Your Best Shot :)

[BigDMT]

Just thought I'd start a fun topic for conversation.

What is the longest or most difficult shot you have ever taken on a game animal in the field?

Species, rifle/caliber/bullet, range, how many attempts, conditions, situation.... Lets hear 'em

(I know you Deep Creek 1K BR boys have taken game at some outrageous distances, please tell.)

 

[Glenn Powell]

I go down to hunt on a buddy's ranch in north Texas. He told me he had a cull buck running around he wanted to take care of but just could not connect. He would grow one side with 4 points and the other was a spike.

We were driving across a the field after recovering a meat doe I had popped earlier when he busted out of the tree line. He was not wasting any time beating feet. "There's that one horned SOB, get em!" I jack a round getting out of the truck, draw down off hand and let fly. That buck went @$$ over tea kettle at just over 200 yards. One shot, back of the head. I some how keep my cool, clear the weapon, and say, "see, that is how you do it".

That is the only animal I have ever shot at on the run, and my last. Don't argue with the ranch manager, or you might not be welcome back. Cooper built, 6.5×284, Leupold VXIII 4×14×40, 130 Accubonds.

 

[BigDMT]

Great shooting Glen and way to get the job done

 

[Glenn Powell]

Thanks, the best part about the whole deal is I had two eye witnesses 8). Will never happen again, luckiest shot ever. :

 

[nockhunter]

My luckiest/best shot was one morning in western Pa while deer hunting. I was sitting on the edge of a knoll overlooking two ravines. I heard something trotting through the leaves. It was a strange sound, not deer like or squirrel like. When I turned to the sound I was eye to eye with a coyote. He decided he didn't like what he saw, and took off like a shot down the ravine. I swung my rifle until the crosshairs went past his nose and touched off a round. When I lifted my head to see what happened, I was amazed to see him flipping end over end. He was stone dead 75/80 yards down the hill. When I picked him up I noticed his right eye was hanging out and the left one was gone. The bullet hit him right between the ears and come out between the eyes, his skull was mush. I wish I had a witness but I usually hunt alone.
I was using my Remington mountain rifle with a 3x-9x, B/L elite 3200 in 7x57 Mauser, with 140g Nosler B-tips. The rifle I just might be buried with.

Mike

 

[lpreddick]

at 250 yds a ghog was walking behind some trees that were thin enough that i could see it's movement but no way could i get a shot. there was a 6-8 inch opening and guess what? he walked into that little opening and began eating. hell, my bullet was .224 inches in diameter so that was all i neeeded. BLAM and SPLATTT! the animal dropped and only a part of his body was visible thru the opening but he was drt.

 

[Hoier]

I was out coyote hunting one day with a buddy and we were walking back to the pickup and a jack rabbit got up in front of me and was running broadside at about 75yds and I rolled him. Then we went to take a look and about 10 yards behind him was his heart laying in a bush still beating.

The rifle was a Weatherby 223 Threat Response( just a heavy barreled mark v) with some cheapo 8-32 on it and my tall bipods.

 

[2506]

I have really a couple of shots at WT deer that stand out to me. I have killed HUNDREDS of WT deer over the years as a control hunter on a big farm in NC.
SHOT #1: I was hunting with a friend on his lease land on a power line cut. You could see around 800 yards in both directions. He had a nice shooting house stand built on one end but had not had time to build a stand on the end I would be hunting on. All he had was a ladder stand attached behind a small tree that was only about 4 inches thick because both sides of the powder line had been clear cut logged a few years before. You had to stand up in the stand and use the tree if you could for a rest to shoot off of. As always happens the buck came out from the wrong direction for getting a rest off the tree. The way the stand was positioned he was behind me. He was only about 75 yards from me and was a cull buck my buddy wanted rid of because he had no brow tines. He had a wide rack but was only a 6 point with no brow tines. When I tried to turn to get a shot the plywood floor of the stand where the notch was cut so it would sit against the tree moved a little and made this SQUEEKKKKK sound that could be heard a mile a way. The buck turned and ran back into the cut over to my left. It had been really dry and I could hear him running and it sounded like he was turning back toward the power line. 300 yards away there was a dip in the power line cut and I could just see the bucks antlers as he ran down in this dip going across the line cut. Just before he got across the line cut he came up to the top of the bank where the dip started and stopped broad side looking back my direction at exactly 300 yards. I guess he was wondering what made that SQUEEKKKKK sound. Knowing that I had my scope zeroed 3 inches high at 100 yards that I would be dead on the money at 300 yards. I raised my Remington 700 Stainless rifle to my shoulder pulling my forearm hand back almost to the trigger guard and braced my elbow into my body and aimed at the center of the bucks front shoulder. I got the cross hairs going in a clock wise rotation and started my trigger squeeze on my 2 1/2 pound trigger pull when the cross hairs were at 3 o'clock and by the time they were at 6 o'clock in the center of the bucks shoulder BOOM . The 139 gr Hornady interlock was sent screaming from the 7mm Remington Mag pushed by a case full of AA3100 and SMACK was the confirmation the bullet struck where I was aiming. The buck hunched up and stiff legged hopped into the cut over. I found him about 30 yards down the trail in the cut over dead with a perfect center of the front shoulder bullet entrance.

SHOT#2: It was on the farm that I helped my buddy do control hunting for crop damage control in NC. I go over to hunt for about 4 weeks every year. That year they had a hurricane come through and really soaked the area with rain and while I was there they had a tropical storm come through and put down much more rain and limited my hunting time. The land where we hunt really has not decided if it is swamp or dry land anyway so you really needed a boat to get to our best stands and we did not have one. The soy bean fields were under feet of water so the deer were not coming out very much. There were some stands and areas that we could get to being very careful not to step into a hole wearing chest waders and some beans were still about the water. I had not killed all the meat that I needed to take home with me because of the water. It was my last day and I needed one more deer. On the previous two evenings just about 10 minutes before dark I spotted a buck just about 10 yards deep in the woods along the far edge of the field I was hunting. It was 200 yards from my stand to the edge of the woods in this corner. The buck must have seen me move or something the first day because he stood behind a big pine tree and watched in my direction. The only thing I could see was the right side of his head. He did this for two evenings so I decided that if he came back that last day I was going to shoot him through the right eye. I was in a 4x4 tree house with a roof that was built in a big white oak tree. We had sand bags and a 2x6 shooting railing around it. I was using my Rem. 700 Shilen #6 barrel 25-06 that is a bug hole shooter. I was loaded up with rounds consisting of Rem. case, CCI 250 primer, 49 grs IMR 4350 and a 117 Sierra Pro Hunter bullet which would do 3000 fps from the 26" barrel. I had a Leupold 3-9X50 VXII with duplex cross hairs scope mounted and sighted in 3 inches high at 100 yards which made it was 1/2" low at 300 yards. From experience of shooting this zero I knew that if I placed the vertical cross hair where the heavy and finer part of the top part of the cross hair meet it would be dead on at 200 yards. That evening at about 10 minutes before it got dark that buck showed up standing behind the same pine tree. I already had the rifle up on the sand bags ready. I placed the the cross hair where the heavy and fine part meet in the center of that bucks eye and squeezed the 2 1/2 pound trigger and BOOM. I heard the bullet POP. I got down from the stand and walked and waded out to find the buck laying behind the big pine tree with his right eye blown out and the back of his head gone. He was a 6 point buck and was good eating.

 

[357Mag]

Big -

Howdy !

Once made a clean-kill @ 96yd, on a groundhog doing a dead run for his den.

I was shooting a P.O. Ackley-made custom .22-250.... Interarms Mk X ( M-98 ) action, Douglas barrel; Bishop stock.

The rifle was outfitted w/ a 16X Leopold at the time. I lead the animal by what seemd like a foot, and made the shot
while standing. Hornady 55SX over a charge of WW760 killed the 'hog instantly, on a decent chest hit... from the side.

From start to finish, it just all felt " right ", and it worked.


With regards,
357Mag

 

[Tarheel Jim]

Big,

Several club members and I were on the 100/200 rifle range shooting when a sizable g hog came out feeding beyond the 100 yd frames. One member grabbed his 1911 .45 and took several missing shots which sent it back to his burrow. I told them to let come back out and I would take care of it. Several minutes it slowly crept out then sat up beyond the 100 yd frames again. I unholstered my mdl 29 S&W 8 3/8" bbl 44 mag. Leaned back on the corner post and raised the 29. When I set sights on his mid section and squeezed the trigger. Boom pieces of g hog went everywhere. Load was 240 Hornady XTP with H110 behind fired by WLPP's. Distance was 110 yds.

Six members witnessed the once in a life time (lucky) shot.

Jim

 

[bobm]

1980, a crow in flight with a .22-250 .... 52gr. Sierra HP.....M70 sporter with a 4-12x Redfield @12x. A buddy and I were hunting coyotes on a cold Jan. day in South Park, Co. During a lunch break a crow was flying 100 ft. off the deck about 250 yds. away going across from us. I says to Tom "watch this". I picked up the rifle, single loaded a round and led the target by a crow length. WHOP!!!! a feather ball explosion against the snow covered landscape. Tom almost chokes to death on his coffee and sandwich laughing . That shot is burned into my memory forever and I smile every time I think of it.

 

[22turborimfire]

115 yards Groundhog pup running Remington 700 VS 22-250 jewel trigger. 6 x 18 Leupold

 

[jonbearman]

I bought a brand new marlin 1894 in .218 bee.I got her all sighted and took it over to show my friend.I put an early 2.5x5x32 weaver on it from the 1960's.I had my daughter with me and my buddy says go out back of the pond and see if a woodchuck is out.I got there and waited for a few minutes and I spotted one at quite a distance ,so I took a shot offhand and it was drt.I paced it off at 230 yds.It was a 46 grain winchester bullet with ww296 powder behind it.What a riot to shoot that pipsqueak at that distance.It may have been luck but it really happened.

 

[RandyD]

I was on leave from the Marine Corps and visiting my grandparents at their ranch in eastern Washington. My young cousin and I were walking around the ranch and she pointed out a sparrow on a wire, and asked if I could hit it with my .22 rifle. I took the shot and hit the wire (this was a miss by any calculation, except my cousin's) and killed two sparrows with that one shot. She ran back to the house and began bragging to her family about my shot. Her bragging riled up her older sister's husband, so he kept challenging me to a shooting match, which I kept declining. The next day, a group of us were out with .22's and he saw a sparrow on top of an old windmill about 100 yards away. He kept badgering me to take the shot. To keep him quiet, I just threw my .22 rifle up, took a snap shot at the sparrow. The earth, moon, sun, stars were all lined up for me on that shot and the sparrow dropped. To capitalize on my image, I told him it was an easy shot and that I practiced that very shot every day in the Marine Corps.

 

[stinnett1981]

Racoon with a Bear compound bow at 70 yards give or take 5 yards. I was sitting in a tree stand deer hunting for about 5 hours. I was hungry and ready to get out and get lunch. I seen a fat coon way out there. I was bored and decided to draw back and take the shot. The bottom sight on my bow was set at 60 yards. I honestly didnt take my time. I just drawed back, aimed a little over him and released! I climbed down my stand and walk up there right after the shot and sure enough the coon was laying there dead with a arrow straight through the middle of it! I thought to myself..... "why cant I hit a deer at 30 yards!"

 

[treeman]

I was up in wyoming on an antelope hunt in 2004 with several friends I was set up at the top of a draw about 250 yrds south. another hunter spooked a bunch of does up the draw and I could see their heads above the sage as the milled around looking back at the hunter which was several hundred yrds down the draw. I set up my bi-pod but it was too low so I put one pod on the backpack and the other on a tuft of grass and could now see a does head through the scope. the wind was blowing left to right about 25 mph so I aimed about 10-12 inches into the wind and let fly with a barnes 120gr xbullet from my 6.5X284...DRT head shot!!! The next day I came over a ridge and there was a coyote feeding on a gut pile at about 200 yrds and the wind was about the same I aimed about 6-8 inches into the wind and got another head shot. two lucky shots in as many days. those deep fried antelope chunks were delicious!!

 

[oldhoward]

First a quick note to Tarheel Jim. I also shoot a S&W 29 8 3/4 with a similar load. Your shot was not luck, the 29 is very accurate. I shoot pd at 100 yards often. I practice shooting at about 210 yards, between tanks and can roll a milk jug all over the place.
My best shot happen in Texas on a two day hunt. At the end of day two my friend hadn't taken a deer and asked us to help him out. I saw a deer a long way off standing along the ranch road. I was shooting a 300 Win mag in a Ruger #1. My first shot was way way low. I clicked up about 12 clicks and I was hit close to the deers front leg. I clicked up again and shot again. The deer walked slowly toward the tree line and fell down. I walked to my truck and set the trip meter. I drove just over 6/10's of a mile to reach the deer. This was a lot further than I had estimated, but my friend was grateful.
Oldhoward

 

[BigDMT]

WOW! Great stories fellas and excellent shooting

I suppose since I started this thread, I ought to share one of my own experiences. I have many experiences of nearly impossible shots that were most likely pure luck, but this is one of my favorites.

It seemed that in the last several seasons I had been making some really good off hand running shots on various big game at closer ranges (under 100 yards). Like deer and elk. Not because I wanted to, but because that's just how the situations turned out. I had never practiced with off hand shooting, especially on moving targets. Never been a bird hunter or anything, but those shots just seemed to work when I tried them. Perhaps it was instinct and natural unknown ability, perhaps luck. Either way, to date, I have killed about 13 big game animals off hand while they were running. Of all those types of shots made on animals, this story is about my pinnacle moment of the off hand running shot.....

A few years ago I was out hunting behind the in-laws place on some public land for deer and elk. It was the last week of hunting season and I had passed up a lot of smaller bucks so I wasn't planning on being very picky if I saw anything this outing. I had been sitting and glassing this large bowl area from about 100 yards below the rim for over an hour before dark. Saw a few does that meandered off, but nothing else. I was just starting to leave from my cover behind a large deadfall tree, when I decided to take one more scan of the bowl before heading back to the truck. I immediately caught movement in my glass and locked in. No doubt a whitetail buck and not a very bad one either. He appeared to be on the hunt for does because he was walking really fast with his nose down to the ground at about 125 yards. I quickly tried to get back to the log for a good rest before he got out of the nice wide shooting lane I had when I saw him stop dead in his tracks and lock right on to me. I thought "crap! he must have caught my movement in his peripheral vision". I couldn't judge his score very well since he was staring straight at me and it was getting dark, but I figured he was around 135-140 B&C which was good enough for me this late in the season. He took one quick look up the hill of the bowl and then back to me. I knew he was going to bolt at any second so I knelt down quickly and took a shot with my crosshairs shaking all over the place. Normally I wouldn't do that, but I knew I didn't have to hit him well with a 180gr Accubond from my 300 Win Mag at 3230 fps to hurt him bad enough and finish him off and there was no time left on the clock before the opportunity departed. Shaking very badly with a poor knee rest on the side of a downhill slope and massive amounts of adrenaline, I squeezed the trigger. BOOM! I came back from the recoil to notice that I had missed and he was on a dead run to the top of the bowl as fast as any man has ever seen a whitetail move. He was B-lining it out of the bowl at light speed, running from right to left, and nothing was gonna slow him down. Well almost nothing I stood up and slammed another shell into the chamber, pulled up off hand and..."damn no shot!" I had about 3 seconds before he cleared the ridge top but he was in and out of clumps and trees. I stayed on him with my 2.5-10x50mm Burris Signature scope and followed him like a bird hunter swinging on a pheasant in flight. being just in front of him with the reticle center, the wide 50mm objective showed me that there was about a 10ft wide window coming up that he was going to run straight through. I kept on him and knew I either make this or he's gone. As soon as he came into that opening running slightly away from me and uphill, I touched it off one last time in desperation. BOOM! The recoil rocked me back on my feet and when I brought the rifle back down, I was ECSTATIC! I didn't know where I hit him or how well he was hit. The only reason I knew I nailed him was because with my naked eye in the failing light after my recoil recovery, I saw his white tail (that was standing straight up while running) suddenly turn horizontal to the ground. "HOLY ***T! No way!" I yelled to myself in disbelief. I had no idea how far he was when I made my split second shot in that small opening, so I ranged it. Rangefinder read 171 yards. Not extremely far, but he had to have been running in excess of 35-40mph when the bullet struck him. As I worked my way up to him I was even more surprised the closer I got! This buck that I thought to be around 135-140 B&C in fact was closer to 160 B&C with very large 7" brow tines (one with a 4" fork on it) and 10+" G2's. The bullet had struck him high in the shoulder and snapped his spine like a twig. I just looked up to the sky, took a deep breath, exhaled and murmured "what luck, what luck..." and smiled ear to ear as I began dressing him out.

Here are a few pictures of the buck that almost got away Official B&C "green" score was 158 6/8".

 

[Glenn Powell]

Here is another one for ya.

13 years old, sleeping in the bottom of the box stand. It was way too early for a 13 year old boy to be up and lucid. Pop kicks me awake, "buck" he says ever so quietly. I drag myself up off the bottom of the blind and peer out the window. Sure enough, there he was, a little scrub buck. I grab the 30 cal M1 carbine, gently slide it through the window, align the cross hairs, and squeeze. BANG! My first deer, and my all time best shot. That was the shot that got me hooked.

That was the last deer I shot with that little carbine. The next year my pop bought mom a nice little .243 Interarms for their anniversary. She never shot it, and she considered "our rifle" till the day se passed. I still have it, and always will.

 

[BigDMT]

I think one of the best shots I ever made was on a doe antelope. It isn't the farthest shot I've made to date, but the difficulty was way up there.

I had a pocket full of doe antelope tags because I hadn't drawn a buck tag that year. The firearm by my side was my 6.5 Remington Magnum using 140gr Berger VLD's. I had already taken one doe at 465 yards with a nice steady prone rest and no wind. One shot, double shoulder, DRT.

My second doe was a little more difficult. It was a very small herd with just the one doe and 4 other very large antelope bucks. I MEAN MONSTER BUCKS! One of the bucks was the largest buck I have ever seen in my life. And just happened to be a year where I didn't have a buck tag...go figure :
Anyhow, I tried to get a good range on the doe with the very flat ground using scan mode on the LRF. After a few seconds, a reading finally flashed at 625 yards, then 610, then 644 yards. Just too flat to get an exact reading off hand, but it was enough to get me in the ball park. After a bit of thought on what to do, I decided to dial the elevation turret into 625 yards +1 more click on my 4-16x50mm Nikon Monarch. Figured that would make the elevation adequate either way. Laid down prone, checked wind direction and speed. I guessed it was about 10-15 mph coming from 2 o'clock to 8 o'clock. Then of course right then it decided to pick up and begin gusting very hard. Picked up to about 30 mph in the same direction. I tried to wait and see if it would all calm back down, but didn't have much time left before the doe followed the bucks down into a long and winding draw and disappeared. I noticed that the gusts would let off for only a couple seconds, then pick back up for over 10 seconds. So I decided to wait for a large gust and compensate for the faster winds accordingly since it allowed more time to get on target, breathe and squeeze. I haven't made a ton of shots at long range in heavy crosswind, but felt fairly confident with the knowledge of my rifle and its characteristics in the wind so I decided to give it a try. I got set. being that she was facing to my left, I held the vertical post of the reticle clean back on the very edge of her hind end and waited for a large wind gust to show me a steady speed. Wait, wait, wait...There it is, deep breath, hold, squeeze, BOOM! My Dad's buddy who was watching her in the binoculars yelled out "HOLY CRAP BRANDON YOU GOT HER MAN!!!"

When we got up to her we ranged back to the pick up that I was laying next to since that target was much easier to range. 643 yards exact. Then upon examining my prize, I realized I got kind of lucky. The elevation placement of the shot was absolutely perfect, but the bullet had hit her in front of the shoulder in the chest. A few more inches of drift and I would have missed her completely. Fortunately the Berger VLD had tore clean through the very front edge of both shoulders enough to rip open the chest cavity and actually "vacuum" one of her lungs right out of the small hole where half of it was dangling!!! She had ran about 70 yards before dying so we searched back on the blood trail and found the other half of the lung in her trail. So even though it was still a good one shot kill, I probably should have held an extra 6" of wind. But not too bad for judging wind by how hard it was tearing at my hair roots