Long-range hunting is attracting more and more people each year. I’m not talking about shooting deer or elk at anywhere near 1,000 yards. I wanted to discuss mistakes hunters make out to 500 or 600 yards

Truthfully, the maximum effective range, or the distance at which a hunter can consistently place shots in the vital zone, varies with each hunter, even when the equipment is similar.

Despite what some people will tell you, you can’t buy your way into making accurate shots from 500 to 700 yards. Making shots at that distance requires more than buying the top-of-the-line rifle from Remington, Winchester, Weatherby, Savage, Holland and Holland, Merkle, or any other brand you prefer. It takes skill.

Consider wind drift on a Remington Core-Lokt, .30-06, 180-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2,650 feet per second, and a ballistic coefficient of .452. At 200 yards, the wind drift on that bullet in a 10 mph crosswind would be under 3 inches. Probably not enough to take you out of the vital zone. But if you don’t account for that wind drift at 600 yards, the bullet will have moved almost 30 inches. Well out of the kill zone.

Flinch can move the shot off by 10 inches, and something as unnoticeable as an angled trigger pull can make what would have still been a lethal shot at 300 yards into an all day tracking job at 600 yards.

Fortunately, rifles, optics, range finders and ammo are better than they were 20 or 30 years ago, but the hunter must do his part by developing the skill to keep the rifle as still as possible while getting the shot off.

Many shooting instructors tell their students to concentrate on the front sight or crosshairs of a telescopic sight and squeeze until the trigger breaks and the shot surprises them. That is the standard advice for target shooters, but it amounts to a negligent discharge. If you are a hunter, you need to be able to get the shot off when you want it to go off without moving the sights off target or your opportunity may be lost.

What do you focus on when you have a game animal in your sights? Most people if they answered that question truthfully would say the target. You can only focus on one thing at a time over distance so you should focus on the front sight or the crosshairs in a telescopic sight.

By focusing on the front sight or crosshairs, you can more easily see how much your rifle is moving and can tame it by adjusting your position and letting the front sight or crosshairs rest right on or a little above the vital area, where you want them to rest with minimal movement.

There is also an idea among many that a fast second shot begins with pulling the bolt back quickly and forcefully, ejecting the spent cartridge case and shoving the bolt forward picking up a new cartridge, loading it into the chamber and locking the bolt down behind it. Such a forceful cycling of the bolt is a mistake because it moves the rifle off target and forces the shooter to re-position his face and upper body. Instead, the bolt should be pulled back and pushed forward smoothly without disrupting body position or sight picture. You will find that it is actually faster than being in a hurry.

Breath control is vital to good long range accuracy, but only if you know how to hold your breath properly. You should inhale and exhale thoroughly, then cease exhaling as you see the crosshairs settling down, centered on the target. If you can’t make the shot in 5 to 10 seconds, the time you start to shift your focus because of a lack of oxygen, you need to break off the target, breath again, regroup and refocus.

Serious long-range hunters need to pay strict attention to their scope mount. In many cases, scopes are simply dropped in the rings, screwed down tight, and that is it. For shots at 100 to 150 yards that might not be a problem. However, if you are taking shots at 500 to 600 yards and sometimes more you need to be absolutely sure your scope is leveled with the action. This doesn’t take much time, a simple plumb line with a weight attached will work, but there are companies that make inexpensive scope leveling devices that fit in your pocket.

There are many hunters that believe that the solution to any problem is better equipment. Admittedly I am an advocate of the best equipment I can afford. My choice for a long-range hunting rifle from the time I was in my mid-teens has been a .300 Weatherby Magnum, normally with 180-grain or 220-grain Spire Point with boat tail bullets, with a ballistic coefficient of .425 and .481 respectively. My back-up rifle for long range shooting is an old Remington Model 721 in .30-06 with the previously mentioned 180 grain Core-Lokt bullet with a ballistic coefficient of .425.

However, the equipment that any of us buy, no matter whether top of the line or simply very good equipment, is handicapped by the ability of the shooter.

I think what I have discussed here are the first things we all must work on to have success in long-range hunting. There are great rifles, better optics than before, flatter shooting cartridges, even flatter than the .300 Weatherby if one really wants to go with the newer .30-378 Weatherby Magnum. But the reality is that we are our own worst handicap when it comes to long-range hunting. Our ability as riflemen can make top of the line equipment look pretty bad, or an old Remington Model 721, .30-06 built in the late 1940s seem like the greatest rifle ever built.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.

I suppose that I am no different than any other outdoorsman in that I count a flashlight as a vital part of my gear. And, like you, I am always looking for a more powerful, compact, rechargeable flashlight. At the SHOT Show this year I discovered the ASP XT DF flashlight (Armament Systems & Procedures XT Duel Fuel), which is going to become my go-to flashlight. Having a dysfunctional flashlight in a crisis can be life threatening, whether you have a bear come into camp at night, are packing out in the dark or broke down and working on your truck.

I remember once my buddy Shawn Lee had packed our elk camp into the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area on his pack string. I couldn’t make it until a day later so I took off after work and got to the trail head after dark, loaded the rest of my gear in my backpack and took off down the narrow trail.

Not far down the trail, my main flashlight broke and I ended up hiking the last three miles with the aid of only a little rinky-dink light. Not fun in bear, wolf, cougar and moose country. Much less while trying to not tumble off the trail into the river below. The year before, we’d had two horses and a mule roll off in this same stretch.

As I’ve gotten older, I only use good flashlights. I could give a million more examples of disasters like above due to dysfunctional flashlights, but you get my drift, which is why I was excited to meet the ASP crew at the SHOT Show this year and get to test the ASP XT DF flashlight.

There are a few things I look for in a flashlight. Anymore, I like rechargeable lights. The better flashlights all seem to use expensive batteries nowadays, so you’ll go broke buying batteries if you use your flashlight much. Buy rechargeable ones. The ASP XT DF flashlight comes with four attachments that allow you charge it in your truck or at home in a wall socket. One is especially unique in that it is a retractable cord that helps keep it compact and prevents it from being a tangled mess like most of my cords become. And on top of this, the ASP XT DF flashlight comes with a canvas carrying case.

The ASP XT DF flashlight has five settings: max, high, medium, low and strobe. It runs on one 18650 battery or it can also run on two C1234A rechargeable batteries. It has two O-ring seals so it is water resistant.

It is the perfect-sized light for my standards. Not too big to be uncomfortable to carry but also not too small to be able to meet all of my needs.

If you’re like me and spend a lot of time in the backcountry, then I’d recommend buying a double set of the rechargeable C1234A batteries for backup. Or another option is to get a solar charging panel and carry it along. And, with the solar panel, you can also charge your GPS, camera and other electronic gear.

And one last feature that might interest a lot of you is that it also has a reversible pocket clip. In the ASP XT DF flashlight, you get a lot of quality and options packed into a small package for the MSRP of $160. Or you can go the cheap route like Indiana Jones and carry a torch and pray that the wind doesn’t kick up and blow it out.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana.

Rifles serve many purposes, including formal and informal target shooting, collecting and self defense. We seem to be on the way to more urbanized and less rural living, but there are still farms and ranches where rifles are every day working tools. When I was growing up, we had to deal with the occasional mountain lion that came down from the mountains onto my father’s horse ranch, and the dogs that people would drive out to our area and just abandoned along the old Bannock Highway. Those dogs didn’t belong to anyone and would sometimes come on to the ranch and chase horses as a group or as individuals. They were trying to fend for themselves and just thought our ranch offered some opportunity for food. They were also pretty dangerous be they had learned to survive on their own.

Fortunately, Fish and Game would come out and try to capture the mountain lions if we called them and reported sighting them in our area, but we had to deal with the dogs, and sometimes coyotes, ourselves.

One who hasn’t experienced farm-and-ranch living might think that horses are much too big for dogs or coyotes to do any real damage, but they can run down and kill foals without much trouble and they bite into the fetlocks of mature horses to stop them from being able to run. My father’s horses were Arabian show hoses, used for competition, breeding and selling, in addition to riding for pleasure in the hills and mountains around our ranch. He had invested a great deal of money and time in those horses and we couldn’t afford to have foals and mature horses killed or crippled. Most importantly, we had small children that we were afraid the dogs might hurt.

My father owned a Model 62 pump-action .22 rimfire rifle, and I received a .22 rimfire bolt action for Christmas in 1955. My father bought two Winchester Model 50, 12-gauge shotguns in 1957, handed me one and told me to kill any thing that came on the property looking for a meal or that was chasing the horses. I usually preferred the .22 rimfire pump action because it was light weight and quick on target. I kept the .22 pump-action rifle in a gun case on the back patio while I was working on the ranch. If I was training or riding a horse in the training coral, that rifle was close to where I was working. That way I had pretty fast access to it when needed. I used the 12-gauge shotgun a couple of times also, but really preferred the .22 rimfire pump-action because I was afraid the shot from the shotgun would spread out enough to possibly injure a horse.

I also used the .22 bolt-action rifle to shoot jack rabbits when my father and I went to the Arco desert and hunted on some of the farms where my dad had been told to bring his son and kill as many jack rabbits as we could. It was a lot of fun, and I was able to polish my skill at hitting jack rabbits that were running through the sage brush.

I still enjoy shooting those rifles at the range and on some mountain property that my father purchased back in the late 1960s or early ’70s. I also take the grandchildren to the shooting range or the mountain property and teach them firearm safety and marksmanship with both the .22 pump- and bolt-action rifles as well as using them at Scout camp during rifle merit badge instruction.

The children generally expect to spend the day shooting, and .22 ammunition is inexpensive enough to shoot all day, as long as they are still being responsible while they are shooting.

Twenty-two rimfire ammo has always been pretty affordable, and .22 Magnum is a little more expensive if you prefer a little more energy from your .22 rimfire, but isn’t prohibitive at all, especially compared with the ammunition for my high-powered rifles, whether I reload for them or buy a box of 20 at the gun store. The .22 calibers are also pretty accurate, and with in their range limits, they hit what they are aim at.

I normally don’t try to convince anyone they ought to have a particular caliber rifle, but I must admit that I believe a .22 rimfire rifle is a must-have rifle in anyone’s gun case. So if you don’t have a .22 rimfire in your rifle case to just have some fun shooting targets, for pest control or teaching young people firearm safety with a caliber that doesn’t recoil and scare them, it is time to get one. Besides, March is Buy Your Spouse A Rifle Month, or if it is not, it ought to be, so what are you waiting for?

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.

Most African professional hunters will tell you that if an American hunter shows up on safari with a rifle caliber over a .375 Holland and Holland Magnum, he will be a lousy shooter because Americans generally are afraid of the recoil that comes from shooting the traditional big-bore charge stoppers like the .416 Rigby, .378 Weatherby Magnum, .470 Nitro express, .458 Winchester Magnum and .460 Weatherby Magnum. In reality, there are a lot of American hunters that shoot the large-bore charge stoppers very well, but those African guides also have a point in thinking that Americans would shoot better with a .375 Holland and Holland Magnum as their dangerous-game rifle caliber because it recoils with less than 40 foot pounds of energy.

The first two differences in American and European big game hunters that should be taken into consideration are that Americans tend to want light-weight rifles even in their big-bore Magnum calibers, whereas the European sport hunters have always preferred heavy, at least 12 pounds, in their dangerous-game rifles. The second difference is that European dangerous-game hunters tend to quickly bring the rifle to their shoulders put the front sight on the target and fire, or what Americans would call a snap shot if they didn’t, and they usually don’t, understand the mechanics behind the way the professionals in Africa and most Europeans shoot at dangerous game. Americans on the other hand, if not trained otherwise, tend to bring the rifle to their shoulder, look down the sight radius and hold their front sight on the target like they were waiting for the maple sap to run in February before deciding the sight picture is good and firing. It is enough to drive the calmest and steadiest African and American professional hunters to drink heavily.

The light-weight rifles that Americans prefers are not usually over 8 pounds before installing a telescopic sight. When shooting the .30-caliber, and 40-caliber Magnums out of such light rifles what you get in the chops and shoulder is eye-crossing recoil and three-day headaches.

The European and African hunters with much heavier rifles don’t experience the same kind of jarring recoil, but describe the recoil of their heavy rifles as a push as opposed to a punch. I’m sure that is true of the double rifles that are used in African hunting, but even the bolt-action rifles of dangerous-game hunters in Africa weigh 10 pounds or more.

During the time I have been hunting, I have learned that recoil over 20 foot-pounds, which a .30-06 generates, is where most American shooters become uncomfortable and tend to anticipate the shot, close both eyes and flinch as they shoot. It is true that there are many American shooters and hunters that own and shoot .30-caliber Magnums and more, but they had to get used to the recoil, which can be double the recoil of a .30-06 or more, before they could shoot those Magnums well. I have even seen a couple of those owners at the range who were still flinching in anticipation of the shot and recoil.

An 8-pound .30-06 as mentioned before, recoils at 20.3 foot-pounds of energy, coming back at the shooter at 12.8 feet per second, using a 180 grain bullet. This is about the most recoil that many can tolerate and can get used to when shooting. An 8.5-pound .300 Winchester Magnum, with a 180-grain bullet should recoil with 26 foot-pounds of energy, coming back at the shooter at 14 feet per second. My 8-pound .300 Weatherby Magnum, shooting a 180-grain bullet recoils with about 35 foot-pounds, coming back at the shooter at 16 feet per second.

The .300 Weatherby Magnum is the point where in a addition to holding the butt of the rifle stock tight into my shoulder, I also use a sling to reduce the upward rise of the barrel after the shot.

I have two grandsons that love the .300 Weatherby and shoot it very well without flinching. Another grandson who is older, won’t go near the .300 Weatherby or anything else that recoils more than a .30-06.

The .338 Winchester Magnum and .375 Holland and Holland Magnum have larger bores than the .30-caliber Magnums and use heavier bullets with about the same recoil numbers as the .300 Weatherby. The .340 Weatherby Magnum is a 338 caliber and is about the largest case and most powder that can efficiently be used to drive a .338-caliber bullet out of the barrel. Using a 9-pound rifle and a 250-grain bullet, the .340 Weatherby Magnum generates 43.4 foot-pounds of recoil, coming back at the shooter at 17.6 feet per second. It definitely gets your attention and is the hardest hitting caliber I would think anyone in North America would feel they needed for the largest ungulates and bears.

The foot-pounds of energy at which a given caliber recoils depends on the weight of the rifle as well as the amount of powder used to drive the bullet. Perceived recoil is a product of the foot-pounds of energy plus the speed at which the rifle recoils. Perceived recoil is somewhat subjective among shooters. It is perceived recoil that we all use to determine how much recoil is too much recoil.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.