I found the multi-year Long Range Shooting thread and read through historical setups used for ELR, F-Class, and other types of shooting.

From those that still shoot at (and hit) targets 1,600 - 2,400 meters away, what platforms and calibers are you happiest with? Barrett, McMillan, Accuracy International, .300 Norma, .338 Lapua, .375 Cheytac, .416 Barrett, .50 BMG…there seem to be a ton of options out there.

Optics choices I can narrow down, but in 2026 what are we liking for rifles and calibers for shooting that far out? I do not reload and am not looking into getting a custom-built rifle, so I would appreciate suggestions for factory rifles using factory ammo.

It seems that 300 PRC is a popular caliber among sources that I’ve researched.
The huge boomers have their place but aren’t really “the thing”.
Factory ammo is indeed loaded for them.

Again, it’s just what I’ve researched.

There are different types of ELR competition, and one needs to consider the type first...then comes rifle & caliber.

The longest of the ELR is the King of Two Miles type shooting. You'd be shooting from one position at steel targets set at increasing distances. The closest targets might be around 1700 yards, finishing at around 3500 yards. Rifles and ammo will all be custom. Calibers will generally start with 375 Cheytac and go up from there. Rifles will be really heavy, as this isn't a shoot-and-scoot event. This is a team event -- shooter, observer, ballistics.

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The more variable type of ELR might be considered as a long-range field-type PRS match. These matches are solo events, multiple stages, various target distances per stage. The matches I've been in had target distances of 800-ish to 2100-ish yards. There may be divisions for light-ish and heavy rifles. Folks might be carrying rifles for fairly long distances over the course of the day, so even the heavy rifles here will weigh less than those from King of 2 Miles. Light rifles for matches with target distances generally well under 1 mile may be chambered in 6.5 magnums, 7 magnums, even .30 magnums. But 6.5 and .25 non-magnums sometimes do well, for extremely talented shooters.

Heavy rifles will generally be 7 magnums and .30 magnums. Sometimes .338 magnums, if the shooter is very good at spotting his impacts on the closer targets -- i.e. those less than 1200-ish targets.

The vast majority of competitors use custom-built rifles. Pick your components, pick your gunsmith. The majority roll their own ammo. 7 SAUM and 7 PRC work well, if reducing recoil is a priority. .30 Norma Mag and .300 PRC do well, if the shooter is OK with a little more recoil.

Factory ammo conducive to ELR events is generally limited to 6.5 PRC, 7 PRC, and .300 PRC.

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I recommend having a fair amount experience in field-type precision steel matches with target distances out to (and beyond) 1000-ish yards before diving into ELR competition.

Thank you for you feedback - I definitely need more range time, but just thinking of getting a setup in the near future.

What experience do you have at...say...500 to 800 yards? The jump from there to 1200 yards, then 1600 yards, then 2000 yards is a whole 'nuther ballgame. Effective shooting at ELR distances demands unwavering marksmanship fundamentals, which are generally developed at more moderate target distances. When target misses occur at ELR distances, the shooter must be confident that the misses weren't from their own technique flaws. When the bullet doesn't land at the expected POA, the shooter must know whether...
-- I pulled the shot
-- I miscalculated the wind
-- I used the wrong dope
-- I dialed the wrong elevation on the optic
-- the rifle & ammo's combined precision capabilities at that distance aren't up to my expectations

quote:

Originally posted by Creeping_Death:
I found the multi-year Long Range Shooting thread and read through historical setups used for ELR, F-Class, and other types of shooting.

From those that still shoot at (and hit) targets 1,600 - 2,400 meters away, what platforms and calibers are you happiest with? Barrett, McMillan, Accuracy International, .300 Norma, .338 Lapua, .375 Cheytac, .416 Barrett, .50 BMG…there seem to be a ton of options out there.

Optics choices I can narrow down, but in 2026 what are we liking for rifles and calibers for shooting that far out? I do not reload and am not looking into getting a custom-built rifle, so I would appreciate suggestions for factory rifles using factory ammo.

To be truly frank, if you want to learn long range and you don't reload and you don't want a custom-built rifle. Start with production division PRS and buy something like a 6mm or 6.5 Creedmoor.

It won't be perfect, but it is an excellent place to start.

You can get out to 1200-1400 yards and you will learn a TON.

Keep in mind the average target engagement at PRS is usually 550-600 yards and I promise you will still find it to be extremely challenging.

You could also consider something mild like a 6mm Norma BR, or a 6mm ARC. But you will be giving up some ballistic performance for milder recoil and longer barrel life.

Everything is a trade off.

Hornady 6mm ARC Black ammo is good enough for PRS accuracy requirements out of my personal rifle. I still shoot handloads but it wouldn't bother me to shoot the Black ammo if I needed to and had enough on hand to work up dope.


A few key pieces of gear.

Binos for spotting. Tripod for those binos. Kestral with ballistic software. I like the version with Applied Ballistics. A good chronograph. A good rangefinder.

600 yards is the furthest I am shooting now, and using .308 and .300 Win Mag. Longer ranges are over an hour away, but this year I am wanting to make the trips and put in the time to shoot further. I am looking for a factory setup that would work well in that 600-2000 yard gap, hoping to avoid having to purchase multiple platforms. I am truly shooting to improve my own skills, not jump into the competitive circuits.

Thank you again for everyone’s feedback.

quote:

Originally posted by Creeping_Death:
600 yards is the furthest I am shooting now, and using .308 and .300 Win Mag. Longer ranges are over an hour away, but this year I am wanting to make the trips and put in the time to shoot further. I am looking for a factory setup that would work well in that 600-2000 yard gap, hoping to avoid having to purchase multiple platforms. I am truly shooting to improve my own skills, not jump into the competitive circuits.

Thank you again for everyone’s feedback.

Respectfully, there isn't a factory option for 2000 yards. Not that I am aware of.

That is an extreme type of circumstances, that requires an equally extreme type of gear.

Maybe something like a 338 Lapua, for factory ammo.


But still, there is a reason that all the top tier competitors load their own ammo.

You can put care and tedious effort into making your own ammo that a factory can never replicate.

IMHO, once you get beyond 800 yards, things get different. I have never even attempted beyond 1400.

quote:

I am truly shooting to improve my own skills, not jump into the competitive circuits.

The absolute best way to improve your own skills, is to jump into competitive circuits. You can do it with managed expectations. But there is so much to learn and shooting competitions will speed that cycle so much that you will scarcely believe it.

People at these matches are helpful. You will observe techniques. You will observe equipment utilization.

I say this as a person who has learned from immersion in a competitive environment. Not as a teacher, but as a learner.

If you want to get better at something, go do it with the best. They won't judge you. We all started somewhere. The greatest hubris is thinking you can figure out what thousands of the absolute best discerned over millions of hours of practice and testing.

If you are already shooting regularly to 600 yards and are just seeking information on rifles and cartridges suitable for significantly longer distances, I don’t recall ever seeing much, if any, discussion of that here—at least not in a long time.

There are, however, some good YouTube channels that show what actually works. A few I watch pretty regularly:
https://www.youtube.com/@TexasPlinking
https://www.youtube.com/@markandsamafterwork
https://www.youtube.com/@LaPerlaRanch

The Texas Plinking series is limited to 1000 yards, but it features many different types of guns and the results demonstrate that even at 1K yards many good shooters with high tier guns struggle to hit 1 MOA targets.

The Mark and Sam videos stretch engagements much farther. La Perla Ranch videos cover engagements up to a mile by shooters of different skill levels and their gear.

But for marksmanship improvement I have significantly improved my own shooting skills by going 180 degrees from what you are considering: shooting rifles chambered for the 22 Long Rifle cartridge using small, challenging targets at close distances.

The pros of that approach are less expensive ammo*, targets that I can walk to, and, I believe, the greater discipline required for shooting a cartridge that is less forgiving of poor techniques.

* Last year with just one of my 22 LR rifles I averaged almost 1000 rounds a month for six months. There is no way I could have done that with any centerfire cartridge.

The biggest cons with 22 LR shooting are that although I find controlling the gun for consistent aiming is more difficult, I don’t have to deal with controlling the effects of recoil very much. When I decided to try shooting a more powerful cartridge, I found that shooting a 300 Win Mag rifle accurately was significantly more difficult than 308 Win or 6.5 Creedmoor. And then there’s the wind thing. Although wind affects 22 LR bullets even at relatively close ranges, I won’t claim that shooting the round is the same in that regard as shooting centerfire at long distances.

Good luck with your search, and be sure to let us know how it goes.

quote:

Originally posted by Creeping_Death:
600 yards is the furthest I am shooting now, and using .308 and .300 Win Mag.

Assuming your 300WM has an accurate & heavy-profile barrel, and the action is tight -- here's where you can start with longer distances.

SMK 190 ammo is among the easiest accurate-at-distance 300WM ammo to attain. It's not a true long distance load, as the 190 SMK doesn't fly well through transonic speeds. At 6000' air DA in a precision rifle course, we saw that it was supersonic and pretty accurate at 1500 yards. But it was completely tumbling at a mile. I was the only student to hit a 4' square plate that day at a mile, and it was a keyhole hit. We had no idea where most of the rounds landed.

Heavier .30 bullets will do better, and should make it to a mile at my altitude -- maybe even yours.
195 ELD-M
200 ELD-X
200 and 220 HPBT

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308 will barely make it 1000 yards at sea level, with the right bullet and a fairly fast MV. SMK 168 isn't that bullet, as it will likely show instability past 700 yards at low elevation. At high elevation, the SMK 175 flies OK to 1200 yards. The Hornady 168 Amax and ELD-M will fly OK a little further.

But if you want an ELR rifle that seems to have a good reputation and would set you apart from the crowd, how about a Steyr HS460, M1, in .460 Steyr?

https://www.milehighshooting.c...ZvCowmEQfr4u8.WtT9Qs

Only $14 per round.

https://www.aaa-ammo.com/steyr.htm

I will continue to say thank you to everyone replying here…this is great information. I think I will try the suggested loads for my .300WM to see how far I can push it. Where I would shoot in SD is about 1400’ ASL…very interesting how much elevation impacts trajectory and flight dynamics.

Hopefully by fall I have more experience to gain a better idea of what will suit my progression!

quote:

Originally posted by Creeping_Death:
I will continue to say thank you to everyone replying here…this is great information. I think I will try the suggested loads for my .300WM to see how far I can push it. Where I would shoot in SD is about 1400’ ASL…very interesting how much elevation impacts trajectory and flight dynamics.

Hopefully by fall I have more experience to gain a better idea of what will suit my progression!

https://www.eurooptic.com/kest...meter-with-applied-b


These are very helpful for accounting for changes in environmental conditions without spending a ton of time and ammo shooting in different temperature and altitude conditions.

They are not super intuitive to use the first time but once you figure it out it will save you a tremendous amount of head scratching.

quote:

Originally posted by Creeping_Death:
Hopefully by fall I have more experience to gain a better idea of what will suit my progression!

Gun forums always discuss guns as things. Buy this & that, buy more, keep buying. Then buy some more. Rarely is any real effort placed on the process of shooting, especially developing enhanced shooting skills. If one wants to be successful at longer distances, that person’s skillsets will almost always need some work.

ELR isn’t about shooting from a bench rest, with the rifle fully supported by mechanical devices – such as Sinclair rests. Such rests remove the shooter from the rifle/sights/ammo question of accuracy. It’s akin to saying “I’m an excellent driver”, when all I did was turn the ignition to get the engine running. Regardless of gun website, you’ll see folks with purdy targets at short distances, with rifles locked into mechanical rests. In reality, the “shooter” can’t claim much credit for such targets. If one can walk away from a gun in a rest and the gun remains sighted in on the POA, the “shooter” wasn’t the primary reason the bullets hit the target.

Assuming one isn’t shooting standing on one foot, off-hand, one-handed…we all use some level of rifle support. The question comes down to whether the shooter ultimately controls the result of a given shot.

Stealing shamelessly from Rifles Only, the fundaments of marksmanship include:
- Develop a natural point of aim. Align gun to target, then align body to gun. This is how the rifle recoils straight back, helping to make the bullet go straight forward to POA.
- Develop a solid sight picture. Sights on target, eye in center of scope’s eyebox, maintain a proper cheekweld.
- Manage breathing. Maintain a regular breathing cycle, breaking the shot at the normal respiratory pause at the bottom of the breathing cycle. Don't hold your breath to break the shot.
- Trigger control. Press the trigger so that one breaks the shot without disturbing the sight picture.
- Follow through. Keep sights on point of aim throughout the recoil cycle, watch the shot impact the target (or the miss – Doh!).

The best way to develop precision shooting skills is by having immediate and accurate feedback for every shot. This means that shooting paper targets, where the shooter can’t see his impacts immediately through his scope, provides limited support for enforcing good shots & for correcting bad ones. A better solution is electronic scoring, however the shooter still needs to get his eye out of the scope and look at a monitor. IMO the best solution is a reactive target, such as hardened steel. The best steel target is a freshly painted one, immediately in front of a large berm – with berm conditions which easily indicate target miss impacts. Bottom line – find a range that has steel targets.

Spotting your own hits on steel requires that you manage recoil well enough that your scope doesn’t move much from POA. The best technique keeps the crosshairs within about 1 MOA of POA. But 2 MOA variation sometimes works OK. When folks often say “I saw my shot – it kicked up dirt to the right of the target”, here’s what often occurred:
- He breaks the shot. Recoil moves the reticle a few MOA up and likely to one side of the POA.
- The bullets hit the dirt.
-The shooter eventually stops the gun movement, then brings the reticle back near the POA.
- The shooter sees a puff of dust, and assumes the bullet landed somewhere near the center of that dust cloud. If there’s a breeze moving the dust cloud, well….it gets more nebulous.

When a shooter REALLY sees his shot:
- He breaks the shot. The reticle remains on POA, the shooter focuses on the target.
- The bullet lands on or near the target. The shooter watches the bullet impact, and notes the dust cloud and/or bullet splash.
People who haven’t done this might think it’s impossible. But the best shooters do it every shot, every day. Right up front, I’m not one of the best. I have my days of poor fundamentals. Had an entire match of crappy fundamentals last fall, and I shot the worst I’ve done in many years. So it’s not an automatic process. Most of us must concentrate on the fundamentals every day, often having to re-learn them.

Let’s start with a 600 yard target, a 308, and 168 Hornady match ammo. My ballistic tables show time of flight (“TOF”) from breaking the shot to impact at .78 seconds. Not a huge amount of time, but with solid fundamentals, it’s pretty darn easy to see your own bullet impact steel or dirt at this distance. TOF to 300 yards is only .35 seconds – now it’s getting harder to have eyes on target when the bullet hits. TOF to 200 yards is only .23 seconds. I’ll be honest – with a 308 at 200 yards, I must have a stable shooting position and be having a good day to see those impacts. TOF to 100 yards is only .112 seconds. I’ve had a few REALLY good days when I see these impacts, but they’re pretty much once in a blue moon.

I recommend you start with steel at 600 yards and see how things go. If you don’t have steel, but have a good dirt berm – pick out a rock on the berm and shoot at it. When your fundamentals are working, you’ll be watching the rock AFTER breaking the shot and BEFORE the bullet impacts.

Now your 300WM recoils noticeably more than your 308. Spotting impacts with a 300WM at 600 yards is much harder. TOF might be around 2/3 of a second – a reasonable amount of time – but keeping the 300WM gun on POA throughout the recoil cycle is the challenge.

Let’s assume you have a 12” steel target hung from the top with a single flexible strap, set at 600 yards. Roughly 2 MOA in size. When you break the shot with solid fundamentals, the reticle remains inside the target the whole time, and you watch the bullet strike the steel.

Let’s say you hit the right edge of the target, at 3 o’clock. Even your 308 will cause the steel plate (5/16" or 3/8" thick) to wildly twist to the left (counter clockwise from a top view), and the target will oscillate for quite a few seconds. If you actually saw the impact, in that split second you know it was on the right side. If you didn’t see the impact, you’re guessing on which side it hit – as the target is oscillating in both directions. If you don’t know on which side the impact occurred, you won’t know how to correct a wind call for the next shot. This is among the most important fundamentals of ELR shooting – you must know where every bullet lands. There are very few "one shot, one hit" targets. It's more likely "one shot, one correction". Unfortunately, sometimes more than one correction.

Most of the ELR matches I've attended allow up to 2 shots per target.
- Hit the target on the first shot and I receive 2 points. Move to the next target.
- Miss on the first shot, but hit on the 2nd shot -- 1 point. Move to the next target.
- Miss on both shots -- 0 points, move to the next target.