I don' t want heavy crosswinds). I do believe that ballistics are sufficient in estimating the accuracy at longer ranges, provided these conditions are met. And I have proven that is the case in actual practice, although there' s a human error that magnifies itself at longer ranges. Still, if I shoot 1" groups at 100 yards, my groups at 300 yards will be 4" -5" in actual practice and online with the ballistics(5" -7" drop), more than adequate for shooting whitetail.