Range Finders

Discuss firearm optics, sights, and scopes here (magnified, red-dot, iron sights, etc).
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XJThrottle
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Re: Range Finders

#16

Post by XJThrottle »

Must only use bow and arrow kemosabe.

Wood recurve bow, rawhide string, willow arrows w/ hawk feather fletching...


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knockonit
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Re: Range Finders

#17

Post by knockonit »

redj wrote: July 8th, 2018, 11:35 am So enlighten us.
What makes a person not a hunter just because he uses a scope and a range finder ?
I said nothing about not being a hunter, just asked what happened to hunting without all the bells and whistles, does one really need all these advantages to bag a game animal, does one want to make it so easy that no effort is put forth to finding, tracking, and dropping the animal.

You evidently think i'm of the mind this stuff is silly, i do not, but its an animal with limited ability, and we on the other hand have a great mind, well some of us, lol,

Hunting is a right of passage as far as i'm concerned, jumping out of the truck, running to the spot where the game camera was sending you info, and quickly dropping the animal or attempting to.

and no problem with a long range shot, whats long range for you, 100 yds, 300 yds, if you can't trust your skill on iron sites in under a few hundred yards, hmmm

You probably haven't ever bow hunted, most bow hunters have some amazing skill, not only masking their scent, but their movement and outline, and one usually has to put the sneak on them.

again not saying hunting with a long gun is not hunting, but making an effort to know the distance, know the animals need to survive, and how it will react on your exposure, and being able to perhaps drop one one the run.

it seems to me hunting by some has become rocket science, with the game locator cameras, the range finders, scopes that do all the basic dope for you, for me there is no skill, its just shooting.

call me an a**hole, or whatever, doesn't matter, just my opinion, if you gotta have all the science to bag an animal, so be it, just not for me.


and oh yeah, i'm a long range kinda guy, have a range finder, have a scope that wipes my ass, use it to learn how to dope, how to estimate distances, and how my rifle reacts in the wind, in the heat of the day, cold or hot, so its not that i don't know it, and use it, its a training tool, not something i take in the field with me.

again just my opinion, i've bagged animals all over the world, not one with a scope, not one with a range finder, did have a couple trackers in africa, but did carry my own gun, lol. jmo
Rj
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Re: Range Finders

#18

Post by shooter444 »

knockonit wrote: July 8th, 2018, 8:46 am jesus, the poor critters aint got a chance, range finders, scopes that do the deal, game cameras, what the shiat ever happened to hunting, learning the moves of the critters, scouting, finding their lair, putting the sneak on them,

yeah, not hunters anymore, just shooters.

jmo
Rj
Agreed, I have wanted to post this same opinion for YEARS!

I guess I am just an old timer, started hunting small game on my own at the age of nine on my aunts Vermont farm. Some of the happiest summers of my life.

In my late teens, I graduated to deer hunting on my own. Which consisted of scouting a MONTH before season opened. Scouting for buck rutting trails down the side of a two mile high northern Maine mountain that dropped into grazing valleys below, frequented by does in season. Sounds simple, but not really. After finding a well traveled rut trail, I would climb a tree and observe what time of the day and what day of the week a buck would use that trail. This took devoting many hours, for many days a week to scouting. Hunting bucks is like hunting rabbits, they have a circular territory they travel, looking for does. Rabbit runs were only a few hundred yards in circumference, in the thickets of Maine I hunted. Where a buck can travel a circular rut trail for many, many miles.

My first buck was taken with a 16 gauge single shot shotgun zeroed at 100 yds. with hand loaded Brenneke rifled slugs. From my observation tree, just at sun rise, I could hear a buck coming down from above, headed for the valley below. He had to cross a historic stage coach road, that ran from Poland Springs Inn in middle Maine to Canada, when stage coaches were the mode of transportation. As with just about every acre of Maine forest, mountains and valleys, stone walls are everywhere. The buck came down and jumped the far stone wall into the old stage coach road, and then, everything went DEAD SILENT. He obviously caught my sent. Waiting, waiting, heart pounding and then I just barely saw him actually crawling up the road, hugging the near to me stone wall. I followed him with the 16 gauge single shot bead sight from my tree perch 60 yards away, until he crawled to what was a window in the stone wall, where a boulder had fallen out. All I saw was brown fur in that window when I let the first slug fly. Put another slug in, waiting, waiting, pounding heart halfway up my throat and then I see his rack start to rise on the other side of the stone wall. Just as I put the sight on his rack, down it would go, behind the stone wall. Waiting, waiting, and then the rack started to rise again, put my sight on where expected to see him and down it dropped again. Waiting, waiting, for what seemed forever, until I decide to come down out of the tree and stalk him up close. Creeping up to the stone wall, I hear him thrashing a bit. Coming up and over the wall, barrel first, I find a 280 pound white tail with a slug through his spine, trying to get up. One more behind his ear, and I was left with the task of gutting and dragging him the two mile down the mountain to my truck. Thankfully all the slick autumn broad leaves on the flat stage coach road made the task a lot easier.

Long hunting story, and I apologize, but being my first and successful deer hunt, resulting from careful scouting, makes this hunt live in my memory as if it was yesterday, rather than decades ago. I feel sorry for hunters who are so far removed from their prey that they don't even get their blood racing before the kill is made.

Scouting, stalking, sitting, these seem to be hunting skills on the decline.

Thanks Knockonit, I have wanted an oportunity to tell that hunting story for a long time.

Again, my apology for a long and boring post.
Last edited by shooter444 on July 10th, 2018, 1:39 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Range Finders

#19

Post by knockonit »

nice story, and well i guess i did elude it was not hunting, went back and re read my privious post, and well i'll stick with it.

again, i grew up a different way, was taught a different way, and well after i did some time working for the government and spent some time hunting 2 legged animals, it just changed how i looked at hunting period.

to each his own,
Rj
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Re: Range Finders

#20

Post by shooter444 »

After raising my own beef, pork, chicken and lamb for over three decades, I too look at hunting differently as well. I was NEVER a trophy hunter, if I didn't hunt it, kill it and butcher it myself, I didn't eat it. Now, I just enjoy watching wildlife.

Now, if I don't raise it, I don't eat it.

Hunting man, well, that's a whole different bag.
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Re: Range Finders

#21

Post by redj »

knockonit wrote: July 8th, 2018, 12:30 pm
redj wrote: July 8th, 2018, 11:35 am So enlighten us.
What makes a person not a hunter just because he uses a scope and a range finder ?
I said nothing about not being a hunter, just asked what happened to hunting without all the bells and whistles, does one really need all these advantages to bag a game animal, does one want to make it so easy that no effort is put forth to finding, tracking, and dropping the animal.

You evidently think i'm of the mind this stuff is silly, i do not, but its an animal with limited ability, and we on the other hand have a great mind, well some of us, lol,

Hunting is a right of passage as far as i'm concerned, jumping out of the truck, running to the spot where the game camera was sending you info, and quickly dropping the animal or attempting to.

and no problem with a long range shot, whats long range for you, 100 yds, 300 yds, if you can't trust your skill on iron sites in under a few hundred yards, hmmm

You probably haven't ever bow hunted, most bow hunters have some amazing skill, not only masking their scent, but their movement and outline, and one usually has to put the sneak on them.

again not saying hunting with a long gun is not hunting, but making an effort to know the distance, know the animals need to survive, and how it will react on your exposure, and being able to perhaps drop one one the run.

it seems to me hunting by some has become rocket science, with the game locator cameras, the range finders, scopes that do all the basic dope for you, for me there is no skill, its just shooting.

call me an a**hole, or whatever, doesn't matter, just my opinion, if you gotta have all the science to bag an animal, so be it, just not for me.


and oh yeah, i'm a long range kinda guy, have a range finder, have a scope that wipes my ass, use it to learn how to dope, how to estimate distances, and how my rifle reacts in the wind, in the heat of the day, cold or hot, so its not that i don't know it, and use it, its a training tool, not something i take in the field with me.

again just my opinion, i've bagged animals all over the world, not one with a scope, not one with a range finder, did have a couple trackers in africa, but did carry my own gun, lol. jmo
Rj


I am sure they were all one shot kills also.
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Re: Range Finders

#22

Post by Desert Rat »

Thanks for the hunting story, I grew up hunting in a similar fashion. My parents, brother and I would always hunt with another father and his sons. I remember always going out scouting prior to the hunt, one of the sons usually went on the earlier bow hunt so had some familiarity of the area.
In recent years I got back into hunting and was surprised at all of the technology available now. I always have had difficulty judging distance in valleys and hills and thought the range finder would be a good tool to help get better at it.
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Re: Range Finders

#23

Post by knockonit »

lol, awesome comments.
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Re: Range Finders

#24

Post by knockonit »

as for hunting, more of the community part, the group as a whole, and the campfire meetings, and learning what others knew you didn't, my old hunting and fishing buddy who has since passed on, and I hunted every corner of this state, part of utah, and a gaggle of New mexico, even ventured up to montana and idaho for some deer, and few birds along the way, by far my favorite hunting has been bird hunting, used to really enjoy the hunts outside of lincoln neb. dang pheasant can sure rattle a fella.

happy sunday
Rj
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Re: Range Finders

#25

Post by shooter444 »

Interesting, seems like what ever way we learn to hunt, sticks with us as the most comfortable. I built a cabin on the mountain I referenced in my hunt post, in my mid twenties. Hunting after that was a matter of stepping off my porch and begin stalking.

My point? I started hunting by myself, and from then on, I never felt comfortable with other hunters in the same area. If, on a very rare occasion, I were to come upon another hunter, I would just call it a day and head back to my wood stove.
Last edited by shooter444 on July 9th, 2018, 8:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Range Finders

#26

Post by shooter444 »

redj wrote: July 8th, 2018, 11:35 am So enlighten us.
What makes a person not a hunter just because he uses a scope and a range finder ?
Dead Batteries. :lol:
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Re: Range Finders

#27

Post by Desert Rat »

shooter444 wrote: July 8th, 2018, 8:41 pm
redj wrote: July 8th, 2018, 11:35 am So enlighten us.
What makes a person not a hunter just because he uses a scope and a range finder ?
Dead Batteries. :lol:
And we got the thread back on track!! :D sort of.
The comments have been great!! I am really tempted to share my first successful hunt story, but then I would be guilty of hi-jacking my own thread!!!! :shock:
The overall theme of hunting for me has been a chance to get out of town with friends/family, if we got something that was a bonus.
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Re: Range Finders

#28

Post by Azbuilder »

I have had a Bushnell 1500 Elite ARC for along time, never used it for hunting but has held up great traveling and banging around the world. Never let me down using rechargeable batteries and small solar panel charger. Never needed it or thought of using it hunting deer or elk animals. Just squirrels outside the CONUS.
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Re: Range Finders

#29

Post by Ballistic Therapy »

Well apparently I am in the minority here.
I use a range finder and if you think what I do isn't hunting because of that , then you are all sadly mistaken.
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Re: Range Finders

#30

Post by lew »

Ballistic Therapy wrote: July 9th, 2018, 4:24 am Well apparently I am in the minority here.
I use a range finder and if you think what I do isn't hunting because of that , then you are all sadly mistaken.
Getting an accurate range so one can make a clean- thus, ethical- shot seems like a no-brainer to me. Even with all the gadgets, hunting is usually fairly difficult. To me, hunting is about putting meat in the freezer. Anything that makes me more efficient in that pursuit is welcome, "purists" be damned. Besides, real hunters use nothing but their bare hands. Anything else is cheating. :roll: :doh: :mrgreen:

I have a Vortex Ranger 1800 on order. I'll let you folks know how well it works. It has a built-in slope compensator feature, which saves me from having to bust out the Slope Doper and compute that correction manually.
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