Coordinating Trigger Squeeze with Sight Alignment
It is very important to practice squeezing the trigger gradually as you are aligning the sights at the point where you want the gun to fire. The nanosecond that the sight alignment is right the gun should fire! Aligning the sights first will often result in coming off the target during the time it takes to squeeze off the shot. Practice dry firing until the firing pin falls the instant sight alignment is right!

I like the Combined Technology (CT) Ballistic Silvertip 7mm 140-grain bullet for deer.
The 139-grain Hornady SST bullet is equally good for all deer species.

The 7mm Remington Magnum with a 162 grain boattail bullet has a ballistic coefficient of .514, and a sectional density of .287, great for elk & moose. Properly loaded it will leave the barrel at approximately 2900 to 3000 fps. For Elk 1500-ft/lbs of energy is usually considered  the minimum. Coupled with a minimum bullet SD of .260, the 150-gr bullet provides an SD of .266 which should work very well with the better constructed bullets.
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Speaking of safe gun handling, this should be taught to everyone that handles a shotgun or rifle.
Whenever you raise the bolt handle straight-up move the safety to the safe position before you chamber the live round!

On a shotgun or rifle, when the action is slide all the way back immediately set the safety!
A gun should never be loaded magazine or chamber unless you are in the immediate area of the game you are going to shoot.

For many reasons, you are much more apt to have an accident resulting in shooting a person that is very near to you in the field! Think about these scenarios!

Rifle Hunting SAFETY WARNING: At any time when Hunters are too close together they are in a high level unsafe hazard zone! If a deer is sighted one hunter may move into the line of fire of the other hunter. This is an imminent danger when a deer is down and then regains its feet and is escaping, either hunter when in the process of shooting at a deer usually won't see the other hunter, --if he is real close,  --move into his line of fire!

I know this from experience because many decades ago when I and my hunting buddy had downed a deer and we were nearly upon it, it appeared done for but regained its feet and began to run, I stepped forward and to the right to shoot it and within inches of having my head blown off when he shot the deer  putting it down for good.  I went down from the muzzle blast as we were very close.

He was behind me and I assumed I would be the only one shooting! Never assume anything, or you or your hunting companion may end up dead!

Wind drift: A  45-degree wind drift angle isn't half the wind drift of a 90º-angle, but is three-quarters the drift. It has a 75 percent effect, even though the angle is only halfway between no drift effect and full drift effect. The drift effect is not proportional, due to the aerodynamic ballistics of a bullet in flight. Just remember that halfway between full and zero effect is nearly three-quarters the drift of 90-degrees.  Multiply the 90º drift by .75 for 45º drift. Memorize these aerodynamic ballistic realities.

 Memorize these aerodynamic ballistic realities.

Swing through the middle of the body, squeeze off your shot when the lead looks right and be sure to keep swinging, --follow through.

Keep this lead information in your head and practice visualization leads in your own mind and with your rifle, squeezing the trigger and following through! It works for me and it will for you, too! Visualizing in your mind the various combination of shots and angles conditions your brain's reflex habits and will make a huge difference in your shooting abilities. I no longer claim to be a marksman as I have a lot of handicaps these days.

The 7mm Remington Magnum is quite a cartridge and I can see why so many are influenced to buy and use it!
I wish it did not have the "belted" brass case as I reload for a hunting buddy.

I've probably made a lot of enemies posting the realities concerning leading running game, as I've heard every imaginable story of how, "the critter was running at top speed 300 yards away broadside and I held on his nose and blew his brains out." "Oh yes, this ultra mag bullet gets there at the speed of light."

Well, if you  were shooting the a 7mm Ultra Mag with a 140 grain Nosler Partition bullet @ 3425MV and the deer was running broadside at 30mph/44fps at 300-yards (no cross winds) bullet flight time is .296-sec X's 44-fps, you would have to lead his brain by 13' feet!

That's pure unchangeable ballistics math that can't be modified much by a mere miscalculation of what happened. At any rate what I put on the chart is very close to the required lead, barring a lot of other factors I won't list here; you can probably think of a number of them.

Darrell Udelhoven
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        Posted: 11/24/05; Edited 03/12/07
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