32 • INDEPENDENTSPORTS
NOVEMBER 16, 2007
Argos can’t afford to miss boat to Grey Cup By Damien Cox Torstar wire service
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Paul Smith photo
How far is that moose? New technology can help you accurately aim at a distant target
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ow far is that moose? This is a much more important question than many hunters realize. Let me explain. Let’s say you have your trusty. 303 Lee Enfield sighted in to hit a target dead on at 200 yards. The 180-grain softpoint, a typical choice for moose hunting, leaves the barrel at 2,500 feet per second. The rifle is solidly supported on sandbags and is aimed at the distant bullseye 500 yards away. Of course, 500 yards is a very long shot and it isn’t at all a trivial matter to acquire dead steady aim at this distance. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume our hypothetical crackshot marksman has the necessary skill and equipment to do so. So we have a perfectly straight and unwavering line of sight from the shooter’s eye to the target. At about 25 yards from the muzzle, the bullet will cross the line of sight and then rise to about three inches high at 100 yards. When the bullet reaches 200 yards, it again crosses the line of sight just like it’s supposed to at the rifle’s zero point. For mathematically inclined readers: a bullet is a simple projectile, no different than a football, and travels in an approximately parabolic path. Beyond the zero distance, the bullet will drop below the line of sight as gravity continues to take its toll. By now the bullet is slowed due to air resistance and will drop even more for every yard it travels towards the target. If it weren’t for air resistance, the path would be exactly parabolic. At 300 yards, the bullet is 10 inches down, 30 inches at 400 yards and 60 inches below the line of sight way out there at 500 yards from the muzzle. A moose browsing in the birches at 500 yards would be quite safe. Without holdover, or compensation for bullet drop, the .303 British is just barely a 300-yard hunting rifle. By rights, the range of a hunting rifle should be limited to a bullet drop and rise total of no more than six inches. That’s three up and three down in most cases.
PAUL SMITH
The Rock
Outdoors At 10 inches low, the trusty old .303 is marginal at best. Ten inches low could cause a clean miss or — much worse — a wounded animal. For the .303 zeroed for 200 yards, hitting three inches high at 100 yards and three inches low at about 250 yards, it is in my opinion a solid 250yard rifle. Using the same criteria, the 30-30 is a 150-yard rifle. Shooting beyond 250 yards with the old Lee Enfield is a tricky business. To make a clean killing shot to the vitals, a little holdover is necessary, and the hunter must know the distance to the moose to do this correctly. Arguably, one should never shoot at game beyond 250 yards with the Lee Enfield. To make a 400-yard shot, a lot of holdover is required and the distance to the target must be known to within plus or minus 25 yards. The bullet’s energy and speed are fading, which in turn increase dramatically the curvature of its path. In my opinion, this type of shooting should be left to tactical shooters and military snipers. But if you are inclined to take longer shots, you had better get really skilled at estimating ranges or buy yourself a good quality rangefinder. In addition, you need a bullet-drop table calibrated in 25-yard increments taped to your rifle stock so you will know the correct holdover to use for that particular range. The only way to obtain this critical data is to shoot your rifle at 25-yard increments out to maximum range (whatever you judge that to be) and keep records. This is pretty technical stuff and that’s why it takes years of training to become a good tactical marksman. There’s plenty more to the game than just simply taking aim and pulling the trigger. So what of all these 500-yard kills you hear
about down at the local bar or out in the shed over a beer or two? Either the distance is exaggerated, the shooter should play lotteries, or he or she is an expert shooter who burns thousands of rounds per year. The 30-06, also a very popular moose rifle in Newfoundland, is a true 300-yard hunting rifle without holdover. Whenever holdover has to be used, I call it tactical shooting and I personally never tactical shoot at animals — just targets. You can’t wound a target. The venerable 30-06 Springfield, when zeroed at 250 yards, will drop only about three inches at 300 yards and hit just three inches high at 100 yards. But even if you choose not to tactical shoot or use holdover on critters, you have to know the animal is not more than 300 yards or whatever you choose as an ethical maximum range. How do you know this? Distance in the field can be very deceiving, especially in open country where large animals tend to look much closer than that actually are. Today’s modern answer is the laser rangefinder. For between $200 and $500, you can know exactly how far that animal is from you and your rifle. In recent years, laser rangefinders have plummeted in price and evolved to higher precision and compactness. Mine, a Bushnell Yardage Pro Scout, sells for around $300, fits in the palm of my hand, and ranges out to 500 yards with an error of only two yards. You just look through the eyepiece, and place the crosshairs on the critter or target. Then, just press a button and the yardage appears in the display. This is an amazing technology. It most definitely reduces the risk of wounding animals by eliminating guesswork. These days, I’m always sure my target is within range for the rifle I’m using. It’s a confidence booster and confidence definitely improves shooting. Paul Smith is an avid outdoorsman and freelance writer living in Spaniard’s Bay. flyfishtherock@hotmail.com
here is now an opponent upon which to focus, and that helps a lot. But even before the Argonauts learned that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will provide the final obstacle between Toronto’s footballers and a date in their own Grey Cup game, the first in Toronto in 15 years, the enormity of the opportunity at hand was obvious to one and all. If the Argos can get to the Nov. 25 game at the Rogers Centre, they’ll be the first team since Edmonton five years ago to have home field advantage for the Canadian gridiron classic. And if they can get to the ultimate contest, they’ll have the chance to become the first Argo team in 55 years to win the Grey Cup at home. “We understand that the Grey Cup is in our city,” said head coach Pinball Clemons. “We’ll be giving it everything we’ve got, but we’d be doing that anyway regardless of whether the game was here or in Nunavut.” Still, it’s pretty clear there’s an awful lot on the line for the football team bought out of bankruptcy by Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon four years ago. In a market that provides challenges for every team other than the Maple Leafs, the Argos have the fabulous chance to host two high profile games over the next two weeks, an East final that should draw more than 40,000 fans and a Grey Cup game that will be a sellout. The Argos don’t need to win both to make a spectacular splash, but they pretty much need to at least appear in both to get long-term benefits out of hosting the Grey Cup. With the spectre of the NFL hanging over southern Ontario, the Argos sorely need the impact that would be created by being in the big game as much or more than the estimated $4-$5 million in profits expected to be realized regardless of which two CFL clubs lock horns that day. “When we won the Grey Cup in 2004, it was all new to us,” said team president Keith Pelley. “We really weren’t properly prepared to capitalize on our success. Now, if we are in this year’s Grey Cup game, we will take over the city’s imagination.” That makes Blue Bombers, needless to say, the potential party poopers here. They’re a talented, tough team that very nearly knocked off the Argos at the dome in last year’s semifinal. Nobody in the Toronto organization would dare say it, but you have to believe that the incredibly risky third-down gamble by Montreal that failed and led to the winning field goal by Winnipeg’s Troy Westwood Nov. 11 was a play that had the Argos cursing. You don’t think the Argos would have preferred to face Marcus Brady than Kevin Glenn and Charles Roberts with a trip to the Grey Cup on the line? C’mon. Clemons was positively buoyant about his club’s workouts last week, particularly the offensive practices, and enters this week of practice hoping for progress from kicker Noel Prefontaine, concussed in the final game of the regular season in Regina, and a quick assimilation from import tackle Jerome Davis. Davis was added just days ago to sub for Mike Pearson, who broke his leg against Saskatchewan, and while he’s a veteran and a former Argo, Michael Bishop surely doesn’t need to sense any uncertainty on the O-line against a Winnipeg front seven that includes Barrin Simpson, Doug Brown and Tom Canada. The Bombers may have struggled down the stretch, but make no mistake about it, they can beat the Argos. If that were to happen, it wouldn’t wreck the Grey Cup week. But it would be one gigantic lost opportunity for the Argos. Solutions for sudoku on page 30
Solutions for crossword on page 30