Go the distance
By Ad Crable
Dec 11, 2002, 13:45 EST
Lancaster New Era
Long-range deer hunters use powerful optics, rifles to shoot from one mountain to another.
SEVEN MOUNTAINS, Mifflin County -- Oblivious to the trucks grinding up the busy Route 322 incline less than 100 feet behind them, three orange-clad men in portable chairs hunch over high-powered binoculars mounted on tripods.
Like the other 1 million hunters in Pennsylvania during the first week of deer season, they strain to glimpse a whitetail.
Only their shot, if it comes, will cross Cox's Valley and be aimed at a facing mountainside, a distance of 600 to 800 yards -- more than six times the range of a typical deer hunter's rifle shot.
A day before, a couple mountains over, Edward McQueen Jr. of Narvon had gotten his first long-range-hunting deer with a 875-yard shot from one mountain to another -- a distance of a half-mile.
He hit the deer on his 10th shot. Between the shots, which consumed more than a half-hour, a team of hunters, not unlike artillery gunmen zeroing in on a target, used computer technology to factor in temperature, wind speed, distance, the weight of the bullet -- even altitude.
This is long-range hunting, a small but growing passion among deer hunters who have the patience and money to indulge.
Hunters work in teams and set up on lofty points where they can scan entire mountainsides for foraging deer oblivious to their presence.
The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania is one popular spot. So is the quite visible roadside ridge on Seven Mountains outside State College where Tony Panunzio, Jeff Eby and Joe Lefevre of Yeagertown, Mifflin County are set up.
They get a lot of honks, some from well wishers, some from anti-hunters and some from disapproving hunters. ""Get in the woods and hunt!'' some have yelled. Others see the portable grills and and chairs and think it's a lazy hunter's sport.
"They think this is so easy, but it's not. You don't just get behind the gun and shoot. We might sit here three to four days and never shoot the gun,'' says Panunzio, a logger who has hunted this way since he was old enough to carry a gun.
"A lot of people just think you're throwing lead across the hill,'' adds McQueen. A hunter who seeks primitive and challenging ways to hunt deer, he became hooked after stumbling onto a group of long-range hunters several years ago on a backcountry Mifflin County road.
John, who has hunted deer from long distance for 30 years, knows better.
Because of the touchiness of the subject, the Mifflin County hunter asked that his real name not be printed.
John shoots competitively with bench rifles in 1,000-yard shoots, has taken deer from up to 950 yards and calls long-range hunting a science.
Among the $10,000 in equipment he lugs around for the sport are five rifles which he uses for different conditions. The rifles are customized with calibers that range from 6 mm to 338////378.
The guns weigh up to 72 pounds, which is partly why they are fired from tripods or on gun benches. Another reason for the support is the extreme accuracy needed when firing at such distances.
At this distance, breathing too hard or squeezing the trigger off-center can throw the shot way off.
John, who hunts with one of a half-dozen or so long-range hunt outfits in Mifflin County, spends weeks experimenting with different loads in his bullets to find the combination of powder, primer and shell casings that best fits each rifle.
To find deer, he uses two spotting scopes that are bracketed together to work like a pair of binoculars. Others buy old World War II vintage tank or ship binoculars.
When a deer is sighted (the hunter who spies the deer often gets the shot), a range finder is used to gauge its distance from the shooter.
Then John checks the wind (he has a wind wheel stuck in the ground), temperature, humidity and other factors.
He pulls out a folder which contains a computer-calibrated click chart that tells him how much to adjust the scope mounted on his rifle.
Some long-range hunters make adjustments after the first shot. But John, who has killed about a dozen deer up to eight points, goes to great strides to make the first shot a killing one.
Even sunshine can be a factor in shooting. Looking into the sun creates an optical illusion and makes the deer look higher than it is, John explains. Shade can have the opposite effect.
While one hunter shoots, the others have their optics glued to the deer.
One hunter stands directly behind the shooter because the trained eye can actually see the bullet flying through the air at 3,000 feet per second.
That's because the bullet piercing the air gives off a bubbling effect.
Even if the bullet isn't picked up in flight, the others see where the bullet hits the ground if it misses the mark.
Often, a miss will not spook the deer, giving the hunters second, third and additional chances.
"We shot 50 shots one day at a buck and as far as I know that sucker's still out there,'' John says.
Long-range hunters contend that theirs is about the safest form of deer hunting. No tree stands to fall out of, no unseen hunters in the line of fire -- other hunters in blaze orange are readily visible.
"Shooting into the side of a mountain is the best backstop in the world,''John says.
The lone rifle is mounted on a tripod or shooting bench and is not even loaded until ready to be fired, all but eliminating loading accidents, points out McQueen.
Also, long-rangers, because they can follow a deer from one end of the mountain to another, are less likely to lose a wounded deer.
Of course, when long-rangers are successful, the drag out can consume the rest of the day. The hunter hoofs it ove to the far mountain where his colleagues direct him to the deer via two-way radios. It took McQueen 45 minutes just to reach his downed doe.
"Anybody can walk out and shoot a deer,'' says McQueen, who for the last 15 years has gotten his with a bow and arrow, muzzleloader or pistol.
"I'm a detail-oriented person and you have so many variables (in long-range rifle hunting) that there are so many things that have to be exact to make that shot.''