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Not sure about this personally - Can't knock him for his shooting, but is there a need to be shooting rabbits at 640 yards?


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWLPketR ... r_embedded#![/youtube]

Mike

As far as I am concerned, long distance shooting only belongs to two disciplines. Military marksmen and target shooters.

Long distance hunting is a dick thing.

Unless you're starving then I guess it serves no purpose.

However, hitting a bunny at 600+ yards is quite impresive.

Pesky wabbits!

Less impressive if the shot falls slightly to the left or right because at that moment the wind gusted and the rabbit/deer/whatever ends up escaping with a bullet in it's leg and slowly bleeds to death because the shooter can't find it, it was after all 600 yards away when the shot was taken and by the time the shooter gets to where it took the bullet it has disappeared into some undergrowth and it can't be found.

True hunters do in general not take long distance shots, they leave nothing to chance, only exception would perhaps be bigger animals like polar bears but then one is hitting it with something big that isn't affected by wind.

Very true, I was brought up that you were close enough when you could see the hair, no optics.

Hunting is as much if not more about the stalk and getting into your quarry as close as you can than it is about target accuracy.

MiLisCer wrote:Not sure about this personally - Can't knock him for his shooting, but is there a need to be shooting rabbits at 640 yards?


Mike

Maybe his fieldcraft sucks!

Realistically, as long as the quarry is killed outright is there anything "wrong" with it apart from not ulitising the animal?

Long varminting has more attraction to me, than shooting the same distance on the range. For me, knowing animal is on the recieving end of a shot at those sort of ranges would make me take greater care with the shot.

christel wrote:True hunters do in general not take long distance shots, they leave nothing to chance, only exception would perhaps be bigger animals like polar bears but then one is hitting it with something big that isn't affected by wind.

If you're havesting the game then yes, even with bears you don't want mess it up and have an angry bear coming at you. The same way I don't consider sitting in a tree stand and waiting for an animal to come to your bait, hunting - I wouldn't class this as hunting.

This sort of long range shooting is pest control not hunting, nevertheless you still shoot within what your skill allows

The rights and wrongs of it is down to the individual in the end. :-P

This crops on UKLR and also on UKV and causes quite a debate.

All the videos always show clean kills, which at those distances is very impressive I have to agree. Dead is dead at any range. What they don't show is the non fatal shots with rabbits and other quarry inc deer, crawling of in agony to die. They state that they don't miss but we all know that is crap.

I fully support shooting live quarry and did it many years ago on almost a daily basis but as Christel points out, this long range rubbish is about who can p*** the highest and it serves no other purpose than to say look at me. You don't see any of the F Class guys posting pictures of their targets??

Also it plays into the hands of those that would see all hunting etc banned.

I would suggest that we keep FBUK free of this rubbish.

PS - MiliCser, I'm not have a go :P :P :P

He must have one fit dog, wonder what breed he uses?

When I think of how far 600 yards is at Bisley, either his video camera is giving the impression of it being much further than it is or his distances are seriously out.

DM

What is the difference between shooting a rabbit at 175-200m with a 17HMR and shooting a rabbit at say 350m with 243 varmint load?
Both are at the extreme of their ballistics but no-one would bat an eyelid at the 17HMR.

I'm not going to begrudge someone who is capable of taking those long shots from doing so, but I wouldn't sit back say nothing if someone was wounding animals at thoses ranges and thought nothing of it, either.

Like I said before - the rights and wrongs of it are down to the individual and their skill level.