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Interesting question. Like you, almost all my deer have been shot under 150 meters. The exception was my fallow stag last year which was taken across a gully at about 325 meters - estimate is based on a heart shot when aiming for the shoulder / lung / spine - a drop of about 12 inches from my Kimber Montana 7mm 08 rifle zeroed at 200 meters.

I have now got a Leupold VXiii 2.5-8X with Boone & Crockett reticle. I find this very useful & it gives me the confidence to shoot it at 450 meters. I will be taking it for a Sika Stag hunt in May (our southern hemisphere fall & peak rut). But the shots are likely be under 50 meters!

The B&C reticle took a bit of getting used to. The instructions suggested that I use the small triangel mark for the 7mm 08 but this gave me only 6 X. So I used the magnum setting at full 8X but zeroed for 100 meters rather than 200. I then use the subsequent marks incrementally. I have shot very well at 2 club shoots with this set up. My friend has a 4-16X B&C reticle on his 7mm WSM & shoots to 600 meters comfortably. He now wants to work up to 900 meters. I have a Swarovski 2.5-10X on my 280 Ack Imp & have shot small game at over 400 meters. I would be comfortable with 600 meter shots if I had a B&C reticle scope on that Sako.

We use range finders for all long range work. I will try this on game only after the trials are complete & I have full confidence in my ability to kill deer cleanly. Good luck.

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Always shoot through the target & not just at it.

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