Before you shoot at an animal at any range you should have practiced at that range...

As far as "holding dead on"...What are you trying to hit??? Sure you might hit a deer, but a groundhog???

Let's say you sight in a .243, 100gr bullet 2 1/2 inches high at 100 yards...At 225-250 it is "dead on"...At 300 yards it will hit about 4 inches low...At points in between 25-275 yards that bullet will be anywhere from dead on to 3 inches high or 3 inches low...This will allow you to hit a deer, but it's not really "dead on"...

Make sense???

One constant in rifle shooting is gravity, it always works...

It's fine to start sighting in at a short distance like 25 yards but you should always move the target out to longer ranges and fine tune your zero...


What you described is an old wive's tale that started back during WW-II...During basic training the range instructors would tell their raw recruits they could sight in their rifles at 25 yards or so and hit a human at 300...