Hitting Silhouette at 50, 100, 150, 175, and 200 yds

[fleener]

I was doing very well, until I got to the turkeys. Things were going so well. When I got to the last relay with the bears, I raised the rifle to shoot only to find I had no rear sight. It had come loose and fallen off. After some looking in the rocks, we found it and I stuck it back on. I was able to still get second, cant remember if I shot a 11 or a 13. The guy that beat me I believe shot 2 more animals then I did.

Since I started shooting long range, I drifted away from the large bore sil. I need to practice up and shoot it. Perhaps in June!

Fleener

 

[User_Dan]

Yes, it can be done with a 50 caliber rifle.

I used a 45 caliber 133 grain ball rifle. I did use 90 grains of powder in hopes of flattening the trajectory. That did work but I was holding on the bear's ear and the ball would still drop to about the middle of the bear. Still had to hope that the bear was set just ahead of the topple point as a center of mass hit would send out a satisfying ring, but ocaisionally the bear would still be standing. (I found the bear easier to hit than the turkey.)

How large is this bear target that you can aim at his ear and hit center mass at 200yds. My data and in practice has an over 5ft drop at 200

 

[Eterry]

Never shot black powder sil., but used to shoot handgun silhouette, with reduced targets out to 100 yards, with Rams at 100, iron sights.

The turkeys at 75 were the hardest to hit.

Everyone i shot with changed their aiming point, IIRC my 45 LC hit dead on at 25, about 2in low at 50, 6in at 65 and dropped about a foot at 100.

 

[jdw276]

How large is this bear target that you can aim at his ear and hit center mass at 200yds. My data and in practice has an over 5ft drop at 200

They are about 3 ft tall.

 

[fleener]

If my memory serves me correct, they are 32" tall, or perhaps 36"

Fleener

 

[Grenadier1758]

How large is this bear target that you can aim at his ear and hit center mass at 200yds. My data and in practice has an over 5ft drop at 200

The bear target is close to 3' tall.

Its all about trajectory. I sighted pretty much as Art and Gerryherd do. For my rifle, the base of the front sight blade was set in the bottom of the rear sight leaving the top of the front sight over the top of the rear sight. The blade was aligned in the slot effectively pointing the rifle slightly upward to give me that arch needed to compensate for the 5' drop. On good days with a fine spotting scope one could actually see the streak of the ball arcing in to the target.

 

[Lippy984]

In order to properly calculate that you need to know he muzzle velocity with each increasing powder charge.
Feed the data into a ballistics program like BALLISTICARC.
HOWEVER - It would be a lot more fun just heading tot he range and spending the day loading and shooting until you get it figured out.
Here is my set of measures for my hunting guns
View attachment 27847

Sure wish I had the time to figure that out for myself...someday

 

[Tinhorn]

That sounds like fun! After reading all this, I sure am glad I made a .56 Leman barrel for my Browning! Tinhorn