7 Perfect Father’s Day Gifts for the Deer Hunter Dad
July 2, 2024
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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Long range hunting is not the same as long range shooting, sounds pretty obvious right?
The interesting thing these days is that there are countless rifle manufacturers, both custom and factory, that offer a guarantee of accuracy with their products, in fact its fair to say that most companies offer these guarantees.
As a custom rifle builder and extremely avid long range hunter, I don’t understand how accuracy guarantees are even remotely possible.
I build beautiful rifles for myself and my customers, they are put together with extreme precision, taking exceptional care to make sure that every single part of the build is perfect, from the torque specifications right through to the unique bedding techniques that I have developed over the years that I have been doing this. I am asked frequently if my hunting rifles come with an accuracy guarantee, and the very clear answer to that is no, they absolutely do not!
When I first got started on my hunting journey, I became obsessed with chasing Elk around the mountains of central Montana. I became braver on every trip, going deeper and deeper into the mountain ranges on my own, and although I killed dozens of deer at ranges varying between 100 and 500 yards, I didn’t kill an Elk until Id spent 4 years wandering through those mountains.
I “found” them almost every single time I was out there, and even pointed my rifle at them, but they were always too far away from me, or they realised that I was there and bolted before I even had the chance to put the crosshairs on them long enough to take a shot. I found out very quickly that Elk are way better at Elk hunting than I was!
In the build up to me taking my first Elk, I decided to focus on the 300 Win Mag as my rifle of choice. I bought a couple of rifles from a well known manufacturer, with the idea of one being my go to rifle, and the other would serve as my back up rifle, just on the off chance that something “not so cool” happened to my go to shooting iron.
I became proficient in manufacturing ammunition for my chosen caliber, and designed the perfect load for each of my back country Elk rifles.
The first season that I went out with my new rifles, I had spent quite a bit of time at the range, where I could shoot out to distances of 400 yards. I guess I sent about 500 rounds down range, about 250 through each of my two rifles, and became deadly accurate. I was so confident that this season would be the season that I came home with Elk meat, that nothing could possibly go wrong……
I had become obsessive about my mountain kit, my safety gear, clothing, boots, backpack and every single component that I simply must have within arms reach, and my shooting ability had followed along on that journey. That November, I loaded up my truck and headed to my favourite place on planet earth to chase after the animal that had eluded me for a few years with a confidence that I hadn’t experienced since I won my first national title in competitive fly fishing some years before, this was it, it was happening!
Upon arriving in central Montana that November, it was as perfect as it could possibly be. It had been snowing heavily for a couple of weeks, and the sun was shining high and bright. My first morning on the mountain resulted in my finding a gang of about 500 Elk, meandering in and out of tree-line at first light, on a south facing slope at about 500 yards from where I was stationed downhill from them with the gentle wind in my face. I had the most perfect position imaginable, and they had no idea that I was there.
I waited for about two hours, and then they eventually started to bed down in the sunlight.
Pretty soon after that, something in the trees spooked the gang, and they become restless, and started to stand up and move west, heading for a draw that would offer them some extra cover, and I had to move, quickly!
See, the interesting thing about long range Elk hunting, is that you don’t have really comfortable concrete bench to strap your rifle into, and sit in a relatively comfy chair, sometimes you have to hustle, and your lungs start to feel like they are about to burst from the exertion of trying to get back into a shooting position, there is a whole myriad of alternatives that can and invariably do happen when you are stuck in a 4 foot snow drift, clambering around like a maniac, trying to make sure you don’t slip off the side of a mountain and all to your death.
Long story short, I did manage to get a shot off that day, but sent the round about 8 inches over the back of the Elk that I targeted at 500 ish yards, leaving me feeling like shit, and totally depressed!
After that experience my obsession became much more obsessive. I trained harder, carrying heavy packs around my area, walked for hundreds and hundreds of miles on the elliptical, trained heavier weights and became a lot stronger. That part was much needed for sure, but my shooting practice needed work also.
I would shoot prone at the range, shoot from my backpack at the range, bipod work, off the knee shots, I even ran up and down the steep hill at the range several times before shooting at the target to learn how to steady myself better. I eventually found a range about 5 hours from my home that enabled me to shoot out to almost 700 yards, and I did all of the new training methods there too, until I became a much better shot under the most uncomfortable conditions that I could come up with.
At the time of writing, I would estimate that I have approximately 11,000 rounds of 300 Win Mag under my belt, all within a 6 year or so period, and I have become a very successful Elk hunter, taking Elk out at distances of up to 1000 yards, and have watched them crumple into a heap with one shot on most occasions. Good for me right?
My point here is this. You cannot purchase a “long range hunting rifle” with a guarantee of accuracy in a hunting environment, I actually believe that this is impossible. There is no concrete bench in those mountains. No rifle manufacturer can guess how good a shot you are, or how many rounds you have sent down range, it isn’t possible.
No rifle manufacturer can determine how many vertical feet you have to hustle up to get into a shooting position, nor can they determine how physically fit you are, it isn’t possible.
The testing procedure that most rifle manufacturers do, involves an extremely controlled environment, normally indoors, strapped to a bench, to about 100 yards, that’s how you get your 1/4 minute accuracy guarantee, usually.
The rifles that I build and sell to my clients, are tested extensively, more often than not on the side of mountain, in snowy cold ass conditions, and may even be involved in filling my freezer somehow, worse case scenario they are tested out to distances of 700 yards at an outdoor shooting range. They work as well as they can in the manufacturing process, they work with my own personal scopes mounted to them, using ammunition that I built to the actual internal specifications of each rifle in question. They work well with me behind them. The only guarantee that I can honestly give you is that I have built your rifle as beautifully as possible, using my skills that were honed over a very long period of time, I can even sell you the perfect load for your rifle, I can guarantee that the tool you will go out on the mountain with from my shop, will be the best tool that money can buy, but unless you are willing to put the work in at the range and send
