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Your Best Shots. Let’s Hear Those Stories.
Frogdog
Member Posts: 2,992 ✭✭✭✭
Okay, hunting or otherwise, let’s hear some of those great shot stories.
I don’t have anything crazy great, but a couple of memorable ones:
- Age 12. Rustburg, VA. Daisy Powerline 880 with BBs. At my friends house by the pond and a couple pigeons flew over. I swung up on one and hit him right in the chest at full speed flight straight above us. He crashed into the yard and we cooked it for lunch. Note: when his mom walked in and found us eating a pigeon, she was none too happy.
- My early 20s. Buckingham County, VA. Squirrel hunting with my Granddaddy’s old Stevens 24. Saw a bushy tail, and he saw me and lit out like he was on fire. Up a branch and big jump to another tree. I was leading him for a shot with the .410. When I pulled the trigger, he folded right up and hit the ground. Boy was I surprised, though, because I hadn’t flipped the selector switch. I expected .410, but got .22. Got to the squirrel, and had got him right through the temple.
Ok, let’s hear some of yours!
Comments
First year deer hunting with my late father's 30.06. Note it was also the first year I had EVER used a scope. I had not shot a single round through it, and trusted that Dad had set it perfectly so no tinkering needed.
I'm sitting on a downed tree looking into an area where three ponts came together. I hear a log truck come through and then brush crashing behind me. I spin around and see deer and lots of them. I see antlers in the lead deer and pull down on him. One shot, he stumbled about 10 yards and crashed into a tree. Fell dead there. All of this happened in less than 10 seconds. Spin, see antlers, sight, pull trigger.
This was the first deer I put in a tree where it died after I shot it but not the last. 😆
My dad was a helluva good shot. When I was about 10 or 12 we went to a family reunion on a farm in Ohio. A bunch of us kids and a few adults were out back of the barn plinking with 22's. Dad and a couple of his brothers were having a little competition shooting off hand at various things like cans, eggs and other smaller objects. One of my uncles put a cigarette on the rail of the backstop with the end facing the shooters. After 3 or4 folks tried and missed it was my dads turn. He picked up his Winchester 69A with the optional receiver sight, squinted a bit and shot that cigarette. We found the front half of the empty paper tube but the compressed tobacco blew out the back half. He casually took the empty tube and put it in his shirt pocket, cased his rifle and went to get a plate of food. Never said a word about his shot. When someone else asked he would just smile. Dad is long gone but that rifle sits in one of my safes. Bob
Cold snowy day, I hid out in the barn to maybe catch a crow out in the field scratching on a cow pie. I had Dad's ole trusty single shot 22 Ranger, open sights. I saw one light about 30 yards away, Took good aim and pow, crow fell in his tracks and something jumped up about 20 yards further out. I did not see that crow, 2 birds with one shot. I think I was about 12 years old maybe.
I could tell tales all night and they would be true stories for sure, Spent many years in the woods with hunting buddies. Just lost a neighbor and best friend a month ago. Wasn't a critter both on land or water safe for many years as we were growing up.
I was working 11-7 the night before doe day one season, so I got in the woods after daylight. The place I hunted was National Forest, and all the pull-outs were full of vehicles. I found a spot and climbed a steep bank only to jump several does who ran like rabbits. However, one stopped and looked back at me, about 100 yards. Out of breath, I rested my .270 against a tree and shot. Hit her right between the eyes.
I took her to my girlfriend's house to process. Her neighbors were out and I stopped.
" This is how you shoot 'em, boys. Saves the meat."
Probably my luckiest shot ever. Was 15 and hunting in Pennsylvania for the first time with a rifle. My father's Winchester model 88 in 308. I was watching four deer on another ridge, running back and forth. The Third time they came across the ridge, there was now five of them. The deer at the end of the pack, had antlers. I couldn't see how big he was, But he was definitely legal. Just as I aimed, I heard my father voice behind me say, You will never hit him, he is too far away and running. I put the scope on a spot between two trees and started counting the deer. 1,2,3,4,POW. After the shot, I didn't see any deer. All I heard was my father say, Damn son, you nailed him. Hit the deer right in the neck, in his spine, and he dropped like a brick, behind a fallen tree. 180 yards on a flat out run!!!. Pure luck!!!
Duck hunting about ten years ago. Got all set up and started calling. Not one duck all day. I started out at 5am, and now it was getting near dusk. Just as I was ready to pack up the decoys and dog, I saw a duck coming into my set up. The Wood duck was about 150 yard when I saw him. At 80 yards, he turned and started flying parallel with the shore line. Just for the hell of it, I let off a shot. To my surprise, that duck folded up and went right into the drink. I don't know if I shot it or if it had a heart attack mid flight!!! LOL. Either way, I made my dogs day and mine too.
My best shots no, my luckiest shots, yes.
Back in the late '70's we were going out to feed the cows in two pickups. My buddy was in the lead truck and his grandpa and I were following. As we left the first stackyard with both pickups wallowing under all the bales we'd thrown on 'em a coyote ran across the road left to right in front of us. Delly got out with his 22-250 and popped off a shot... Dang! Hit him low in the right rear leg. He worked the bolt, aimed, and click! Out of bullets! He laid his gun in the seat and grabbed his cousin's gun which was identical to his, racked the bolt, aimed.... BOOM! Clean miss. Rack the bolt, aim, click. Poop. His grandpa and I are starting to laugh a bit now and Mr. Wiley is doin' his best to reach Mach 3 on three legs. He's probably pushin' 300 yards now and not slowing down. Delly grabbed the last gun in the rack, his dad's pump 270 and lets it rip. Boom! Another miss. Furiously racks the slide, aims.... CLICK! I swear I have never heard a dry fire that loud! Now Del's fumin' and sputterin' pretty good and his grandpa and I are in full-on belly laugh mode. He looked at me and said something implying my questionable ancestry and that perhaps I should just go ahead and shoot the damn thing if it's so easy. Well, I grabbed my Model 70 out of the rack, worked the bolt (making sure that I saw a shell go into the chamber!), took aim a bit over the head of this coyote that's now gotta be 400 yards away and still haulin' the mail trying to get across the pasture. Breath in, let it out, caress the trigger... Splat! Right in the back of Wiley's head. Dropped like a sack of rocks. I looked over at Del and his mouth was working but no words were coming out. I unloaded my rifle and put it back in the rack, easy peasy. Delly was not pleased.
Probably couldn't repeat that shot if my life depended on it!!
These are some fantastic stories!
And for the record…..
GREAT shots = when you do it.
LUCKY shots = when somebody else does. Haha!! 😂
Thought there was only a couple of blowhards here, but I was wrong!
I had a T/C Contender in 30 Herrett with a Leupold 3X scope. I took it to my cousin's farm to do some plinking. We went out to one of his fields and got out of the truck. Just then, a coyote popped up and ran directly away from us. My cousin whistled and the yote spun around and turned sideways. I took the shot off the hood of my truck and the darn thing dropped like a sack of potatoes. We stepped it off, and the shot was almost 300 yards! Pure luck! My cousin went to his grave talking about that shot. 😀
I shot several whitetails with that gun, but none at over 100 yards.
Back about '82 I shot the * off a mule deer. The second shot mercifully dropped him. He almost thanked me when I walked up to him! A few of my friends still remind me and laugh about that incident. If I'm lyin' I'm dyin' Eddie
no real great shots, lucky as all get out yes . but noting worth bragging about 😕
if only I had bought a wrld clazz polished under sized bored chamber with the optional milled bolt face bolt perfect zero tolerance ruger 10-22 when I had the chance I would have a better story 😪
Yep, we missed our chance. Word on the street is that the CIA sucked up all those “worls clas” 10/22s. It is all a big secret, of course, but I heard Chris Kyle’s rifle was actually one of those. Believe it or not, he wasn’t even IN the Middle East. He just took his shots from the SEAL base in San Diego with a “worls class” 10/22.
We need Earl back
I used to hunt a hickory woods that was full of rabbits and squirrels. My step son and I were walking across the pasture towards the woods when we see a squirrel coming down a tree. There was a fallen tree handy to rest on and I dropped that squirrel at about 110 yards with .22 mag from Grandpa's Savage 24 .22 mag/410.
This is a dime shot at 50 yds with an old Springfield model 120 I think , with a lyman 422 scope . No luck here my sonhas about 10 of them I shot 40 years ago
I always heard the old-timers talk about striking matches by shooting the match sticks
never tried it but always wondered if it could be done and how many shots lit the match and how many missed or just broke the match
An extremely lucky offhand ~250 yard shot on a rockchuck, with a 4 5/8" Ruger Standard .22. Pure, unfiltered luck, and I claim nothing beyond that. The best that I witnessed, period, was Grandpa wingshooting two ruffed grouse, with a Wingmaster .410. 30+ years later, and the speed he shouldered, swung, and fired still amazes me. They were within probably 25 yards, but damn, the execution of it all was just perfect.
About 15 years ago, my brother and I were pat hunting, ( ruffed grouse ) with a couple of friends and weren't having any luck. Saw a bunch but the leaves weren't all down and they never presented a shot. Walking back to the car I was on the far right of the group when someone jumped a cottontail. It ran by me and I swung around and with one shot from my trusty 20ga SxS piled it up. Picked it up and put it in my pouch and we continued back to the vehicle. When we got there one of the guys wanted to see how bad my bird load had tore it up. I pulled it out and none of the four of us could find where it had been hit. Took it home and skinned it and still no evidence of it being hit. To this day they refer to it as the bunny that I gave a heart attack!😀 Bob
If you do a ton of shooting and take a lot of crazy shots you score one once in a great while. We have a farm in the middle of nowhere, Iowa, and a great friend and I were shooting on the river bridge which borders the property. The river channel is about 30 feet bank to bank, and there is a curve about 200 yards each direction from the bridge. We would watch for sticks, leaves and what have you to come floating down and when we could see a target we commenced fire. I was shooting my Taurus Model 96 .22 revolver at a large floating stick about 125 yards away when after one shot my buddy said he thought he saw a bird drop in the river. Sure enough, a blackbird had flown into my line of fire at over 100 yards and been struck in the head; we examined the corpse when it finally made it to the bridge. So I can claim to have shot a bird through the brain, out of the air (in front of an unimpeachable witness), at 100 yards with a handgun! Just like I called it!*
*I added this part because the witness died about 10 years ago so who's to say I didn't call it first?
Yup, some shots are so great you earn the privilege to ascribe intent after the fact! 😉
Who would have thought that a ..22 cal. lead bullet would penetrate a dime at 50 yards! How in the world did you ever find them after they were hit? I'm gonna have to try this but I'm gonna use pennies, they are larger, cheaper and softer!
A few years ago I had just finished building a fair copy of an original halfstock Hawkin rifle. It was a 54 caliber percussion gun with a 34" tapered barrel made by the late great Bill Large. (who made fine muzzle loading barrels)
After completion I took the rifle out to my club range that was an hour drive one way to test fire it before shipping it off to a buyer. Got my target set at 50 yards and took the first shot off hand with a load of 80 grains 2F Goex black powder and a spit pillow ticking patched .53 round ball of lead. That shot was a dead on Bulls Eye!
Next, I set up a string of clay pigeons that were made with hangers by our club and placed them out to the same 50 yard line. IMMIC there were 5 targets and with each and every shot I took, one of those pigeons disintegrated!
As I left the range that day, all I could think of was that I sure wish that rifle hadn't been already SOLD!
most were stuck right in the log backstop, some flew who knows where and years later my son found a few with a metal detector he bought
Killed a Barn swallow from about 30 yards with a Pump pellet gun when I was aroid 7 or so. Felt horrible.
Fast forward, the first round out of a new Henry with 357 was an apple at 40-50 yards. Apple became white mist.
Was sighting in a Barrett M95. Had bore sighted it at home. First shot from rifle was about 1” high and right at 100 yards. Adjusted sight to center and 2nd shot was 1/4” off dead center. Good enough to go again. 3rd shot missed paper (100 yards). Stopped and when range went cold, checked target and turns out 3rd shot was about 1/8” higher than second.
Brad Steele
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Oh man, there's a classic!🤣
The old rifle range south of town was right along the highway, and I drove past it at least twice each day. One day I'm coming home from work, and noticed a familiar pickup parked there, so I swung in to BS with a friend. He was at the bench, testing some new loads he had worked up. A Remington 788 in 7mm-08, with a new bull barrel, and an old Weaver target scope. I walk up to the bench, he sees me coming, and starts shaking his head. I ask him if something was wrong.
"You damn right there is! I don't know what happened, and it's awful! I try and I try, and I can't figure it out!" He looks up with a sheepish grin, and finishes with "I swear this old rifle is so accurate, every time I pull the trigger, the hole in that damn target gets smaller!"
I live in Iowa, we can't use centerfire rifles to hunt deer, with some odd exceptions. For the most part, We use shotguns with slugs and open sights. Yes , I know there are exceptions. On the first morning of deer season I'm armed with my Browning A5 with a rifle sighted smooth bore slug barrel. I was posting and walked in to my position in the dark. As dawn slowly made its way into the loess hills , I heard the deer approach. I didn't see him until he was about 30 feet in front of me. At 15 feet he stopped to look at me, trying to figure out what I was. I carefully aimed at his chest and fired. He jumped straight into the air, took a few steps, whirled around and stopped in the same place, 15 feet away, but facing the opposite direction, completely unscathed. The next shot, at 15 feet, mind you, struck home. He ran about 75 yards and fell over dead. There was only 1 hole in him. To this day, I don't know how I missed him. Now, to the best shot I've made. Same place, one day later, the sun is up, it's about 8:30 am, and its a beautiful day. I see 2 deer about 200 yards away, grazing near a pond. I watched them for 15 or 20 minutes and thought "I'll give it a try." I had a decent rest to take the shot and the deer didn't know I was there. I finally squeezed off the shot, at 200 yards, and the deer took 2 steps and fell over dead. That's my story of the worst and best shots I've ever made.
Don’t feel too bad about the miss. I once missed a broadside standing doe clean at 10 yards with buckshot. I’ll never be able to explain that one. Luckily, I didn’t miss the love-struck buck that followed her 5 minutes later.😁
In the 1940's my granddad told my dad to go out in the back pasture and get some meat for dinner. He was sitting when he heard some turkey gliding down off the top of the hill. With his 30-30, he took a shot at one in flight. When he got home and cleaned it there was no bullet holes anywhere. Then he saw what happened. The bullet had clipped the legs at the tendons and the turkey flipped head over heals till he hit the ground and died on impact. The legs give them balance and steering in flight and with no control, he crashed and burned.
Sorry for the long post....
In December of 1989, I was hunting in Northern Illinois during Firearm season. It was somewhere around 5 degrees out with a brisk 30 MPH wind out of the Northwest. I was freezing after sitting in a stand for almost 3 hours. Nothing was moving as you might expect.
My hunting partner and I got together and decided to push up a fence row. He drove to the other side of the property and set up about 3/4 of a mile away. I gave him 15 minutes to get in place and then I headed up the fence row.
There was a little snow on the ground and with the wind, I was covered both sent and sound for the most part. After walking a about 200 yards I stepped right on a small 6pt buck. I about wet myself when he bounced up in front of me. As I took aim, a much larger buck stood up about 30 yards away and was off like a rocket, so I tried to get a clean shot at him. 6 or 7 does popped up and were running in the same direction as the big buck.
I was hunting with a smooth bore slug barrel on an Ithaca 37. First shot I missed completely. 2nd shot I managed to hit it in the rump and knock it down. It was an 80 yard shot and I headed up the fence row to get eyes on it again. About that time it stood up and was off again. I had no shot due to some trees between us. I watched it jump a fence and then lay down in some tall grass.
So picture a guy in 4 layers of clothes moving as quickly as possible about 250 yards down the fence row and stopping at the corner where a 2nd fence row intersected with the one I had been following. I could see the buck's antlers about 70 yards away in the grass and he was still moving. He stood up and then layed back down.
I hit the ground and low crawled to with in 25 yards of the buck. It stood up and started to run and a second slug ended it. It was a 10pt that I had watched at a distance during bow season. I was really cold as I field dressed it and hoped my buddy would be coming soon. About the time I had finished cleaning it, a truck rolled over from cattle path and within 50 yards of me and two guys got out. The driver said, hey are you sure that is your deer, we have been trailing one for a over a mile. Words were exchanged and I offered to show them my badge, they got back into the truck and took off at that point.....
About that time, I heard two shots to the south where my buddy should have been set up....I stayed with my buck and in about 15 minutes he came rolling up the fence row in his jeep with a small buck on his hood. He drove over to me and sure enough, it was the 6pt I almost shot.
The funny thing about my buddy's buck was the poor guy had been feeling sick. He😬 had dropped his pants and was leaning up against a fence post doing his business when his buck ran by....so he was really cold when he shot it....
It was a good day, we still laugh about it !!!!!
was out at a public range one day and was shooting a few pistols and had brought an old remington black powder pistol to play with more than seriously shoot. I had been shooting golf balls with my buckmark 22 when 2 young guys pulled up and got out and proceeded to place body size targets about 10-15 feet out from the bench. they proceeded to draw and shoot these cardbourd targets for 50 rounds or so. I had been sitting and loading the black powder pistol while they were doing this and they both were talking about how good their groups were and such.
as they proceeded to reload their magazines I told them to hold their ears as I was gonna take a few shots. There was a golf ball out about 20 feet or so and I took aim with the pistol and knocked it about 3-4 feet foward, second shot did the same, and also on the third, for the 4th shot it was out 50 foot or so and I hit it almost square it sailed out to the 50 yard line where there was a smallpile of sand, fifth shot I hit it and it flipped over the sand pile out of sight.
those two boys just looked at me with the funniest face and ask if that was a muzzleloading pistol, I said yes and there was one shot left if either of them wanted a try. they looked at each other funny packed their stuff and left. mumbling to each other about that old guy hitting a golf ball 5 times in a row. It was one of the luckiest days I ever had I would have been happy to kick dirt on the ball once let alone hit it 5 times in row, but I wasn't gonna tell them that.
This wasn't so much of a lucky shot, as just a fun prank. One of the stages at a local IDPA match had a skateboard on a track that ran from the shooters right to the left. There were two metal rods sticking up from the deck and each had a balloon attached. The skateboard started at the top of a ramp about 5' high and ran out about 25 feet to the left. At the buzzer you stomped a plate that released the board and then you simply shot each balloon as they moved right to left. The range to the target was right at 10 yards.
Sounds easy, right? I saw lots of misses while waiting my turn so I snuck a couple of shotshell cartridges into the top of my magazine. At the buzzer I drew and shot about as fast as I could. Both balloons were broken before the skateboard was 3/4 of the way down the ramp! Wow, Steve, that was amazing! That's when the guy picking up brass noticed the aluminum shot cartridges... Hey, what are these? LOL!
Of course I fessed up to it and then shot the stage correctly. I think I wound up 4th out of 22 or 23 doing it correctly. After that every time we had a stage that involved breaking balloons the SO would always check my mags at the Load and Make Ready command...
A fun thing I did was when my shooting partner and I were shooting ground squirrels from a platform in the back of my pickup. He would take more time than me when lining up for a shot. I would look at where he
was aiming and shoot the squirrel before he could pull the trigger. He would mutter some profanity at me then we would both crack up!
One time I was standing at this urinal and hit the x-ring from 3 feet away, no drips!
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
In a few years three feet will become two feet with 20% on the floor ! 😲
Don't you wish you could piss like as 12 year old😣
Why is it the last drop, as one get older, never drops until you zip up.
True story.
I bought a 220 Swift about 45 years ago. Sleeved 40-x action and had a very heavy barrel. Fellow I bought off of had been on many of a P- dog hunt and had shot the original throat out, started life as 222 magnum.It was topped with a vintage 24 power Redfield.
Couple of buddies were big ground hog hunters. They invited me along one day and laughed at my "machine". Shooting distance was from 50 yards to 500 yards. No chucks that day but there was a old fence post about 400 yards away with a solid knot about the size of a quarter. Good aim and pow. We walked to the post and sure enough the knot hole had a .22 hole dead center. Can't beat luck.
Boy that Swift would and still shoots. A treat to shoot right at dusk. You can see the bullet trail.
Weak pelvic floor muscles. It happens to everyone if they live long enough. There are exercises that help.
Another reason why they invented goloshes! 😲