Distance judgement
08-03-2011, 10:50 PM
#11
Fork Horn
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Northern NY
Posts: 311
Real early season I go out and pace off 30 yards and 45 yards around my stand and mark them with ribbon. Red is 30, the 30yd pin on my bow is red. And Green is 45, again the 45 pin on my bow is green. Anything under 30 I can estimate using the 30 yard ribbon. I've found with using this method it'll help ya get better at estimating in general.
08-07-2011, 07:59 AM
#12
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,083
I would pace of several reference points from your stand / blind. I have a cheap laser rangefinder. It does not have the ARC compensation. I usually just range several trees around my stand so I know the general range. Sometimes it helps to mark these with a small piece of marking tape and thumbtack. This is for bowhunting. As for firearms seasons I use my TC Omega. I stand hunt in wooded areas so I have my ML sighted for only 50yrds. I know I am in the pipe 0-100 so I have no real need to know the precise distance. But as for the bowhunting I like to know my distances. I thing I paid $150 for my rangefinder. If I were going to buy another I would get one with angle compensation built in.
08-07-2011, 12:53 PM
#13
Spike
Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 5
Like many others I'd advise going ahead and buying a rangefinder. Bushnell has one thats $149 and works great for your porposes. It doesn't have the angle compensation, but I'm beginning to think that was just a marketing ploy anyways. The reason I'd suggest going ahead and getting the rangefinder is simply ethics. In my opinion hunting is about taking an animal with the least amount of suffering possible. depending on your bow speed a few yards can make a huge difference. As other have said, once you get used to ranging distances you will begin to judge much more accurately and can use the rangefinder much less. As for walking off distances, this is better than nothing, but it stands to reason that a 6'5 man and a 5'6 are going to have vastly different strides which mean their 20 yard walk off is going to be even more skewed... Point is unless you practice stepping off exactly 3ft in each stride this method doesn't necessarily work. Get a rangefinder, learn to judge accurately, and never take shots outside your comfort zone reguardless of whether you know the exact distance or not.
08-07-2011, 05:49 PM
#14
Spike
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 6
i would HIGHLY recommend biting the bullet and buying the range-finder...however if your not gonna buy one mark off points where u can expect shots to come from in your stand. Also, if you happen to hav a spot hogg get the new tagged out sight accessory! cheap and effective
08-07-2011, 11:31 PM
#15
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kansas
Posts: 3,903
Here are several options:
1) Pre-measure all of the landmarks around your stand. Make a notecard with a map of the territory around your stand with these ranges noted.
2) Practice "off the cuff" estimation by eyeballing it. Go out to a field, and just start paying attention to how big different objects appear at different ranges, i.e. if I outstretch my arm, the width of my thumb is about as tall as a fencepost (or a deer) at 250yrds. Another fun trick to practice this is to throw a baseball, watch how far it flies, then measure it out. It's a great exercise for specifically focusing on how much ground is between you, and a specific range. Granted, you can't throw 100yrds, but you'll learn to estimate 50yrds REALLY accurately, then you can start counting multiples of that. If you throw a baseball about 20 times, you'll easily know when you see a deer whether he's JUST close enough to hit with a ball, or if he's twice as far, or half as far.
3) Use your reticle to estimate yardages. Almost ANY reticle can be used to estimate range if you know the sub-tensions of the reticle. If you know the subtensions of your reticle between the heavy bars of a Plex reticle, then you can calculate the range. Mil-dot scopes are great for this, assuming you can accurately estimate the height of your target, and the subtension that it scribes in the scope (is it 1/2 mil or 0.6mil?).
4) Use the parallax setting on your scope to help you estimate ranges. We all know that the markings on the scope are NOT accurate, but if you place targets at known distances, then dial in the parallax adjustment to bring them into focus, you can re-calibrate your parallax dial to pick out ranges accurately. Then when you're in the field, you can dial your target into focus, and read the setting. I wrap a piece of tape around my scopes Adjustable Objective dials and mark the proper ranges myself. I measure out 100yrds, then dial in the best focus I can, then mark the tape, then 150, and mark it again, 200, etc etc. Then when I'm in the deerstand, I can turn the AO until I find the proper focus, and compare that to my previous calibration. Combine that with eyeballing the range, and it's pretty dang accurate.
Combine these 4 techniques and you won't have ANY investment on the table, but you'll have a pretty sound system for accurate range estimation.
Guys hunted with rifles for over a hundred years before laser rangefinders came on the scene. We're way too reliant upon technology these days (coming from a professional engineer who's still south of 30). If a guy could knock down a buffalo with a Sharps .45-90 at 500yrds with a lead flat point slug back in 1880, I'm pretty confident that a guy with a Ruger M-77 .30-06 can knock down a deer at 200yrds without a laser rangefinder.
One thing to keep in mind, is the point blank range of your weapon. Point blank range for a .30-06 is about 200-250yrds for whitetail deer (sighted in at a range between 100 or 200yrds). The average hunter shouldn't be shooting past 200yrds anyway, nor should he NEED to shoot farther than that. What this really means is that if you're shooting a .30-06 with 150grn bullets trucking 2900fps, and you estimate the range at 150yrds, and you hold 1.5" high, but the deer is ACTUALLY at 200yrds (30% error), you'll only be off the mark by about 2", still placing the bullet on the deer's heart, let alone the lungs.
1) Pre-measure all of the landmarks around your stand. Make a notecard with a map of the territory around your stand with these ranges noted.
2) Practice "off the cuff" estimation by eyeballing it. Go out to a field, and just start paying attention to how big different objects appear at different ranges, i.e. if I outstretch my arm, the width of my thumb is about as tall as a fencepost (or a deer) at 250yrds. Another fun trick to practice this is to throw a baseball, watch how far it flies, then measure it out. It's a great exercise for specifically focusing on how much ground is between you, and a specific range. Granted, you can't throw 100yrds, but you'll learn to estimate 50yrds REALLY accurately, then you can start counting multiples of that. If you throw a baseball about 20 times, you'll easily know when you see a deer whether he's JUST close enough to hit with a ball, or if he's twice as far, or half as far.
3) Use your reticle to estimate yardages. Almost ANY reticle can be used to estimate range if you know the sub-tensions of the reticle. If you know the subtensions of your reticle between the heavy bars of a Plex reticle, then you can calculate the range. Mil-dot scopes are great for this, assuming you can accurately estimate the height of your target, and the subtension that it scribes in the scope (is it 1/2 mil or 0.6mil?).
4) Use the parallax setting on your scope to help you estimate ranges. We all know that the markings on the scope are NOT accurate, but if you place targets at known distances, then dial in the parallax adjustment to bring them into focus, you can re-calibrate your parallax dial to pick out ranges accurately. Then when you're in the field, you can dial your target into focus, and read the setting. I wrap a piece of tape around my scopes Adjustable Objective dials and mark the proper ranges myself. I measure out 100yrds, then dial in the best focus I can, then mark the tape, then 150, and mark it again, 200, etc etc. Then when I'm in the deerstand, I can turn the AO until I find the proper focus, and compare that to my previous calibration. Combine that with eyeballing the range, and it's pretty dang accurate.
Combine these 4 techniques and you won't have ANY investment on the table, but you'll have a pretty sound system for accurate range estimation.
Guys hunted with rifles for over a hundred years before laser rangefinders came on the scene. We're way too reliant upon technology these days (coming from a professional engineer who's still south of 30). If a guy could knock down a buffalo with a Sharps .45-90 at 500yrds with a lead flat point slug back in 1880, I'm pretty confident that a guy with a Ruger M-77 .30-06 can knock down a deer at 200yrds without a laser rangefinder.
One thing to keep in mind, is the point blank range of your weapon. Point blank range for a .30-06 is about 200-250yrds for whitetail deer (sighted in at a range between 100 or 200yrds). The average hunter shouldn't be shooting past 200yrds anyway, nor should he NEED to shoot farther than that. What this really means is that if you're shooting a .30-06 with 150grn bullets trucking 2900fps, and you estimate the range at 150yrds, and you hold 1.5" high, but the deer is ACTUALLY at 200yrds (30% error), you'll only be off the mark by about 2", still placing the bullet on the deer's heart, let alone the lungs.
