I consider all my rifle shooting as practice for hunting. My local club has an official practice or a match pretty much every month and I make all of them that I can. Last year stunk because I had to work almost every weekend that a match was scheduled. Normally though - I shoot several prone, across-the-course and "tactical" matches every year.
Today I headed out to the range with the .308, just to ring some steel. It was colder than I'd anticipated, 20's with a good little breeze blowing. Today, because of the difficulty in setting up targets farther downrange - I settled for 300 yards.
Set up the target, hauled out old faithful, the "Green Machine" I've been shooting for a dozen years and a few barrels. It's just a little old .308/Rem 700 with a Krieger barrel and a McMillan stock. Nice, solid, dependable rifle.
Target is a chunk of hard steel, 8x11, hanging in a little frame I knocked together. It's portable, and works fine as a target for any of my rifles.
Deliberately, I set my normal 300 yard dope rather than adjust for the cool temperature. Wrapped up in the sling, proned out and sent the first 168 Sierra downrange. Immediately I saw the steel swing and the solid "thwack" of a good hit rewarded me. It was low on the steel, so I dialed up two "clicks" of additional elevation, loaded the magazine, and sent 5 more downrange in short order. Proceeded to do this several times, until I'd gone through 25 rounds and was cold enough!
That's a pretty short practice session for me. Normally I'll stretch it to 600 yards, and normally I'll do a fair amount of shooting from sitting position, both supported and unsupported, and I even force myself to do some standing or offhand practice. I don't shoot a lot from the bipod or from a bench, simply enjoy the challenge of slinging up too much.
I figure that if I can hit that 8x11 chunk of steel regularly, I'll have no trouble nailing a buck in the vitals.
Regards, Guy