The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

I really like to fish but don’t take the time to do all that often anymore. Four dogs and lots of public lands habitat work take precedence for most of my free time. If I went on a fishing trip, about three days is enough for me. 

There is one pastime that never really times out for me. That is recreational shooting. I can kill helpless clay pigeons all day long and really never tire of the recoil of my shotgun. Off-season shooting really makes a difference on opening day of pheasant season and if a rooster gets up within 25 yards of me, he will most likely go home in my hunting vest.

I did have the opportunity last Saturday to help a friend do a little rifle shooting on a range set up on my wildlife property. He was trying to prepare for a deer hunt in some western state and in many of those places a decent shot is often far further then in the farm country of southwest Minnesota. He had his gun zeroed at 200 yards and was trying to close the grouping into about a 2-inch circle. Zeroed means having the scope properly adjusted and the gun placing all of the shots in a small one-inch circle with regularity at a specific distance. Usually that distance is 100 yards. Usually that circle is 1 inch

The first thing we needed to do was to check to make sure the gun was still right on at 200 yards, and it was not. He shot and shot and just could not get a nice tight group. I had him move the target to 100 yards and start over. In short order we had him placing tight shots within the one-inch circle. 

It does not do any shooter any good to try to shoot a target at 200, 300 or even 400 yards and beyond if they cannot be consistently accurate at targets at closer ranges. I had him download an app on his phone which is a great help to shooters regardless of their experience or prowess. The name of the app is Strelock-pro.

The app does cost about $12 but it is so well worth it. We got started and entered the specification for his particular gun and ammo. All of the following needs to be entered first before the app becomes useful. You enter the model of the gun, the caliber, barrel twist, brand of ammo, ballistic coefficient, bullet weight, muzzle velocity and a few others. All of this information is either listed on the ammo box or available on the gun or ammo manufactures website.

This took about 45 minutes to complete this process. Once this is done the app does all of the math calculations for you. You shoot the gun at 100 yards to make sure it is still right on. You then change the distance in the app to 200 yards and enter wind direction and speed and the app will tell you exactly what adjustments to make with the scope to confidently hit a target at 200. It will give you an elevation adjustment and a windage adjustments based on the factors you entered earlier. He made the adjustments as the app directed and then hit the 200-yard target five times in a row all within a small circle.

We then went to the 400-yard target and made the adjustments for that distance as directed by the app and he then hit the 400-yard target five times in a row. The cool part of this experience is that this hunter had never successfully and consistently made a 300-yard shot in his entire life. Now he was consistently hitting a target at 400.

We then upped the ante even more and made the adjustments on the scope for a 500-yard shot. He shot the 500-yard target five times in a row without a miss. He was elated. He could not believe that in a matter of a few hours and with a little help he could consistently make shots out to those ranges.

I know a little about long range shooting because of what I have been taught by Todd Van Langen. He is a 21-year veteran Army sniper with 12 years in the hostage rescue unit in Iraq and Afghanistan. He explained to me that long range shooting is basically math. You enter the parameters of the gun and the ammo and then make math adjustments from there. I do believe that any rifle shooter who wants to make dramatic improvements can do so with just a little help and a place that has targets at longer ranges. 

Todd told me that shot gun shooting is harder. He explains that there is no app that can tell you what adjustment to make on a rooster in a 5, 10 or 20 mile per hour wind. Shot gunning is all in how things feel. This might be true, but you don’t shoot at a rooster at 400 yards either.

If you have any questions about the app or how we achieved this success reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.