I know several regulars here are deeply involved with long range hundgunning. I have questions on this. Most handgun scopes hit the limit of use around 300 yards from my experience. With that in mind what scopes are being used? If a rifle scope is being used, what is the advantage of using a pistol? I realize there is personal satisfaction in the long range shooting and constant hitting the target with a pistol.
I applaud those that can with connsistancy hit targets at long ranges greater than 450 yards.
What else is gained? What am I missing?
Thanks
Rick

First, you can hit consistently with a handgun scope (Burris 3-12) beyond 500 yards.
Advantages of quality riflescopes: better optics, higher magnification, larger field of view, more internal adjustment, better reticle options and better target turret options.

Advantages of LER's: See a full field of view when shooting and the optic a safe distance from the shooter.

In the near future this topic should be covered in detail.
I have one 4.5-14 Leupold, one 6.5-20 Leupold, and two 8.5-25 Leupold's.
Plan to add some Nightforce to the stable in the future.
Leupold and Nightforce are two scope companies that have the longest eye reliefs for high magnification variables.

Thanks for the answers and clearing up my thoughts.

Hunlee have 3-12x power Burris on 7-30 water long ranger barrle!!!!!Hunlee has shot to 400 but 250 an 300 is better!!!!!!Like XP say 3-12x power is very good but rifle scope may be better!!!!!Hunlee try rifle scope on 7-30 water barrel but scope hit head of Hunlee!!!!!No blood but big egg form!!!!!Life has been very good to Hunlee as Hunlee has many nice thing!!!!!Hunlee is friend to all and is allso very good looking!!!!

hunlee

Rick,
One other thing, that is many times a given when using lightweight handguns, big cartridges (bottleneck), or both a muzzle brake is almost a neccesity to ensure safety.

I understand what you are saying about safety. I can imagine using a rifle scope on a handgun could leave to a nasty cut above one's eye.
Rick

I have used high magnification riflescopes (20x-25x0 on SP's for several years now without a problem. Most cartridges are based off of the 284 Win case or larger.
Most of the time I DO NOT see a full field of view when I pull the trigger.

Hunlee wonder something hear????How you not see full feild of view??????When Hunlee shoot rifle scope on 7-30 water barrel Hunlee see wide circle in scope view!!!!Maybe hunlee get confused agin??????

hunlee

No hunlee...you are not confused...xphunter just not explain fully. When Hunlee see's full field of view, his head is going to get hit by the scope. xphunter finds his target with head close then backs away from scope. Though xphunter can still see his target, it shrinks the field of view and keeps him from getting goose eggs on the head.

Whoever gets hit by a scope has got to be the funniest thing I have ever seen! I have never got hit yet, but I have not shot big time handguns either.

Dan, your explanation completed the loop for me. I thought is how it would work, but was not sure. Thanks.

Dan,
As already mentioned, thanks for the better explanation.

I am also into the long-range game, and have several rigs set up for it. I will be taking a Savage Striker 243 WSSM to Wyoming next week for a handgunners antelope hunt. It's set up with the Leupold 4.5-14X VX-III and Varmint Hunter's reticle. This rig has taken a 530-yd. coyote in an avg. 10 mph x-wind and 4 doe antelope now from 250-425 using the 115 gr. DTAC bullet.

Another rig is a custom XP 6.5 WSM that has a Leupold 8.5-25X Mk. 4 with TMR reticle. It hasn't taken any game yet but i was able to win the 500 yd. leg of Rich Mertz Thousand Yard Comp. recently using it.

I also have a Kirby Allen built XP in 7-270 WSM, that's still in the process of getting a new McMillan stock on it. I was using the Wildcat 200 gr. bullet out of it and it was cracking the older HSP stock with a bipod attached. This rig has the 3-12X Burris on it and is the only SP i use a handgun scope on now.

Take a look at Dan's post of shooting steel with his friend Jimmy, and look at the 500 yd. gp. he shot with it--amazing!!

Steve,
Sounds like some nice set-ups you have. I have been keeping up with the thread Dan started on shooting steel. Making those distance shots with a handgun is amazing. It is some thing that requires a lot of practice as well. Not something the first time handgunner is going to consistantly accomplish.
Rick

Absolutely. IMO, the real key to making 1st shot connections at ranges beyond point blank is--

1) Knowing the range
2) Assessing windage as accurately as possible
3) Understanding the systems for referencing the shooting solutions (reticle or turrets), and applying ballistics programs to establish an accurate trajectory profile for calculations.

There are some other discussions here regarding LR shooting.
I'll try to dig them up.

Recently my buddy Mitch and i were out on a prairie dog shoot, and we were using my 17 Fireball XP and a 6-18X Nikon Buckmasters with mil-dot reticle. MD in the Nikon optics is always cald. for 12X (if higher than 10). So we just recald. the subtension (measurement) between dots and established a long-range shooting profile for the reticle (windage) and turret (elevation) out to 500 yds. We didn't get a lot of shooting in as the town had been poisoned last year but there were some out. Mitch spotted a PD sitting on top his mound at 420 yds. I think we dialed in 5 minutes or so of elevation, and .3 of a subtension unit (gap between dots), and he nailed that dog on the 1st shot. It is so neat when the "system" works.

Here's a coyote that was truly down on his luck this particular day--
http://www.perry-systems.com/what_others_have_to_say.htm#Steve

Thats impressive Sscoyote! I remember someone on this site hitting a prairie dog a couple of years back that was pushing a mile. I did a search but couldn't find that post.

That was me.
Steve was my primary spotter but my son Erik was there as well spotting.

That was an amazing shot! Are you able to add a link to that post? I could not find it when I searched.

You couldn't find it because it was more than two years ago.
I could give you a link but it would be to another specialty handgun site or I could repost it here?

Thks. Pab--i bet that gun wasn't shooting a MOA at the time. Didn't even check the ballistic program calcs, but it still worked.

Hit the critter @ 1800 yards (Blood around ther mound) but he got in the hole-We didn't try to dig him out, but Steve did stick his hand in there

Looking back from the mound-The black dot is my Suburban.

WoW Hunlee is impressed with XP long ranger pistol an shooting of prerry dog!!!!!Hunlee only have Contender 7-30 water barrel with 3-12x power burris butt maybee someday Hunlee shoot like XP with long ranger pistol!!!!!!!For now Hunlee work with 7-30 water contender pistol!!!!!

hunlee

Very impressive shooting on the dog and yote. I would have a hard time seeing a yote at 900 yards. Awesome looking set-ups used.

Rick, good optics and good rest systems are two main keys of LR shooting whether it be field or bench.
If a SP is already set-up (One of Dan's, Steve's, mine & probably some others here) it is no problem to put someone on steel at 1K with a little coaching.

Thanks for posting that again XP!

Rick, i've been hunting these dogs hard since '77. Can't remember if i saw them moving across the shallow basin i was calling into or glassed them. Before i end a stand i always glass 1st so i would've seen them anyways--there were 2 of them (it was early spring as i remember and they were pairing up). This dog was still prime enuf so i skinned and tanned him and he hangs from my bookcase in my "head" room as my wife calls it. 129 SST hit him dead center in the chest and exited size of a nickel out his backbone--killed him instantly. Lucky to have killed him tho. Had he been broadside i doubt i'd have ever known i hit him--probably shouldn't have even taken the shot, but...?
I shot him sitting off a tall Harris bipod and customized soft-sided stadium seat for back support. Couple weeks later i was out with the wife on a nice early spring afternoon, and was calling into another big basin that was bisected by a dry wash in the bottom. I lasered a dirt clod on the side of the bank at 1000 yds.--no coyotes around so i thought, why not? and got set up the same way with the same rig. I shot, and had to go down to check it out, since bullet impact was impossible to see in the side of a hill. When i got there there was a little hole in the bank 4" left of the dirt clod. Sure enuf i dug the 129 SST out of that hole. I couldn't believe it, but that 6.5-284 load/trajectory was exactly the same as the ballistics program calcs. (something that doesn't always happen).

Steve,
If you would, please explain your modified stadium seat, since we are on the topic of LR field shooting.

Sure, here it is--

Go out to the local K/Wal-Mart and get 1 of those soft-sided stadium seats. Reattach the female end of the side strap buckles closer to the seat so that when u sit in it and tighten it up it gives u genuine back support (a huge improvement over the factory setting). Reinforce the closed cell foam if it unzips between the bottom and back parts (another huge improvement, IMO). Now if u want u can attach another Fastex buckle to the ends of the side straps (just like a backpack waist belt--u'll see how it works once u look at it). That way u can carry it conveniently around your waist hands-free. This whole system allows u to shoot a handgun very accurately by bracing the rig between your knees with the addtl. support of the bipod.

This is the most practical field position i've ever used (besides prone) for providing the steadiest support possible, besides being nicely portable.

Long range shooting sounds like fun. Sounds addictive. Where I live we do not have open ranges of that distance that would allow a person to take a shot.
I appreciate all the responses to my original questions. This has really opened my eyes to the possibilities.
Rick

I was out in Colorado in Feburary of 07 hunting with Steve. We were after coyotes in a huge field with no backrest in sight. The stadium seats worked great. It was my turn to shoot when a coyote came in to 255 yards and hung up. She was sitting on a small mound looking around. I leaned back into the seat got a solid hold on the coyote, adjusted for the wind and let the bullet fly. Bang, flop. I could not have made that shot sitting without the stadium seat.

I've taken young kids (14-18yrs old) and had them make 1st hits on my 9" steel plate at 400yds on their first shot.

Went and shot @ 500 yards today with my MOA chambered for the 6mm-6.5x47 Lapua off of a bi-pod (no sighters, just dialed and made these three shots), 3-shots 1.25 inches. I was a happy camper. Barrel was a McGowen. MV was 2790 with 105 Berger VLD's, Fed match primers, H-4350. Scope is the Leupold VX-III 8.5-25 LR/T.

Obviously the wind must have held consistent. Good shooting.

Thanks!
Yes, the conditions were very nice for me yesterday. We had a light to medium cloud cover with wind quartering from 4:30.
When I was shooting the 7mm Dakota XP before that the clouds had broke up some and the wind was from 9-10 mph from the same direction. Right before I was finished with the 7 Dak the clouds came back and the wind layed down to about 4mph and was holding consistent.

I'm curious as to how you go about pulling off a 1500 yard shot on a prairie poodle successfully. I checked on a ballistics table and it does not take much wind at all to blow a bullet off a minute of prairie dog. It seems to me that a hit on the first shot would be more luck than skill. We do not get to shoot in a vacuum so I know that there is always some amount of breeze.

Recoil,
First I have never made a 1st shot connection beyond 1k, but I have been very close several times just beyond 1K. I have watched guys shooting rifles at 1k matches during the Friday practice, hit 5 of 5 clay pigeons @ 1k. I wouldn't want to bet against them. That being said, first shot connections on a pd at and beyond 1K has an element of luck involved
On the 1590 yard dog, I nailed him on the 10th shot. I was shooting at an elevation somewhere around 5,000 feet, temp were in the 40's, maybe low 50's. Barrel is a Broughton 5C 1-8 twist, tight-neck chamber, chambered in 6mm-284. It was throated for the 115 DTAC (BC .585)and the meplats uniformed, action had been trued, and even the aluminum bedding block was bedded, brass had been match prepped (necks-turned, flash holes uniformed, primer pockets uniformed, necks chamfered, and I use a 3-die set of Redding Comp Dies).
MV is just over 2700 fps.
Steve (sscoyote was spotting for me and this is what he posted elsewhere about it):
"Well, i probably wouldn't have believed it had i not been there, but Ernie popped 1 at 1590 to day. After getting set up I was spotting with the Big Eyes, and when i started to scan the mile dog mounds, 2 coyotes were making their way thru the dog town, so we sent some missiles their way to no avail, then it was onto dogs, and he was using his David White built 6-284 XP/115 DTAC/Leupold 8.5-25/TMR reticle. We thought the dog was actually at the mile mark, but when we got to it, we found out differently. The spot we're shooting at goes across a valley to about 1000, then it gently rises to about 1600, and it then flattens out, so it's hard to know from the shooting spot exactly where the mile point's at. We're gonna mark it with stakes, and flags tomorrow to help. Anyways he starts shooting at this dog, and i'm trying my best to get him in on it, but even 20X at that range is difficult to be as precise as if he was a tenth the distance closer. But conditions weren't bad, and he kepy getting closer and closer, until the last shot rang true, at 63 MOA elevation, and 8 MOA windage (5-10 mph wind). The dog was on all 4's, and the bullet hit amidships, and exited violently out his abdomen taking entrails with it. He flipped around for a couple seconds, and regained his senses, and started making for his mound, but he didn't have it in him, and he finally died just short of home. We got a buncha pics., and i've no doubt Ernie will post some soon. Anyways, to bed now to continue the 1 mile pr. dog saga tomorrow.
The End (for today)."


Wind for sure is the fly in the ointment. We have some rifle guys that will soon kill a pd at the two mile mark. Some have already been confirmed just under 2 miles. It makes my next personal goal of 2,000 yards seem wimpy.
What is possible is beyond what most can imagine. Is there luck involved-sure.

Thank you SO much for this thorough and honest answer. I have had my share of days out in the prairie dog fields and I know how much the wind impacts my success rate. Even when it appears calm the wind drift can play a factor the further out the shots are. I was wondering how you make those really far shots. You do well!

Recoil

And another point. If your weapon consistently does groups in the .2's that still will not translate into prairie dog accuracy at nearly 1600 yards. Kind of makes luck a bigger factor.

It is a matter of shooting until you get a holding condition and keeping your group size on the dog until one gets him

Both pistols shoot better than .2 when I am on my game.
In fact, the rear grip 6.5-284 shot 1.5 inch 4-shot group @ 600 yards when it was in its lighter center-grip configuration.
It is even more tricked then the 6-284: Bolt sleeved, lighter firing pin and the firing pin has been bushed, and it is heavier, so it ride the bags wonderfully.
It has pulled off three shot groups at 1K @ 3.5 inches, while the first and second shots were just a smidget under 1". The reason I know that is because I was shooting a 1K match just outside of Missoula MT (Deep Creek Range) and the pit workers plot your group while you are shooting, so you can know the order of your shots. 5-shot group was 6.5 inches. Yes, wind can do amazing/terrible things to your groups.
I love the LR game. It is a lot of fun, filled with humbling mmoments

When you say holding condition do you mean the proper hold to make the shot under the current conditions? The dogs that I shoot at will not hold still very long when dirt and such gets sprayed on them as a result of a projectile impacting a few inches away. Do the dogs you shoot at hold in one position until one of the bullets in the group has gotten close enough to the center of the group to do bodily damage?