Long range shooting

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Long range shooting is a collective term for shooting disciplines where the distance to the target is significant enough that the shooter has to put effort into calculating various ballistic factors, especially in regards to the deviating effects of gravity and wind. While shooting at shorter ranges, a shooter only has to slightly adjust the sights to compensate for limited bullet drop at most, but when the range is extended, wind drift will be the first factor affecting precision to the extent that it must be taken into serious account. Some^[who?] would argue that long range shooting starts where assessment of wind, distance and various atmospheric conditions are equally important for the results as pure shooting skills - meaning that even if one conducts a technically perfect shot, the shooter will miss the target because of incorrect calculations, neglecting to take some elements into consideration, or merely due to unpredictable downrange conditions. It is widely accepted within interdisciplinary circles that for a standard rifle firing full-powered cartridges (e.g. .308 Winchester), "long range" means the target is more than 600 m (660 yd) away,^{[citation needed]}, while "extreme long range" is generally accepted as when the target distance is more than 1,000 m (1,100 yd) away from the shooter.^{[citation needed]}

There are several competitive match circuits that typically consist of targets at long range. Benchrest shooting events are often between 100 and 900 meters (≈ 100 to ≈ 1000 yards), F-Class is typically the same with 300 to 900 meters (≈ 300 to ≈ 1000 yards). A growing form of interdisciplinary shooting, becoming known as Practical Precision, places targets at virtually any distance from 100 to 1800 meters and the scoring is hit/ miss on steel targets of various sizes and from various positions (standing, kneeling, prone). This type of match is quickly becoming more popular than F-Class.

Few complete resources exist for teaching the art of shooting long ranges, but there are some dedicated resources and organizations with education as primary goal.^{[citation needed]}