Hunting & Fishing Long Range Caliber/Build

[BmM1284]

I know this is a loaded question and may get some arguments going but I would like some input to help me in my decision making process.

I am going to be doing a build for a long range rifle. The majoirty of its use will be for bear. Ranges of shooting is literally 0-1000+ yds. (this past week our hunting party shot one at <20feet and another guy shot one at 963yds).

What caliber would you feel would be the best for this application?

I am looking at either a 300RUM or 7mmRUM - was thinking of taking a Remy 700SPS and putting a custom barrel, action work, bedding, etc, etc to make it as accurate as possible [then I will have to do my part

Anyone agree/disagree with my caliber choice/plan? Any and all suggestions are welcome - I want to learn from others as much as possible.

THANKS!

 

[GOOSEKLR]

Re: Long Range Caliber/Build

Not a bear hunter here but I am having a 7mmwsm built and know for a fact they shoot mule deer up to 1000 yards with them. I looked at buying a prebuilt 7mmRUM before I ordered mine. Only reason I didnt was barrel life. I like to shoot alot and also harvest alot of whitetail deer for the freezer. Was told that the 7wsm would last longer. The 7mm round is a shooter, I also have a 300win mag I use.

 

[tigerhawk]

Re: Long Range Caliber/Build

For bear, I would prefer the .300RUM. I have shot a custom .300RUM rifle, belonging to a friend, that shoots 1.5" (not MOA) at 600 yards with 180 grain Swift Sciroccos. We have not shot it at 1000 yards yet, but we are planning to, and I believe the accuracy will be quite usable even at that distance.

If you want to build one, I would suggest not wasting the extra money on an SPS. Just start with a 700BDL, which will save you a little money. Throw away everything but the action, get a good, fairly heavy barrel (Krieger, or any one of a number of others) and a good fiberglass stock (such as McMillan), and have a gunsmith known for building such rifles put it all together. Since this is going to be a hunting rifle, and some of your shots may be close, I would suggest a NightForce 3.5-15 scope. Personally, I think the 5.5-22x has too small a field of view at the low end for possibly having to go into a thicket after a wounded bear.

Barrel life will not be as long as with some other calibers, but considering the cost of the ammo you will shoot in practice, the cost of replacement barrels will be the least of your worries.

 

[vman]

Re: Long Range Caliber/Build

My money would be on a 7mm of some sort.

I hope to build a 7mmWSM in the future, my main reason being so that I can take advantage of the Berger 180 VLD or Hybrid projectile. You can push this 180 grain projectile at around 2900 FPS, possibly faster but 2900 seems to be easily attainable with excellent accuracy.

This projectile boasts an extremely good BC, unlike anything else in its weight class. At 1000 yards, your talking almost half the wind drift of a 175gr .30cal bullet from a .308win! I have seen figures stating a 10mph wind pushing the 180gr 7mmWSM with about 50" of drift, while the .308 has you at about 90" of drift!

In a situation such as yours, where ethics comes in to play along with needing to hit a difficult target, you want to reduce as many unmeasurable variables as you can and the only way to do this is to become a better wind reader and reduce your chances of missing the target zone by investing in ballistcaly superior gear.

In this case thats either a 7mm magnum of some sort, or a .338lapua or edge.