Here in central western Idaho where I live and hunt, it is common to need the ability to make a 300 to 400 yd shot. I and many of my friends who also hunt here or in eastern Oregon practice for that type of shot.
My friends shoot 25-06, 270, 7mm Rem Mag, 30-06, 7 STW. I carried a 30-06 loaded with 165 Nos bt @ 2900 fps for years, but have recently given it up for a 7 STW, as well as the 264 Win Mag my son usually carries.
Our rifles are usually equipped with 3-9X40 or 4-12X40 optics and Harris bipods, and are sighted to 0 at 300 yds. This will give a midrange rise of 3.5 to 6 in depending on cartridge and velocity. I have a trajectory chart taped to the side of my buttstock with readings to 500 yd, although I have never needed to take a shot at over 400 yd on game.
I carry a Bushnell 800 yd compact range finder.
The longest shot I have ever needed to make was 400 yd, clean one shot kill, prone with the bipod. And I also have killed a couple of deer at ten to fifteen yds, funny thing is that on both of these shots,after the deer were dead I realized my Burris 4-12 was set on 12 power. I didn't find it to be a handicap.
The reason for our style of shooting is because of our terrain. We usually hunt from horseback. We ride the trails on Nat'l Forest which are often located on a ridge top or near the top. From the trails you often can see one or both slopes of the ridge you are on as well as the opposing ridge slopes. Most of the time we have a view with a radius of up to a mile.
Even though we have a lot of brush and timber, it is usually confined to pockets. If one sees game go into one of these pockets, one can usually find a vantage point overlooking it and wait for the game to come out.
Deer and elk will often see us at the same time we see them. At 400 yd they will often stand and watch as we dismount, tie the horses, and set up for the shot, if it is early in the season. If it is late in the season and the game has been hunted hard they will spook and run at 600 to 800 yd.
We prepare for big game season by hunting the Columbian ground squirrel. He is a little guy, maybe six inches tall when standing on his hind legs, for a large adult. When scurrying about the ground, he is 2 1/2 in tall by six inches long. The desert hills surrounding our homes are extremely overpopulated with these guys. Sometimes you can count hundreds of them dead on a five mile stretch of road near my home. There are simply so many of them they get run over crossing the road, then you see the living run out to ingest the dead and they get run over also.
We practice in the spring and early summer by shooting these little squirrels out to 300 yds using our game rifles and field positions. It is very easy to burn up 200 rounds in each of a couple of big game rifles in a day for each person. The only problem is cooling the barrels.
We feel if we can reliably kill these small rodents at 300 yd, then we are competent to hit the vitals of a deer or elk to 400 yd. I do shoot my rifles on paper to 500 yd, but am not confident of a clean kill on game at that range, so I do not attempt it.
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