308Nut

Are you able to go back out?? When you say your friend packed into the same unit, do you meen yours or mine? Did he back pack into some wilderness? Now I am curious and exited! How did your rifle turn out? Let me know if you can make it up to Payson while I am there. I will be there 12/16/09 through 1/1/10

After debating on which rifle to bring to AZ for my coues hunt I settled on it today. After a brief zero check and screwing around for a few minutes with both Jenny and Avril, I drove out to 750 yards and shot both my 308 (Jenny) and the 338 Edge (Avril). To be fair, I dont have alot of trigger time behind the 338 and the load could be fine tuned a bit but the results were typical. The 308 was picture perfect and the 338 was average. I have not had a chance to do a drop test on the 338 so I accomplished that today. After the first bullet was fired it was found to be .2 Mils high (about 5.5"). I brought it down 2 clicks and put the next one right in the X ring. Shot two was the same height but right (the wind fooled me). The third was quite high and left for a group of 10". Thanks but no thanks. I set up the 308 and dialed 16.00 MOA and touched one off. I say touched because that is all you have to do to get the 8oz. jewell trigger to break. After looking through the spotting scope I could see the bullet had struck right at 1" from dead center. The second was a tad low and the 3rd was just low and right of the first. The group was just over 4.5" Even though I would rather use the long range hammer for this hunt, I think I am going with what I am best dialed in for. I have a mountain goat hunt later this week. this will be the "tune up" hunt before my coues hunt. Of course, Jenny will be with me on this one also. I admit it! I just needed to brag a bit! The 750 yard 308 group: The 750 yard 338 group:

Most of my optics are Swarovski so I am picky about how I clean them simply due to the cost factor. I cannot afford to screw up my lenses. I use the Swarovski lens cleaning kit. It contains a fine brush to brush debris off the lenses and a spray on solution and disposable wipes. It works very good and has never scuffed or scratched my lenses. It is the only cleaning kit I will use on my El's and I use the same kit on all of my optics including my rifle scopes which are not Swarovski but my cheapest one is over 1300 bucks new. All my lenses are in near perfect condition. Any minor flaws are from other issues and not from cleaning. To answer you question about alcohal, it can be hard on the coatings.

Very nice.

I am thiking that the ultimate would be a 110+"er at 25 yards or less. Talk about an adrenaline rush!!!!

Yes I am married. I have 3 wives. One is human and the other two are in the gun safe. My rifle's all had names before I was literally married. Rifles to me are more than just fiberglass and steel, so I name them. It personalizes them. I would love to meet Mark in person. I will be down there next month but my time in the Phx area will be non existent except for getting picked up at the air port and being dropped off. If he can make it up to the Payson area, I would be happy to show him the ropes. Michael

With the PROPER bullet, either will do fine even on the longer shots. The 7mm will have a bit more reliable reach both in exterior ballistics as well as terminal performance. If youre getting huge holes in the deer, try a better constucted bullet. The TSX or TTSX or ACCUBONDS will fill that order. Bottom line is which rifle/scope/load combo you are the most comfortable and profficent with is the one you should take. Success will hinge on that much more than 1mm of bullet diameter.

Just kidding!

Finally!!! Something from Lark that was actually funny!!!!!

PM me your email.

If your computer has MS Excel on it, PM me your email and I can email you a free excel based calculator (you can also use it on a portable hand held pocket PC for field use) so you can play around with the numbers at different altitudes, pressures and tempratures. It is field proven to 1K yards and is scary accurate.

Much of the time yes. Sometimes not much. It is going to depend on how much recoil the rifle generates. A 20# 223 wont change much if at all where a 10# 300 RUM will change considerably. However you plan on shooting in the field is how you should practice at the range. Now if you sight in using the prone method or off a bi-pod, and then take an offhand shot, the difference isnt worth worring about due to the fact that if you are taking an offhand shot, the range at the very least SHOULD be close. Any differences at close range will not be much. However, at longer ranges such as if you sight in for 300 yards with a vice and switch to a bi-pod, the difference can be very significant. Bottom line is sight in at the range the way you will take a long shot and if you need an offhand close shot take it and not worry about it other than how high it will be due to the fact that your bullets will hit higher of your target than at your zero.

Youre on the right track but the above isnt quite what is really going on. Wind drift has much to do with the time of flight. The reality is that a strong gust near the starting point has a greater affect on the drift than the same gust near the target. IE: If a bullet gets hit with a 10 MPH gust within 50 yards of the target after having 700 yards of no wind, the drift is very minimal. If the same bullet were to get hit with the same gust at 50 yards from the muzzle and then travel 700 yards in no wind you will see a significant amount of drift. As a side note, you can measure the wind at your location for a few minutes to determine an average. Typically if youre shooting across a canyon, the wind is typically double what it is at your location on the side through the middle. If youre playing the thermals (which in AZ can be hard to do with most hunting taking place in flat to semi flat areas, you can envision what water would do if it was flowing down the terrain for down hill thermal and reverse it for uphill thermals. Other clues to direction and speed at distance is looking to mirage, dust, fog, brush and anything else likely to be in the air such as cotton wood seeds and the like. You cant overlook spin drift at ranges past 700 or 800 yards as well. This will need to be added or subtracted from the windage for your final windage adjustment. As always, there is no substitute for practice practice and more practice along with an intimate knowledge of what goes into a long range shot and why. Kudos for getting out there and finding your limitations. The LR tip I would add to this thread is that out to a certain point (this is determined by how flat your cartridge is and how big or small your target is) you can field verify your drops and make a note of this for future reference. This threshold is on average 600 yards. For smaller calibers such as 243's through the 308 and 30-06 and similar cartrdiges when small critters are the target such as coues it can be more like 500 yards. When you exceed this threshold, your drop chart wont be accurate UNLESS you factor in temprature and barometric pressure. Humidity has a very very small effect on LR shooting. Altitude only affects it due to different pressures. If you look to 'raw' pressure at location and temprature at location, you can get accurate ballistics at beyond the threshold point. Just remember that raw pressure is MORE important than just using altitude. This is because if you use altitude as a factor the default is 29.92 at sea level or 29.53 depending on your software. If the sea level pressure is higher or lower than standard, then using altitude becomes a waste of time albiet it is better than using nothing at all it still will be in-accurate. For example: My favorite rifle and load combo yeilds -148" of drop at 800 yards in standard conditions (0', 59 degrees, 78% humidity and 29.92" Hg.) Where as at coues elevation where I will be hunting this year and 35 degrees F, the drop will be 136" at the same range. Thats a 12" difference. One had best compensate for the current conditions at location to score past the threshold. Now my threshold is about 600 yards. Using the same two examples above yet changing from 800 to 600 yards and the drop changes only 4" between 0' and 59 degrees and 5000' and 35 degrees. This is getting pretty close to a miss for a couse kill zone. For coues, I may call the threshold 500 yards where the difference is only 1.5" between 0' and 5000'. Dont forget (if you dont use ballistic software) to convert your clicks from MOA to inches before you calculate how many clicks you need to compensate for the inches of drop. Typically your zero wont change much or enough to worry about when changing altitudes, temps or pressures. This is provided of course that your zero does not exceed 300 yards. On average for a 300 yard zero when zeroed in standard air density and then moving to 5000' with all other factors remaining the same, the true zero changes just over one half of an inch. This would equate to missing the dead center of the mark by 1.5" at 800 yards by not compensating for that .6 inch difference at your zero that was created by the change of altitude of 5000'. So in short, the zero changed 0.6" which caused a 1.5" shift at 800 yards as well as the 12 inches of difference between 0' and 5000' for a total of 13.5" of difference just from going to 5000' from 0'. For a 200 yard zero it will be even less. Along the lines of one quater of one inch at zero and 1" at 800 yards. Now if you had a farther zero, the difference would be come greater. Sorry if I highjacked this thread. Thanks for sharing.

I admit, I jumped to too many conclusion and most likely inserted my foot in my mouth. As long as there is a lesson learned, it is always worth it. Analyzing every aspect of a hunt is always key to future success whether a good thing happened or a bad thing happened. Sometimes the agony of defeat will cause one to ponder the mistake for sometimes years and perhaps a lifetime. Chances are though, for a good hunter, he will NEVER make the same (avoidable) mistake twice Again, I apologize if my words were a bit coarse or if I jumped to too may conclusions. Those are still the lessons I need to learn!

'Finding out as much info as possible to make a clean harvest' right before pulling the trigger isnt my personal idea of clean. Testing ahead of time in a controlled enviornment is. 350 yards isnt really that far. Finding a place to test 350 yards before the season is not a big deal. If a guy cant do that and doesnt know where his bullet drops at that range or any other range for that matter he has no buisness taking a poke at game. know where your bullet hits or pass. Period. Prepare properly or get closer. If one cant then pass. If an indavidual refuses to do either then better yet, he should stay home. I am not calling anybodies ethics into question (each to his own) here just sharing my humble opinion. Its sad really. All the time and money invested into hunting and the weight of the bullet let alone its trajectory for even modest ranges isnt known. That is info a hunter NEEDS. Who carries a range finder to find the distance but doesnt know what to do with the info? YIKES! Please know the comments above while not sugar coated and most likely are going to offend someone, were stated with the purest of intentions. Sometimes we all (myself included) have to learn the hard way. I hope somebody recieves a valuable lesson for up and coming opprotunities. There will ALWAYS be opprotunities. One just has to figure out how to capitalize on them. Emphasis on capitalize.

The AMAX (unlike match kings) are recomended for light boned thin skinned game such as deer. I have used AMAX's on sheep, deer and moose. I can say for certain they work well on deer size critters at various ranges and velocities (308 and 300 RUM) but NOT moose. This is in line with what Hornaday recomends. They will work fine out of your 300 WM for up to deer size critters. They are a bit explosive. You must keep them in the ribs (heart lung area). You dont want to take hard quartering away shots on big deer where you need lots of penetration. Keep them in the ribs and the vitals will be soup. Ranges and calibers: Sitka BT buck @ 90 yards, 308 winchester. (155 AMAX) Bullet looked just like any other hunting bullet. Found in the hide on the off side. Sitka BT buck @ 507 yards, 300 RUM. (178 AMAX) Bullet fragmented. Some peices exited. Lungs were soup. Dall sheep @ 350 yards, 308 Win. (168 AMAX) Bullet hit through the scapula and exited the opposite scapula. Damage internally was good. Dall sheep @ 700 yards, 308 Win. (168 AMAX) Bullet hit the spine where it met the scapula. 4" of spine was gone. The exit was impressive. Moose @ 438 yards, 308 Win (155 AMAX) Note that this was not planned as I would never plan to shoot a moose with this load. My buddy wounded a bull and I had to finish it before we lost him in the alders. The bullet hit the 2nd vertabre and broke it but did NOT penetrate it. The bull dropped in his tracks but got up and made it a few yards more after 15 minutes. All in all, these bullets are very predictable. Expansion is not an issue. If anything, they expand too easily. This is however why they make good long range hunting bullets. When the velocity is reduced heavily, they open up more reliably than most other hunting bullets.

Congrats. You are the epitomy of a sheep hunter. Working long and hard pushing yourself to the limit no doubt. Well done. I never get tired of seeing wild sheep hit the ground! It is the dollars from sheep hunters that help put more of them on the mountain for hunters and non-hunters to enjoy equally. They truely are a trophy to behold. Thanks for sharing. Notice my signature. It has a two fold meaning. I am a long range shooter/hunter AS well as a maniacal back country hunter which takes much effort due to the distances traveled and weight carried. You have "gone the distance"! Congrats again on the ram of a lifetime.

IMHO moral law comes before mans law.

Persistence gets it done 99% of the time. Never give up untill after the last minute of legal shooting light on the last day. Also, it isnt "if", IT IS "when". Youre so close. Remember, YOU are in charge. Sometimes all you need is just a little more effort.

FL sizing new brass will not take any life away from it. You will not loose a reload. It takes expansion and compression to "work harden" the brass and stretch it out which ultimately ruins it. I have found that unless youre using a super tight BR chamber, it is not neccesary to FL virgin brass. It is helpfull to neck size it so you get a nice uniform mouth and consistent neck tension around the bullet. Consistent neck tension will cut down on velocity extreme spreads. Another helpfull trick is to chamfer the mouth, deburr the flash holes and uniform the primer pockest. As far as neck sizing only once you fire the cases, it is largly a personal preference. It can add to the life of your brass but the accuracy potential is not as great as one might think. I have known too many shooters including myself that have not seen much if any of a difference between FL cases and NS cases. Like I said, it can extend the life of your brass as they wont lengthen over time. When they lengthen, the head area gets thin and then the case comes apart during the shot. The necks still will get work hardened but can be annealed to soften them back up to optimum hardness. After a few firings the cases will start to chamber with resistance. When this starts to happen it is time to FL the case. Be carefull NOT to bump the shoulder back more than .0005 to .002" Depending on the chamber dimensions and caliber, the results can be dramatic including case head separation if you bump the shoulder too much.

So I went scouting today up at one of the areas I hunt. Didn't see much... a couple of cows. That was just the start of my rotten afternoon. As I was coming down off the mountain, a freaking eagle flew out of the trees and across the highway. It's a steep grade, something like 8%, and I was booking it at about 67. A couple MPH over, but no big deal, right? Well, I was on this steep grade and I hit my brakes but my truck is heavy and the bird was right on top of me. It smashed my bug shield on the front of my truck, flew up into my windshield (which did not break, thank God) and over the top of my truck. I looked in my rear-view mirror to see if the eagle was dead or what, and to my HORROR, I saw that an Alaska state Trooper was right behind me about 50 yards. That stupid eagle landed right smack into his windshield, breaking it all to heck. The cop swerved right and hit the guardrail, smashing up the passenger side of his patrol car. I slowed down to make sure he was ok, and as I was pulling over, he sped up and hit his lights! As I was getting out of my truck, he jumped out and pulled his weapon and ordered me to the ground! I thought "what kind of crazy BS is this?" but the man had a gun on me, so I complied. He patted me down and slapped on the cuffs and marched me back to the patrol car and put me in the back. He stood outside the car for several minutes talking on the radio and I was trying to figure out what kind of law I had broken, and what the heck I was going to do with an arrest record! He got back in the car and read me my rights. After reading me my rights, I asked him, "Officer, why am I under arrest?" And you know what that SOB said to me?! "You flipped me the bird!"

To all, A few months ago a friend (Jess) asked me to take him dall sheep hunting. He had always wanted a ram but was afraid to go and pull the trigger on a ram due to all the restrictions of taking a “legal” ram. A “legal” ram is one who’s horn (at least one) has grown to 360 degrees of a circle or has both horns broken AKA broomed or is at least 8 years old as determined by horn annuli. Many rams reach a mature age such as 8, 9, 10 and some even 11 years of age without ever becoming 360 degrees of a circle. Anyway, I had not planned a sheep hunt this year as they closed my honey hole to drawing only (which I was lucky enough to draw a permit there last year which was the first year of the draw) and I had harvested my 6th ram last year so I was going to focus on something else but Jess twisted my arm and what can I say, I was weak. I researched areas and found an area that historically produced good numbers of rams even though the trophy quality was down. He didn’t care he just wanted a legal sheep. So to make a long story short, we went opening day and found 2 rams. I sized them up and determined that they were not 360 degrees (full curl) but I thought that one had age potential. After getting closer and sizing the rams up, I concluded that one was indeed 8 years of age. The funny thing is that the better of the 2 could not be identified as a full curl and I couldn’t tell how many horn annuli he has. He was clearly the leader of the 2 rams but I could not prove he was age legal. After expressing to my buddy that he was 8 years old and legal, he elected to pass. He had a hard time shooting a less than full curl and I understood. I elected to pass just because I am spoiled when it comes to rams. I invited another buddy of mine Charlie hunting so he could harvest this age legal ram. Without hesitation, he accepted. We hiked in after work on Friday and spent the night out of the area of the sheep. Saturday morning we found them but they were feeding very close to a herd of ewes which mad a stalk impossible. After they all went over the ridge, we set up camp. Later that evening the rams appeared and then disappeared over a ridge. We followed and sized them up again. Once again, I determined he was 8 years old. We passed due to the terrain he would have rolled down into. We watched them bed down on a high ridge. We retreated to camp for the night. The next morning we found them again. They bedded down 350 yards below us. I mean STRAIGHT below us. I figured the angle and told Charlie to hold dead on the cross hairs. I zero at 300 yards and the angle was calculated at 33 degrees which equaled a 300 yard shot. We elected to go with the high shoulder shot because they were so close to the cliffs that we couldn’t risk him making it the 30 yards into the cliffs if he double lung shot him. He set up, fired and took the ram off his feet. He immediately rolled another 350 yard into the fog. A few minutes later the fog cleared and we could see him and found that he was incapacitated but not dead. We had a long hike ahead of us that would take a couple of hours to get to him. I did not want him to suffer so I asked for his blessing to put another hole in him. He agreed and I set up for the shot. I ranged him several times and got between 698 and 702. I figured the angle and the ACI was telling me about 32 degrees. I did a quick calculation and compensated accordingly. What would have been 12.25 MOA but was 9.25 MOA due to the angle. The only way to line him up in the scope was to get the stock so far off the ground I could not get a rest under the stock. I began to feel pretty sick. I was faced with a shot I didn’t think I could make and desperately needed to. I scratched my head for a minute and had an epiphany. I took the center post out of my tri-pod and after 10 minutes of fiddling with it got it right. I leveled the rifle, lined him up and touched the 12oz. Jewel. The shot missed clean. I centered his lungs up again (this time while Charlie was behind the spotting scope) and touched another one off. He said “It went right over his back”) I racked another into the chamber and aimed at the very bottom of the ram in line with his ribs and touched the third one off. Charlie screamed “It’s a hit! He’s down.” Later I would learn that I hit him in the center of the neck bone where it met the scapula and that the shot was really 40 degrees. this is why I was so high. He rolled another 100 yards and stopped. This time he was not moving at all. I realized that despite harvesting sheep at farther ranges in the past, I had just made the toughest shot of my life. We packed up and made “the walk of shame.” We call it the walk of shame because no matter how sure you are of a sheep’s legal status, sometimes mistakes are made. After we reached the ram and verified that he was indeed 8 years old the celebration was on! We took a bunch of photos, cleaned him up and packed him out. Today ADF&G aged him at 8 years old and “sealed” him. True to my promise to Charlie, he was “age legal”. The 168 AMAX at both 350 yards and 700 was absolutely devastating. The 700 yard neck shot removed nearly 4 inches of spine and blew a 3" hole on the off side. The "high shoulder shot" missed the spine a wee bit and missed the lungs. The damage done to the shoulder area was impressive. This is why he was completely incapacitated. The 308 winne has done the job again! Since many of you live and hunt in AZ where the game officials are very picky about who actually dispatches the game animal versus who wounds it in regards to who "tags" the animal, I thought (thanks to another member's looking out for me) I would express that in AK they are not picky in that regard. You draw blood, you own it. On a sadder note, 25 minutes before Charlie shot his ram when we topped the ridge where we got cell phone service there was a text from my wife waiting for me that stated a very good friend of mine's 18 year old daughter was killed 2 days earlier in a hunting accident near Homer. They were moose hunting and she was shot. This is a great time as always to remind yourselves to be very carefull out there this hunting season. Happy and safe hunting to all. Here I am verifing the ram's legal status the night before. You can see the rams in the circles: Charlie, proud of his trophy: Team work gets it done! The circle is where we shot from. The arrow was the rams position, and the curve is next to the line in the shale the ram created when he rolled: Setting up the tri-pod for a rear stabilizer: The moment of truth at 700 yards:

Well ya know winter is comin' and me brain is already startin' to frost over..........

Objects in flight will never fly the same when there are measurable differences between the objects. That said, how much real and practical effect there is would be another story. Technically yes there will be a difference. Is it going to hinder you in the slightest for a hunting situation? Not even close. I will say that for average hunting ranges you will not see enough differences to care. If it a factory rifle there is enough freebore to begin with that it isnt going to know the difference between a few thousandths of an inch of seating depth. The flatter tips will cause a decrease in the BC but again, for average hunting ranges this will mean nothing. Now if youre talking long range, then you could have a problem. I am talking about beyond 500 or 600 yards. Hope that helps!

My thoughts exactly. It seems a bit "tacky" to me.