yard judging


kcall

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What's a quick way to judge yardage without a rangefinder at a 3d tournament?

sometimes you can use your pin gaps to bracket part of a known brand/model 3D target. keep an eye out for manufactured bases and cinderblocks used for bases. there sizes will remain constant. other than that it mostly just takes lots of practice. there's lots of tricks to set up a course to make you estimate wrong and make it hard to guess. best thing is to look it for a handful of seconds, come up with a guess, and shoot for that yardage. if you're doubting or not sure, add 2 yards. watch out for similar consecutive targets that are different sizes (they'll appear to be the same distance and size but they're at different distances), targets up over a rise in the terrain, and very large targets that don't seem that far away (elk, moose, lion, etc.).

there's no real quick sure way to judge yardage. lots of practice and learning some tips and ways to make you fumble the estimate will make you better.

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I normally try to judge the yardage first by looking at the size of the target and putting a number on it. Then I mentally mark off 5 yards and get a number that way. And finally, I check the locations of the other stakes. If you know the max yardages on the other stakes, its a good way to verify if your yardage is close.

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be very carefull at using pins to judge yardage (Gapping) if your shooting a 3D competition. this is considered a rules violation. now if its just for practice, then thats fine.

for me i break yardage down into 3 differant ways. 10 yard increments, find half way point and then double it and first impression. i then do an adverage of all 3 and then set my pin and shoot. i NEVER second guess the yardage when im getting ready to shoot. one of the worst things you can do is second guess yourself and then switch the yardage.

another way to get in some practice is to use a laser range finder and walk the woods and trails near where you live. stop and estimate the range and then use the rangefinder to find out if your right. keep a log book of all your guesses and actuall yardages. this will show tendencies in where you need the most work. make sure you do lots of up hill and down hill estimates as well. dont try to use flat ground all the time, do estimates over gullies and ditches so you can simulate real 3D shooting scenarios.

if you dont have a laser range finder tape off exactly 20 yards. then walk with even steps to find out how many of your steps it takes to get to 20 yards. you must do this at least 10 times and then adverage out the amount of steps to get your adverage. im very lucky in that my boots are almost 12 inches long and that each of my steps is exactly 1 yard.

Tony

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