It was a progression of distance for me.
I lived in NE Colorado, back in the 80's, and I now live in NE Wyoming.
Even in the 80's I was stretching a 10" 222 Rem, and a 14" 7mm TCU Contender barrels out to around the 350ish range on pd's. The TCU's max distance for deer/antelope sized game max's out around 250 yards. With rifles we were shooting pd's past the 450 yard mark. As the end of the 80's got closer, we were shooting further yet, As the 90's (center-grip 14" 7mm-08 and 15.5" 284 Winchester XP-100's) progressed, so did our distance, and we started shooting steel a little and pd's. We would set paper targets up at distance to see where our actual drops were. When Bushnell released their 400 yard LRF in 1996, that was a game changer for us. From that point on, we kept shooting further and further, and every time Leica came out with a better LRF, I bought it. In the late 90's were shooting on steel out to grand. Also in the 90's I got my first 17" 6.5-284 Winchester XP-100, and a 15.75" lightweight 7.82 Patriot XP-100 (#3 contour I think).
Of course, we were either unethical or liars, when were were killing mule deer, antelope, and elk further than a lot of rifle hunters were back then with center-grip XP-100's in 6.5-284, 7mm-08, 284 Winchester, and 7.82 Patriot.