Reply #40: I was thinking of a .30-06 bolt rifle...

[benEzra]

I was thinking of a .30-06 bolt rifle in the post above, but you are correct that it varies greatly depending on the caliber, rifle, and load. Still, the .30-06 is a Way Out Yonder cartridge.

I ran the ballistics of a .30-06 firing a 180-grain boattail, just to see.

http://www.eskimo.com/~jbm/calculations/maxdist/maxdist.html

JBM Maximum Distance Output
Input Data
Manufacturer: Barnes
Description: 0.308 dia. 180 gr. X Boattail
Muzzle Velocity: 2700.0 ft/s
Temperature: 75.00 °F
Pressure: 29.92 in Hg
Humidity: 0.0 %
Altitude: 0 ft
Std. Atmosphere at Altitude: No
Corrected Pressure: Yes

Calculated Parameters
Atmospheric Density: 0.07419 lbs/ft³
Speed of Sound: 1133.6 ft/s
Initial Angle: 35.0 deg
Terminal Angle: 62.8 deg
Terminal Range: 5813.3 yds
Terminal Velocity: 513.7 ft/s
Terminal Time: 34.165 s
Terminal Energy: 105.4 ft•lbs

16 Jul 2007 04:42:20, JBM <http://www.eskimo.com/~jbm>

5813 yards is 3.3 miles. The bullet is only going 513 fps when it gets there, but still, the moral of the story is, don't shoot high-powered hunting rifles at the sky. Even with a flat-base 180-grain bullet will fly 3.1 miles at 35 degrees elevation.

A 150-grain flat base at the same initial velocity (2820 ft/sec), a typical load for a .308 Winchester, has a max range of 2.6 miles (4623 yards).

The maximum effective range of a rifle is the lesser of:

a) the range at which the bullet transitions to subsonic speeds, the shock of which disrupts the trajectory of the bullet, or

b) the range at which the inheirent accuracy of the ammunition/rifle combination is no longer able to hit an 8-inch circle, the size of human vital organs in the chest.

These are, of course, independent of the shooter him/herself, which is even lower than those numbers. If you can only hit an 8" circle at less than 200 yards, then that is your personal effective range, pretty much regardless of hardware or bullet velocity.

Most off-the-shelf deer rifles can shoot accurately enough from a fixed rest to be lethal to about 400 yards.

Cartridges like the .308 and .30-'06 go subsonic in the 800-yard range, IIRC. About a half-mile or so.

Depends on the load and the rifle, methinks. A 180-grain .30-06 boattail is still going over 1860 fps at 500 yards, so it'll stay supersonic a long ways past that. A .308 with light-for-caliber bullets would go subsonic much shorter, of course.

But with a .30-06, if you widen the circle of error to 16" instead of 8" (closer to the size of a person), I think a typical .30-06 bolt rifle would be effective well past 400 yards. 16" is roughly 2 MOA at 800 yards, so I would think 500-700 is reasonable for a .30-06 shooting from a rest on a non-windy day, assuming the shooter could read a ballistics chart.