Long Range Shooting Handbook: Complete Beginner's Guide to Long Range Shooting

by Ryan M. Cleckner

You should think about each part of the system, including yourself, as potentially adding variability and decreasing accuracy. I argue that any particular piece of equipment doesn’t actually make a system more accurate. Instead, good equipment can just help minimize inaccuracy.

Quality equipment in rifle shooting isn’t necessarily about performance, it’s about consistency shot after shot

Advanced Long Range Shooting.

The energy that a bullet can potentially transfer to a target is calculated by multiplying half of the mass of the projectile by its velocity squared.

Heavier bullets require more energy to get up to speed (and therefore “kick” more), but they better maintain their speed while flying through the air and are less affected by wind (compared to a lighter bullet at the same speed).

For example, 30 caliber bullets are nominally .30 inches in diameter and many different chamberings can use the same 30 caliber bullet. For example, 300 Blackout (BLK), 308 Win., 30-06 Springfield (Sprg), and 300 Win Mag can all use the exact same 30 caliber bullet.

The tip of a bullet for precision long range shooting is usually one of three types: full metal jacket, open tip, or polymer tip.

Full metal jacket (FMJ) bullets are rare in precision shooting. They are durable and easy to manufacture and are, therefore, the most common bullet style in economy-priced ammunition. In addition to being durable while they are handled and fed into the chamber, FMJ bullets are also known for their ability to penetrate without expanding compared to other styles of bullets. This is not desirable when hunting, and as such, FMJ bullets are usually banned for hunting purposes.

Open tip bullets, also called open tip match (OTM) bullets, have been the standard precision rifle bullets for a long time.

Bryan Litz

Imagine drawing a football profile on a piece of paper. The pivotpoint is where you could pick the ball up by its sides with two fingers and have it balance itself. If that’s where the curve of the bullet stopped, it would be a tangent ogive. If instead, the curve of the bullet stopped sooner, then it would be a secant ogive.

My favorite powders, H4895, H4350, and Varget, are all extruded.

Primers are held in the primer pocket by friction alone in commercial ammunition. Military ammunition has primers which are crimped and then glued/sealed into place. Because of the friction-only hold in commercial ammunition, primers can sometimes come out of the primer pocket during firing. This is due to the pressure on the primer while the powder is burning. The primer cup can deform when there’s too much pressure in the cartridge because the material needs to be soft enough that it can deform when struck by a firing pin. A tell-tale sign of too much pressure in a cartridge can be seen by looking at the primer of a fired cartridge case. If the primer is squished back into the firing pin hole, its edges are flattened, or if it is blown-out completely, there is probably too much pressure. 3.4.1 Types of Primers

Once a firearm falls into the definition of a rifle, it must have a barrel that is at least 16 inches long and and its overall length must be at least 26 inches in order to be treated as a “standard” rifle and avoid certain extra regulations. If either the barrel or the overall length of the rifle are too short, then the rifle is a “short barreled rifle” (SBR) and is subject to National Firearms Act (NFA) taxation and registration. SBRs are generally unsuitable for long range shooting and won’t be discussed here.