Range finding, w/o optics

[POLICESTATE]

Can someone point me to a good web site or something that explains some good techniques for estimating range without the use of a scope or binoculars. I can't judge range for squat and I need to fix that.

[ar15barrels]

I don't know how you would judge range without some sort of measuring instrument.

I suppose you could take a ruler and hold it at arms length and use it to measure how tall something was at distance, then measure the length from your eye to the ruler and calculate the distance.
This is how a mil-dot reticle works.
Of course it requires you to know the exact height of the object you are measuring for your resulting distance calculation to be correct.

Personally, I use a laser rangefinder.
It's not a scope or binoculars.

The easiest way wthout buying anything is to measure what your stride is and then just pace off the distance you want to measure and calculate the distance based on your stride.
To measure your stride, lay out a 100ft tape measure and then count how many paces it takes you to pace 100ft.

You could also carry a really big tape measure to directly measure the distance to something.

[esskay]

If you're just trying to improve your ability to eyeball rough distances -- you can look around at various landmarks, try to estimate the distances, and then check your rangefinder to see how close you come. If you practice a lot that way, I'll bet you'll get some improvement.

Actually, I think one time I was at Randall's we were doing just that -- guessing distances to trees, buildings, cars, etc and checking against the rangefinder.

[ar15barrels]

I think one time I was at Randall's we were doing just that -- guessing distances to trees, buildings, cars, etc and checking against the rangefinder.

That's the best way to learn.
You have to do it in all the environments you shoot in though.
It's a lot harder in open spaces.

[Pyro3]

The Army teaches a field expedient method using the fingers of your extended arm to measure the width of an object. I believe each finger width is supposed to represent approximately 10 mils. Once you have the approximate width in mils, you determine the range using the formula Width=RangexMils. Obviously this is considerably less accurate than an optic with a mil scale, much less a laser, but it will get you in the ballpark.

[GrizzlyGuy]

Try to chunk up the distance into units that you are familiar with, like a football field, distance across your lot, etc. Count up your chunks, multiply by your chunk size, and that would be your rough range estimate.

[POLICESTATE]

I've seen some good ideas on here, I like the finger width measurement, I need to figure a good mil rating for mine, different fingers have slightly different widths, and maybe see how that will work out for me.

I've tried chunking things but I can't tell 100 yards to 60 yards in many cases, depends on where I'm at.

[ar15barrels]

I've tried chunking things but I can't tell 100 yards to 60 yards in many cases, depends on where I'm at.

I have asked MANY people to look down my street and tell me how far something was.
Almost everyone misses on range estimation by a factor of 2.
If I ask them how far away the palm tree is, they say 150yds when it's really 75yds.

I have had people ARGUE with me at the range when they are shooting at 50yds and they tell me it's 100yds.
I give them my Leica rangefinder to see for themselves and they usually get real quiet after that.

[Pyro3]

You can also measure the width of you front site post/reticle in mils and use the same formula. For competition your targets are sized consistantly, so it should be easy tofigure out some benchmarks. For example, figure out at which range the torso will appear 1 site post wide, 2 posts 1/2 a post, etc. If you do this for the head as well as the torso you will have a decent set of range benchmarks.