Long-range shooting has a way of humbling people who've spent years thinking they're decent shots. Everything you've gotten away with at 100 yards gets exposed the moment you stretch it out.

"Every flaw in your technique gets magnified the farther out you shoot. A sloppy trigger pull that costs you half an inch at 100 yards costs you five inches at 1,000."

I've watched guys show up to long-range clinics with $3,000 rifles and fundamentals held together with duct tape. They couldn't figure out why their groups were all over the place. It's always the same answer — the gun didn't cause those groups, the shooter did. Fix the foundation before you spend another dollar on gear.

"According to longrangeshooting.org, spend more on the optic than the rifle."

This is the advice that gets ignored the most at the gun store counter. I've had that exact conversation a dozen times — guy wants to put a $200 scope on a $1,500 rifle. Turrets that don't track true will make you think you're losing your mind at 600 yards, because every correction you dial in is a lie. Glass and tracking quality aren't optional at distance, they're the whole game.

"A wind meter tells you what's happening at your position. It says nothing about what the wind is doing at 600 yards — which might be completely different."

This is the part that takes the longest to learn, and no app closes the gap entirely. Reading mirage through a spotting scope mid-flight-path, watching grass bend at different points downrange, building a mental picture of the whole lane — that's a skill that only comes from time behind the gun in real conditions. Don't wait for calm days to practice. Calm days are a bad teacher.

"Your DOPE card is yours. It's built from real rounds fired under real conditions, and it becomes more valuable every time you use it."

A firing solution from a ballistics app is a starting point — your actual logged data is the answer. Every combination of rifle, ammo, scope height, and environmental baseline is different. The guys who shoot consistently at distance aren't relying on the calculator alone — they've got a card or a notebook full of real corrections confirmed by rounds on steel.

If you've made the jump to shooting past 500 yards, what was the thing that clicked last — fundamentals, reading conditions, gear, or something else entirely?

Read the full article in The Handbook → | By BGC Editorial

Getting Started with Long-Range Shooting

Getting Started with Long-Range Shooting

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