In August of 2017, I had a series of back and forth emails about Best Rifle and Scope for Hunting and Long Range Shooting with a client, and I am sharing them here in hopes they will help YOU! 🙂
Client Initial Question Regarding the Best Rifle and Scope for Hunting and Long Range Shooting
Thanks for your quick advice yesterday. Hope your trip to desert was productive. To continue, thanks for advice leading to 6.5 creedmoor over .308. I’m ready to invest in a long range rifle, and just wanna get it right.
I think .300 win mag might suit my needs better. Can you give me me any thoughts regarding .300 win mag vs 7mm rem mag. for use as long range target/hunting rifle?
Thanks, see ya out there,
Shepard Humphries
I suggest buying two rifles. I equate it to buying a car that is good at racing over a mountain pass on ice and good at hauling hay for the ranch. A Porche 911 Turbo is perfect for the first and a huge John Deere is perfect for the second. I good compromise might be a Toyota 4-Runner or an F250 pickup, but it will leave you disappointed on the ranch and on the pass.
You can get a great 1500 yard gun and a good scope for it for less than $2k. The gun should be heavy and should have a long barrel and should shoot a long, heavy skinny bullets. The perfect scope is a 5-25 power.
You can get a good hunting rifle and good scope for under $1k. The gun should be light, have a short barrel and should shoot heavy bullets. The perfect scope is a 3-9 power.
Having said that, if the piggy bank does not allow a $3k purchase … if you buy a lightweight Remington 700 in 300WM or in 7mm rem Mag, you can use it for hunting for now. It will also be fine for 1,200-ish+ yards, though the light weight will make the recoil annoying and the high price of ammo will not let you get tons of practice in.
The good news is, you will have an awesome action and you will use it for hunting. After this season, you might decide you want to give up killing Bambi and shoot steel at a mile. No problem, keep the same action, put on a new heavy barrel with a twist appropriate for heavy bullets, an aftermarket stock, an after-market trigger, a new scope and you are ready to go for 1800 yards plus. If you decide to continue murdering Bambi, you have an awesome gun that will last 60 years! 🙂
Check this out:
What follow-up questions do you have? 🙂 I would love to help you hone in. 🙂
Client
Thanks a ton. I appreciate your experience, thats really good advice, and I enjoyed the video. My criteria is maybe a unique niche. I just don’t want a rifle I can’t run up and down mountains with other gear (my background is biathlon and I know I can do this with my 13lbs. ar10), even if it means a 1200 or 1500 yard gun rather than 2000. Yet I’m trying to accomplish the most capable long range, hard hitting combo I can around that weight. My budget for this is enough for some high end options. I’m seeing factory match 6.5cm for $1.04/round vs. $1.36/round for comparable in .300 win mag. The army is switching to .300 win mag with the Remington m2010 for this role and that means something to me.
I’m talking to ga precision and currently have chosen a sweet Remington 700 clone action of theirs for .300 win mag. Heavy ish barrel balanced with appropriately light ish stock. I expect to mitigate recoil with suppressor and/or brake.
One realm I really need help with is scope selection. I watched some of your other videos in regards to this:). I’m looking at a 5-25x from nightforce. Not sure if I should choose moa or mil? For reticle, my preference seems to be simple, clean, not much going on, compared to your “Christmas tree” recommendation in your videos. Can you elaborate some details as to the advantages of a Christmas tree.
Thanks for the opportunity to iterate my thoughts. I’ve got thick skin and I respect your experience, so please let fly and holes you might see in my logic and thank you for any advice you might have.
Shepard Humphries
I like your choice! The Rem 700 in 300WM is awesome! most long range shooters like a trigger to be less than 16 ounces, most hunters like 4-ish pounds. If you have awesome finger off trigger skills, 2-ish lbs might be good. Another thing to consider is twist rate, make sure your custom rifle has rifling that is good for 230 grain bullets.
Nightforce is good! I would buy two scopes. A lightweight $300 3-9x for hunting on a quick detach mount and the Nightforce on a LaRue Tactical quick detach mount. The reason I like busy is because I shoot steel targets and don’t hunt. For hunting, you probably won’t take a shot beyond 500 yards. With a basic scope doing holdover or a BDC reticle, you will be perfect.
For long range target shooting, making adjustments is easier with busy reticles. After we chatted the other day, I went out shooting at 2,030 yards. My time of flight was 2.9 seconds, so it was easy to spot my own misses (which was every single shot I took). Having the XLR reticle allowed me to measure the distance I was off and make adjustments. If I have been using a Mil Dot scope, 1 mill was equivalent to 72 inches. I was using MOA which is equivalent to 20 inches. (In defense of Mils, many busy Mil reticles are broken down into smaller increments)
My Vortex Viper scope with 20 MOA rail only allowed me to adjust to 36 MOA up. 🙁 I had to use my busy Christmas tree reticle to hold an additional 22 MOA. This put me between dotted lines, so I adjusted the turret down 2MOA and used the 24 MOA line. This would have been tricky without a Christmas tree reticle. I estimated 8 MOA of wind and saw where my shots were landing and realized that I needed more like 10-12 MOA. The wind where I was was gusting from 8 to 12 MPH, and I figure more like 10 to 15 where the target was.
So, I was able to use the yellow highlighted dot as my main aim point. My two closest shots missed by only a couple of inches. (I don’t think my wind-reading was the problem, the issue was DEFINITELY a “target size” problem. lol
I compete in Rexburg Idaho Long range Tactical Matches. Elden, the match director is a man in his 70’s that does not allow any “new fangled electronic” gadgets like Kestrels, rangefinders etc. I use my reticle to measure the known-size targets to calculate distance. For me, with a mid-range scope trying to shoot extreme long range, the busy reticle is a must.
Having said this, if you have other gadgets, and if you have a high-end scope, you can get away with a less busy reticle. I suggest that you look through a busy reticle at a target at 100 yards and at 700 yards, and imagine the target was a big game animal. Would the reticle be too distracting? if you think you can get used to it, go for it. If not? You have your answer.
MIL vs MOA? One is really not better than the other. It is a personal preference Ford vs Chevy or PC vs Mac thing, a person that likes one more than the other will swear by it as the one and only good option. If you have a close friend that you will be doing lots of shooting with and that will be spotting with you, go with what they have. I have selected MOA, but if my IQ was 140 rather than 133, I would probably alter MOA and MIL on different scopes.
If I had the money for the Best Rifle and Scope for Hunting and Long Range Shooting? I think I would buy a Gen II Vortex Razor and a nice custom 375 Cheytac.
