The good news is that both rifles and ammunition are considerably more accurate than ever before. This is at least partly because American riflemen have demanded better accuracy, and the manufacturers have responded. Barrels are better, and factory ammo is a whole lot better. Today it isn't unusual to get the kind of groups with factory ammo that were once the exclusive province of precision handloaders. So, while accuracy will always be somewhat mysterious and, in a given rifle with a given load, may prove elusive, you can get the raw accuracy you need.

The next question is whether you can apply that accuracy under field conditions. There are no shooting benches in hunting country, so the perfect conditions that produced your best groups no longer apply. Obviously, there are many ways to get steady, such as over a pack, with a bipod, even a good prone position. But however you do it, getting steady is an absolute requirement for taking a long-range shot.

This means that even if everything else is right, sometimes you can and sometimes you can't take the shot. Things like vegetation and uneven ground may make it impossible to get into a steady, supported position. The bottom line is that, somehow, some way, you simply must get absolutely steady. If you can't, then there isn't a shot.

Again, it's the same story: A miss is the really good news. At very long range, the average shooter who hasn't spent a lot of time shooting at distance will probably miss. On the other hand, the shooter who has done the homework--knows the distance, knows the trajectory, understands wind drift and has the accuracy required--will probably not miss by much. Which means a wounded animal.

ANGLES AND THINGS
Hopefully, we all understand what happens when shooting at uphill or downhill angles. The effect is the same. Gravity acts upon the bullet only on the horizontal distance, which, whether it's uphill or downhill, is a shorter distance between you and your target. This means your trajectory is stretched out. It doesn't mean that your bullet rises when shooting at steep angles, but since you are sighted-in above your line of sight at shorter ranges, this is the effect.

This is not something to lose sleep over at short to medium ranges. It takes a fairly steep angle and considerable distance before the effect is worth worrying about, but way out there you'd better worry about it.

A beautiful place but a very unpleasant memory: It was from exactly this spot that I missed the biggest bull elk I've ever seen. I failed to take into account the uphill angle and shot right over him. The good news is that I missed him cleanly.

Shooting at angles is a bit like doping the wind. Some detailed ballistics charts and computer programs will tell you what the effect is for a given load at a given angle and distance. You could print out this data and carry it with you, just like a wind-drift chart. But in the field, can you accurately measure the angle? Can you really tell the difference between a 25- and a 40-degree slope?

As I've often written, I do not actively pursue long-range shooting in the field. But I do practice for it and know how to do it. If conditions are right and there is no way to get closer, I will take a shot at, say, 500 yards and change. I have never taken a shot at game at 600 yards or beyond and don't intend to.

At 500 yards and change, most of my shots have been successful--with two notable exceptions. Both times, once on a downhill shot and once on an uphill shot, I failed to read the angle correctly, didn't adjust for it properly and shot right over the top. The good news, of course, is that I missed cleanly both times.

It's important to remember that temperature affects velocity, and as altitude increases, retained velocities are higher because of reduced air friction. Any shift in velocity will impact your carefully memorized and annotated ballistics data. If you do all your hunting close to home, this isn't a big deal. But don't think you can work up your data at sea level in Florida and use it in the Canadian Rockies. As with shooting angles, it takes both a lot of distance and a radical shift in outside temperature or altitude to make a difference, but we're not talking about normal shooting ranges here. Out at the quarter-mile mark and beyond, you need to know if you've lost or gained a couple hundred feet per second.

BULLET PERFORMANCE AND ENERGY
This is one long-range variable that applies only to hunting. In target shooting, the criteria for long-range bullets are accuracy and aerodynamics; all the bullet has to do on arrival is punch a hole through paper. In combat you can argue endlessly about what might be best, but international treaties stipulate nonexpanding bullets. So match-grade spitzer boattail FMJs are almost universal.

Brush and other obstructions often make it very difficult to get into a really steady shooting position. This kind of position is ideal for middle ranges but simply is not steady enough for genuine long-range shooting.

This is not fine in hunting. Ideally, you want the same bullet performance at long range as you get at close range: enough penetration to reach the vitals coupled with enough expansion to create a large wound channel, disrupt vital organs and dispatch the animal quickly. This is not only a humane consideration. The faster the animal goes down, the quicker and easier it is to recover your game. No matter where the hit, the farther an animal is able to travel after receiving a bullet, the greater the chance of losing the animal.

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to obtain the same expansion at long range that you can get routinely at close range. Velocity is always a key contributor to bullet performance. Way out there, your velocity has dropped off considerably, so bullet expansion will generally be less, and less rapid. It also becomes more erratic. Most of the guys who shoot game at long range tend to use bullets that are both very accurate and generally quite frangible. Many use Sierra MatchKing hollowpoints, which is not specifically a hunting bullet but is very accurate and generally quite effective, especially at longer range. Others use polymer-tipped bullets like Nosler Ballistic Tips.

In my experience it doesn't much matter what you use. At extreme ranges, when velocity has dropped off dramatically, bullet performance is no longer consistent. I have seen even quick-expanding bullets like these act just like solids at longer ranges. Energy drops off right along with velocity, and as expansion is reduced, energy transfer is also diminished. What this means is that as range increases, shot placement needs to be even more precise because you can no longer count on bullet expansion and energy transfer as hedges against poor shot placement.

Personally, I don't want anything to do with shooting at game at 600 yards, but when conditions are right, I have several friends who make this work on a routine basis. So my limits need not apply to you, but there are limits.

In terms of hunting ethics, our image as hunters and the future of our sport, the stakes are much higher in hunting than in the other venues. As range increases, a near miss is an increasingly likely result. And hunting is the one shooting venue where a near miss is absolutely unacceptable.