Most traditional rifles are equipped with open sights. A few put an aperature sight on the back end, either on the barrel, or mounted on the tang. No scopes, or electronic sights. Because most people are limited in the available range space to practice shooting open sights at longer ranges, most Traditional hunters want to take shots at under 100 yards. My deer have been killed at from 6 feet, to 40 yards, but I hunt river bottom country, where seeing a deer beyond 50 yards is next to impossible.
I know hunters who can, and are good enough shooters to kill deer at 125, and 175 yards using open sights. Both have been shooting all their lives, are intimately familiar with the gun they use for hunting, have practiced much( both have ranges in their own back yards) and both know, as the gentleman above has explained, the exact amount of ball or bullet drop from his gun at the longer range. Both men are excellent at estimating range. Both are good enough stalkers to move closer to their game, but in the two cases I know about, both shooters were faced with major obstructions, and failing light at the end of the day when they shot. Both shot their deer on the last day of deer season. Both would have passed up that shot on opening day, and both have passed on such shots on opening day more times than they can remember. Both put balls into their deer that dropped the deer in its tracks.
I also met a man who had killed a deer on another ridge, easily over 200 yards, using a 12 ga. slug in a shotgun that had no rear sight. That shot was pure luck, and he knew it. He had never shot at any target beyond 50 yards. And, he thought the ridge was a lot closer than it is. He showed me where he was standing and then where the deer was standing, the next year, and in better light, and even he admitted that he grossly underestimated the distance. The ravine between the two ridges was between 75 and 100 feet deep. It was well after dark before he was able to get over to his deer, with friends, who helped him drag it up and off the ridge, and then down to their car at the bottom of a 200 foot high hill.
I only told that story, because the chief reason to take shorter ranged shots, and to learn how to stalk game to get close is because those long shots tend to cripple, and wound game, and then the animal heads for some really thick country. You will know the meaning of " hard work " when you have to go after your deer in those circumstances, with or without help. It makes more sense to pass on the shot, not where you saw the deer, and be out their the next day or evening to see if the deer uses that same trail again.
