[Jeff Higgins]

This newer breed of "long range" target calibers all have one thing in common - quite long, heavy for caliber bullets with very high ballistic coefficients. This "BC" is a quantification of aerodynamic drag, and is used in deceleration calculations which are in turn used in trajectory and wind drift calculations. In a nutshell, the higher the BC (which correlates to lower drag) the slower the bullet will slow down once fired. Velocity plays into this, and has a greater influence upon trajectory than wind drift. Interestingly, higher initial velocities in a given caliber often result in greater wind drift, which is a function of deceleration. But that's kind of getting into the deep end of the pool...

In any given caliber, we are faced with any number of choices in bullet weight and design. It's all a tradeoff - lighter bullets can be started faster than heavier bullets. The old school of thought was to shoot a lighter bullet faster, which has the affect of providing less bullet drop, at least initially, at "hunting" ranges - maybe out to 300-400 yards. Beyond those ranges, the lighter bullets become victims of their deceleration, which is greater than that of the heavier bullets. As a result, trajectory and wind drift increase exponentially.

Heavier bullets must be started slower, so their shorter ("hunting") range bullet drops are greater than that of the lighter bullets. Hunters will shy away from this, seeking to gain a "maximum point blank range" at which they can hold dead-on on their quarry without having to consider trajectory. But, once we exceed those ranges, both bullets will begin to drop enough that the shooter will have to compensate, and wind drift becomes an ever increasing factor as well.

Up until very recently, long range shooters were striving for the best of both worlds - very heavy for caliber, high BC bullets launched at very high velocities (well over 3,000, sometimes 3,500 fps). There are a number of problems with this, with recoil being the most readily apparent - one can't help but notice every time the trigger is pulled. The second, and much more insidious problem, is barrel erosion. Burning lots of powder in relatively small bores (.30 and under) erodes the throats out of these barrels very, very quickly. And the shooter must be very mindful of barrel temperature - heat one of these big boomers up too much and you can ruin it in less than a box of ammo.

These new "long range" calibers take a different approach. Smaller cases with moderate capacity shooting very heavy bullets at moderate velocity, like in the 2,500 fps range. Worries about barrel and throat erosion all but disappear and, due to modern laser range finders and the afore mentioned modern optics, trajectory simply doesn't matter anymore. Not in this game. We simply adjust the scope on the fly, or use the marks on its reticle for corrections. And there is almost no recoil. And, without getting too deep into this, wind drift is actually lessened over that of a larger cartridge case launching the very same bullet at higher velocity. Kind of counter intuitive, I know, but wind drift is a function of deceleration which is a function of drag, which goes up exponentially with velocity.

Anyway, the real salient point is that we have removed concerns over trajectory, and therefore velocity, from the long range equation. This has allowed us to optimize other factors in the ballistics equation, and markedly increase long range effectiveness. We're just not beholden to high initial velocities like we used to be. That's really opened things up for us.