5 Best Shooting Tips for Long Range Coyote Hunting

 

If there’s a sports is growing quickly, is long-range hunting. Nothing combines technology, skill and the outdoors quite like shooting game from 700 yards away. At the same time, it’s a difficult sport to break into because of the learning curve and frankly, the costs.

While nothing to be done about the price of equipment, how you prepare to go into the field and what you do when you’re there, will determine your success much more than scope or rifle you use to do it.

Here are the five best shooting tips for long-range coyote hunting this upcoming season.

Ranges & Ethics

It’s important to note, long-range hunting is extremely touchy subject ethics wise. Many people either fall into very devout camps for or against long-range coyote hunting. No matter which camp you fall into, coyote hunting as a whole is a net good on the hunting environment and getting people into the field to control their ever-expanding numbers is a good thing.

However, long-range hunting is endeavor that is best taken after you have much experience hunting coyotes and a very solid command of the marksmanship fundamentals. When talking about long-range hunting and coyotes most people assume you will be hunting beyond 500 to 600 yards.

Hitting the 5 to 6 inch kill zone on a coyote at 600 yards is no easy feat. It takes specialized skill and discipline as well as equipment best suited for the job. Very small details like using the correct long-range scope and shooting rest make a world of difference in this arena.

You are duty-bound as a Hunter to make sure you are using the correct methods and equipment to accomplish this task. Anything else is wrong.

Top 5 Tips & Tricks for Long Range Coyote Hunting

1. Bring Enough Gun

Long Range coyote hunting calls for larger calibers that pack a bigger punch than normally would be used for coyote hunting. The gold standard, .223 or 5.56, that is used by so many peyote hunters is not going to be good past 300 yards. Not because it is a lethal, but because it becomes very difficult to predict shots out to that distance.

If you are going to hunt coyotes at long-range consider .22-250 to be the minimum cartridge. Bench rest competitions, as well as standard hunting cartridges, have led to the proliferation of rounds in the 6 mm and 6.5 mm bore.

These are excellent cartridges, everything from 6mm XC, 6mm Creedmore, or even .240 Weatherby can be outstanding choices for long-range coyote hunting. These cartridges not only pack a larger punch, they can use bullets will hire sectional densities and ballistic coefficients for predicting reliable trajectories and killing efficiency past 700 yards.

2. Practice, Practice, Practice

It’s not enough to simply know how to shoot a three round group before you go long-range hunting. Coyotes, or otherwise, the game that you are hunting deserves your respect as an outdoorsman and you should do everything within your power to ensure a clean reliable kill.

Coyotes have a much smaller vital zone than other animals, and they are much easier to kill. While it may be possible to punch through the rump of a coyote with a .243 Winchester cartridge and kill it, that doesn’t make it ethical.

Especially for hunters who choose to use full metal jacket or varmint grenade type bullets that allow you to not damage the height at all, you must be able to reliably predict your shot placement at long-range regardless of whether and animal movement. Practice until you are able to reliably hit a 4 inch circle at the ranges you expect to be hunting at.

3. Use the Right Scope

Varmint hunters typically are outfitted with scopes that have too much magnification, but it goes without saying you should always have enough magnification that you won’t miss because you couldn’t see your target. Coyotes have a brown coloration that blends in exceptionally well with their environment.

Combined with the fact that you rarely see the entire outliner silhouette of a coyote while hunting and you have a recipe for a missed shot in a background.

Bring scope that has been professionally mounted and cited in, as well as check for zero before the hunt that has the features that you need to hunt coyotes. Target turrets, parallax correction, BDC reticles, specialized coatings for hunting, or even custom dials set up for your rifle and cartridge combination are all important features that allow you to hunt at extended ranges ethically.

4. Bring & Use a Rest

It’s always an iffy subject to shoot at game animals without a rest. You should never shoot long-range at any game animal without a rest. At one thousand yards, a single moa is 10 inches. Most people, including the vast majority of hunters, cannot hold a single moa at 100 yards on a rest, much less 1000 without one.

There are a ton of different models of shooting rest on the market that are great in the field. Field expedient rests like rocks or branches are often hard to come by in coyote country, so bring shooting sticks or a tripod.

Shooting sticks are easy to improvise with materials that you can find at home, and we packed way to virtually nothing. Many hunters find that a few sections of old tent poles with the shock cord reinstalled make excellent shooting sticks for cheap.

5. Know Your Equipment

At the end of the day, your ability to use your rifle and scope is what is going to determine whether or not you kill coyotes. Regardless of the range, you should know your rifle inside and out. Know what the trigger is going to feel like with gloves on, know how to operate the parallax correction on your scope if you are equipped with one, understand the way the bullets that you are using work in flesh and know their limitations and advantages.

The night before a hunt is not the time to re-zero your rifle with a brand-new scope. Make sure that all the gear that you are taking in the field is time-tested, not because it’s a life-and-death endeavor but because your enjoyment of the outdoors is going to be directly correlated with your success and comfort in the field. The equipment that you carry with you allows your comfort, your still in using the equipment determines your success.

 

Almost all the hunting errors in accidents that occur in the field could’ve been prevented if planning and forethought were taken seriously. Long-range coyote hunting is exceptional fun that does a good thing for the ecosystem as well as providing excellent practice for marksmanship and other hunting.

When you head out the season to hunt prime coyotes at long-range, be prepared and you greater success in a saver hunting trip. But remember, at the end of the day, it’s all about enjoying our the world’s wild spaces and being successful in our endeavors in the outdoors.

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McKinley Downing is an avid shooter & firearms instructor. He shoots, hunts and is a patriot in the sense that he enjoys pissing off gun grabbers and an anti-hunters. He has worked with and around firearms for several years, and enjoys talking to anyone interested in learning more about firearms and their 2nd Amendment rights. He currently writes for several online outlets on the use of guns, scopes and ammunition, you can find more articles from him on https://ioutdoorpursuit.com.