My MOST MEMORABLE shot.

[Legionnaire]

You reminded me of another. My younger son had some friends in high school who enjoyed paintball. Their dad had some property and had invested in a bunch of equipment. They invited us out to play one Saturday. I'd only done paintball once before, whereas the high schoolers played regularly. They were all swaggering around, talking smack, etc. One asked me if I was any good. I said, "I don't know; I'm not very familiar with paintball equipment. I practice with real guns." As I said that, I swung around and sighted on the trunk of a four-inch diameter tree about 40 yards away and planted a shot dead center. The accuracy surprised me, but I didn't let on. Kid's eyes were like . "I think I'll do okay," says I.

 

[Thomasss]

I graduated from the Missouri School of Black Powder Accuracy, aka blackpowderaccuracy.com. I shot 5 round ball in the center bull, 3X , and received a Cum Laude diploma in beautiful hand script. I'm not sure if I could do 5 shots like that again after 18 years, but after writing this today I'm going to try. The technique that the program taught me did sharpen my muzzle loading skills using a .54 cal. Lyman Great Plains Rifle cap lock with buck horn sites and to that I am eternally grateful.

 

[Deus Machina]

Not me, but my grandfather. Conveyed and witnessed by my dad, confirmed by grandpa. Grandpa never took credit for stories he could get out of, neither are tellers of tales, and it's the only in my life I've ever seen dad laughing and clapping him on the shoulder, so I'm inclined to accept it. And I personally skinned the the evidence.

Grandpa was on the start of his health's decline, so dad invited him on one of his squirrel hunts. Not much to get ready for, grandpa just grabbed his jacket, shotgun, and couple boxes of shells.
Dad got a few, grandpa caught one chattering from a tree, and to quote dad, "swing up smooth and quick as he ever had," and got a sudden reminder that he hadn't unloaded the shotgun since the last deer season.

Dad came back with a corn sack of squirrels. Grandpa got a tail and pair of hind legs.

 

[Old Dog]

In 2015, a Puyallup PD (WA) detective named Scott Bramhall put down a murderer with two shots from a Colt LW Gov't Model (5") 1911 -- from what was later measured as between 80 and 84 yards.

I used to be privileged to be a firearms instructor for (and a member of) some fairly high-speed tactical teams. For a little while, I liked to end our range sessions with a drill called, "Can you make the shot?"based on this incident, which involved running 50 yards, stopping, drawing, and then attempting a 50-yard HEAD SHOT (on our paper "bad guy" targets) with the pistol. One day, none of the guys on the team (fifteen guys and a gal) out there qualifying could make the head shot (it was rare that anyone even accomplished a grazing head shot). Remember, this was after running fast for 50 yards...

So, this day, one of the youngsters (20-something cool dude) on the team called me out and said, "Bet you can't do this either, old man."

Challenge accepted. (Unfortunately, sometimes pride and ego trump age, experience and common sense.)

I ran the 50 yards full speed (well, old guy full speed, anyway, almost collapsing at the mark), shakily drew my plastic fantastic 9mm from my Safariland 6360 holster and took the shot.

Right between the eyes.

Yeah, I'll never replicate that shot ever again as long as I live. I lived off that shot for a couple years and apparently it provided me some credibility, but I'll never allow myself to be lured into a situation like that again.

 

[armoredman]

I forgot one, not me, but my kid. He is a whiz with a semi auto pistol, regularly shoots at 25-50 yards with his P-10S. But this time he was going to try the gun his mother, my ex-wife, left behind after the split. He had fired this gun once, IIRC, and didn't like it much, but for grins and giggles he wanted to try this at 100 yards, with a subcompact CZ 2075 RAMI.

He fired and HIT the steel 3/4 scale IDPA. He cranked off more hits before I got him to stop so I could get a picture. See that one right below the orange sighting spot? That was the first round, out of a subcompact pistol at 100 yards. At the end he was getting eight out of ten on the steel every magazine full. I know some guys here can do that in their sleep - I certainly can't!

Funny thing, he doesn't have the same luck with revolvers...

 

[SwampWolf]

Back in the early sixties, I inadvertently left a deer slug in the Filson jacket I was wearing on a duck hunt. I didn't realize it until after I killed a redhead breaking the speed limit over my blind and saw the the large hole in its breast. I examined the spent shall and, sure enough, the 12 gauge-sized hole wasn't the fault of the full choke on my old Winchester Model 97!

 

[SwampWolf]

Ours dads cooked them for us, and I haven't shot a coot since.

We eat them all the time but then we're not all that picky. Mud hens might not be as palatable as rice-fed canvasbacks but if you skin them and remove all the body fat they taste better than spotted owls.

 

[thump_rrr]

Not one but 10 shots.
I shot a 50-9v this past Sunday at 500m at a competition this Sunday.
The 500m stage has 5 exposures of each target for 3 seconds.
The targets can be presented at center, right, or left.

 

[Howland937]

I've made a few shots over the years that I was proud of and similarly missed a few gimmes. I still think my best ever was right after Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. Nerf dart pistol, from the living room, through the open dining area, stuck it in my sister-in-law's ear as she ate dessert at the kitchen counter. Offhand, no range finder. I guessed it around 26 feet and held over about 8 inches. Full transparency though, I  was trying to shoot the bite of cheesecake off her fork.

 

[tws3b2]

My son just bought his first handgun. We went to the range for his first shots. He had fired one mag when we walked to the target to see how he did. I noticed a spent 410 caseing laying on the ground. I picked it up and put on the post, brass up. We walked back to the line @ about 10yds. I turned, pulled my pistol and fired at the 410 caseing. One shot and the caseing flew into the air. I guess there are plenty of people that can do that every time. But, Me? Not so much.

 

[Meeks36]

My best shot was with a bb gun. We had a squirrel dog growing up. He always barked at them so I decided to give him one. Squirrel at the top of a pine tree. Pumped through joker up 100 times. Steady the rifle on our clothe line. Took my time aimed and squeezed the trigger. It came tumbling down. Perfect head shot. Dragged skipper over to it. He sniffed it, bite it and walked off.
Last one was a wood boring caterpillar. My paw paw was shooting at it for 20 min when I got off the bus. Couldn’t hit it. Told him let me see if i can get it. First shot. Had to be millions of bbs in those woods from me and my friends.

 

[WestKentucky]

Back in the day of ridiculous bets starting with a $2 bill and a whole bunch of double or nothings until we broke even… a few of us were comparing and competing with our newly acquired single six pistols that were bought extremely cheap and well used with a generous side of shady business dealings to go along with it. They were all evidence guns and were confiscated from poachers, but in a plea deal they forfeited property and paid significant court fees to plead down to a much lesser charge, or at least that’s what we were told. 3 of us bought a total of 5 guns and mine was the most expensive of the pile at a whopping $150 somewhere in the ballpark of 2009. First day with the guns, none of us were used to them, and we were starting to get good. A wasp flew by and wouldn’t leave us alone. My buddy smacked him with a hat towards the target and as he turned to come back at us I shot. He fell. I had shot his wings off.

Another time, same group of friends, shot my buddies moms duck with a 357. It was another of the $2 bill bets. Duck was at about 165 yards on first shot, flew, and I sank him on 2nd shot at about 300.

Same group of guys, plus a new guy. New guy is a yankee with a new 12ga of some sort. I remember it was expensive and top of the line. He couldn’t hit squat with it. Was missing every clay that got thrown. I got a 17hmr out of the truck and when the clay gently fell below the treetops I broke it on the first try.

 

[hps1]

Following is picture of 3" spotter which was placed in my first shot from prone position, no artificial support @ 600 yards in an NRA approved HP rifle match. I was using Mod. 70 target rifle with aperture sights. The 15th shot is the one that took out the spindle holding the spotter in the target.



Regards,
hps

 

[Smaug]

I will relate my brother's, as my best doesn't hold a candle:
We were kids; he was 13 and I was 15. We were out in a wooded area surrounding a lake. Red-winged Blackbirds everywhere. We had our pump-up air rifles. Mine was a 760 Pumpmaster, his was a 66 Powermaster with the 4X scope. His vision is only correctable to 20/60, so he needed the scope. I had 20/20 at the time.

I was popping birds left and right; maybe out to 20 yards at most. My brother didn't want to kill anything, so he shot cans, sticks and such.

We were walking together and a blackbird landed in a tree about 50 yards away. "Why don't you take a shot at that blackbird, Larry?"
L: "Naw, I don't want to kill anything."
Me: "Not to worry, you'll never hit 'im at that range, shooting BBs from your rifle." (I remember watching BBs corkscrew coming out of the barrel through the scope)
L: "OK. Won't the BB drop too much?"
Me: "Hold about a foot over 'im."

He lined up, standing offhand and sent it. *TICK* I thought he'd hit a branch.

Me: "You missed."
(a few seconds later, the bird swung around underneath the branch he was standing on. A few seconds after that, he lost his grip and hit every branch on the way down.)
Me: "HOLY SH1T, YOU GOT 'IM!"
L: smiled in pride

We bush-wacked our way through that 40 yards of swamp, but couldn't find the body.

He never shot at another animal after that. We still talk about it to this day. He retired from hunting on that day in about 1990. I've shot gongs at 120 yards with air rifles standing offhand, but I don't consider those shots to be equal to his, as I was shooting .22 domed pellets from a rifled barrel at maybe 900 fps muzzle velocity, not .177 BBs at 750 fps.

 

[Smaug]

Whitetail season 2017. After hiking forever into a new to me area on guvmint land, I sat down overlooking two streams at their confluence. I stood up after a snack and promptly spooked two big does who had wandered into my overlook unnoticed. I was pretty bent about it and I went up the hill behind me to a small rise which over looked the one creek to the north. I was storming and stomping and doing everything beside being subtle. I crested the rise which had a log across it, only to see a chandelier with legs sprinting away to cover. I used gravity to prone out with the log as a rest and the stud disappeared behind some hemlocks. I did some sort of magic calculation in my head using time and velocity and distance and yanked the trigger on the .270 into the woods in the space of 1.2 seconds. I knew that there was no human for miles beyond so I had no safety concerns.
There was no possible way I hit but at least I fired my rifle. My buddy texted me asking if I shot and I replied that I did but there was no possibility I hit. I did my due diligence and went to look anyway.

I crossed the creek and toddled around and there it was.

Blood everywhere. Sloppy trail leading away for 40 yards. Piled up was no B&C winner but certainly the nicest male deer I’d ever shot.

...and that's how hunters get killed in the woods.

 

[troy fairweather]

I've got a few good shots I'm my mind but one that always comes back to me when hunting.

I had a marlin 336 35 rem dad gave me, he got from a farmer. Gun had lived it's live leaned up inside a barn, one side of the gun was rusted and pitted same inside the barrel but the gun shot fine. I never put it on paper from the bench but I put a old crappy William peep the most of the screws for windage were broken or cracked off at the screw slot. I camo painted it and hunted with it for years, each year I'd shoot one or to rounds at a paper plate and always hit it.

6-7 years ago now when 35 ammo was very hard to get I broke out some very old Remington boxes of ammo, probaby from the 40s or older. Again shot a paper plate and was hitting dead on. Went hunting with my buddy at his sister that is along the basherkill in New york, I was purched up on a hill about 30 feet above the area I looked over. Nice little hunting spot I would sit next to a large pine tree looking over the area. It was kinda swampy and had little steams about 5' wide and I like watching the otters and fishers or martins whatever they were swim and chace fish.

I knew were most deer came from and they came in that afternoon where I thought, they were about 300 yards off and coming right to me where there was a natural clearing. Then they stopped as someone to there right started cutting wood maybe 1/4 mile away. So they turned 90° and walked to my right. I got up slow and made my way to the right skuring the hill. There were a few bucks in front and by time I got to a place to get a shot only 2 where about to hop one of the small creeks to were I couldn't see them any longer.

Being up higher I was looking into the bottom part of the trees where the branches started, the last deer stopped and I instinctively pulled up and shot. There was like a 5-10 foot path thru the trees, it was like looking thru a tube without no libs or anything. I remember in my head the front bead was about a foot over the back the bead covering the deer. When I shot and loaded a new round so quick I almost didn't remember doing it. And saw no deer, as I looked a branch fell from the tunnel I shot thru about 10 feet long. Watching if hit the ground I looked part it and seen the deer purched up on a little rise in front of the creek.

I spent like 10 minutes looking for the fired case since they were like gold, I must have slung the thing far not finding it in the leaves to the right of me. Then my buddy walked up asking what I shot, I pointed at the deer and he said it ran pretty far. I said that's here it was standing when I shot is. He couldn't believe that old pos gun I used shot that far. I was a bit surprised to, the used his range finder and said it's was over 250 yards. Walked down and field dressed it, was a easy drag I used one of the small creeks to drag it almost all the way to my truck.

l looking at the bullet hole and was taking a picture since it looked like a laser beam punch a hole thru the shoulder. Of course when I did I dropped my brand new Samsung galaxy at the time into the chest cavity which was now a small pool of blood. My buddy didn't stop laughing that whole night, and still gets a chuckle when he brings it up when where telling storys.

It may not have been a crazy far shot but for the old girl it was a Accomplishment for sure. I never did figure what the bullet drop was at that range. It's stuck in my mind how Instinctive the shot was, no thinking no holding steady I just pulled up and fired thru the path in the trees and wonder how that bullet cut off a tree branche and still dropped the deer.

 

[alsaqr]

The sow on the left of the photo below was leading the sounder at full speed. i assumed a good sitting position with my scoped CVA Magnum Hunter muzzleloader and fired: The hog dropped. Distance was a lasered 216 yards.

 

[Ethan Verity]

I shot a normal size party balloon at 100 yards on my very first try, with an NAA 22 Short mini revolver! Repeating that shot was not as easy.

 

[Pete D.]

nothing compared to some of the exports described. On my last pheasant hunt before my spine went bad, I was carrying a .410. The dog flushed a bird from under a fallen log. By the time I got myself around, the bird had gone almost to the trees...an honest 40 yards. I said "what the H..ll." and took the shot. The bird dropped.

 

[bangswitch]

Standing at station 8/9 on the skeet range, I got a double throw with one shot......purely by accident. We were trying for fun, since that isn't a normal skeet shot.

Here's a short video of the group I used to shoot with. I'm the guy with the "cylinder bore, wide choked, $1200 imported English Skeet gun"

Granny, Jethro, and Ellie Mae Clampett Shooting Skeet

www.youtube.com

 

[Spats McGee]

Two quick stories, one of mine and one of not-mine. I'll start with the not-mine. When I was about 10 years old, we were out dove hunting, and one of the adults (I forget who) shot at a dove that was heading straight towards him. The shot wasn't really all that difficult, but 10-year-old me was awfully impressed when that dude pulled off his ballcap and caught the falling dove in it.

As for the story that's mine... I took a buddy of mine out with a because he decided he wanted to get his CHCL & start carrying. One of the things I took was my first carry pistol, which started life as a SA GI model 1911. We were using oranges as targets, and I went out and lined them all up on a small rise that we were using as a target stand. I commented on how much I like my 1911 and how easy it was to shoot it well. I then proceeded to hit 8 oranges with 8 shots, offhand. I'm not sure I could repeat that if my life depended on it.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

You'd probably surprise yourself with the oranges today.

The 1911 is an easy pistol to shoot.

 

[CajunBass]

I'm going to tell three. Two on me, one on my Uncle Roy.

First one. I'm squirrel hunting one morning, using a Marlin 39A with a cheap 2X7 scope. I'm watching the woods and see a squirrel run down a tree, and around to the other side. He about 40-50 yards away, with just his head sticking around the tree. I line up the scope, and squeeze one off. I'll either hit or miss clean I figure. Squirrel vanishes...Missed I guess. Then I play the shot back in my mind, like a video..I think I saw a pink mist in the scope just at the shot. I walk over, and there he is, shot right through the head.

Second. Opening day of dove season. In Virginia you can't hunt doves until noon, or at least you couldn't then. Like most everyone else I get to the clubhouse early and some of the guys have set up one of those skeet tossers to raise money for the club. I think it was five bucks for fifteen birds. I don't wingshoot a lot, and I'm not much of a shot with anything, but what the heck. Here's my five. I step up to the line with my Remington 1100, and smoke the first bird..then the second, and so on and on. Finally on the last two, without telling me, they threw a double messing with me. A quick right/left and two clouds of smoke. I step back like it's something I do every day. (They were not hard shots at all. Mostly straight away.) Then my buddy comes up with his new 870 and takes his shots. He hits half or so, I forget how many now. Then on his last one he hands the gun to me and says "Try it." Naw...Go ahead...try it. OK. I step up and smoke that one too. Sixteen out of sixteen. "Watch him today! He's on today" I hear from the peanut gallery.

Of course, then I went out to the dove field and couldn't hit the ground with my hat.

But the most impressive one I've ever seen, and again it wasn't really a hard shot I suppose was one my Uncle Roy took. Again a dove hunt was involved. It was my first time on a dove hunt. I was just a kid, and tickled pink to be invited along. He and bunch of his Navy buddies and I pilled into a car and drove what seemed like a million miles to me to a farm where you could pay five bucks and hunt (can't do that anymore). I shot up a couple of boxes of shells and probably hit nothing but sky for all I remember, but I do remember watching him as a dove lit the afterburner and headed straight for him. As smooth as silk, he raised his Parker 20, and fired. Feathers exploded, and then trailing feathers like a crippled fighter plane, the dove started his death dive. Still standing in his tracks, just as cool as if he practiced it a thousand times, Roy reached out with his hand and caught that dove like a first baseman catching a soft line drive, and put it in his game pocket. He then broke the Parker and reloaded the spent barrel. I can still see it today.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

My two oldest brothers (13 and 15 years older) tell the story of them rabbit hunting as teens back in the 60s. One with a shotgun, the other a .22.

Anyway, while working along railroad tracks the typical method is for one (or two) to be tramping through the brush along the side(s) of the tracks with one person walking the tracks to shoot any rabbit flushed out. In this story, the brother with the .22 was on the tracks when a rabbit popped up on the tracks running straight away from him.

One shot, the rabbit flopped dead. Picked up the rabbit...and couldn't find where the bullet hit him. Three guesses where the bullet hit on the rabbit and the first two don't count!

In another story, the brothers were swapped with the one carrying a 12 gauge semiautomatic walking the tracks. A rabbit was flushed up on the tracks by the brush stomper, who promptly heard "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!" in rapid succession.

"Did you get him?!?"

*holding up a mangled bloody carcass* "Got him!"

The rabbit popped up on the tracks headed TOWARDS the brother instead of away and he unloaded the shotgun until he finally nailed the rabbit right in front of him. Wasn't much left, to hear the story.

 

[hps1]

Chief's rabbit story above reminded me of a favorite story about my recently passed, life long hunting buddy. We spent a lifetime hunting, fishing and shooting HP rifle competition together. He was the brother I never had and I miss him dearly.

This particular morning, we had spent the early morning hours deer hunting and then switched gears to calling predators (thus the 30-06 in the role of a predator rifle).

We were sitting on opposite sides of one of the roadways at an intersection & calling, as we had done hundreds of times. I was covering the north and west 2 tracks and he had the south and east two.

We'd been calling about 15 minutes or so when I heard Don whisper, "coyote". I slowly eased around to see a coyote running hard to the call, at least 600 yards to our south. I stopped the call, but he never slowed down and when he got within about 100 yards of us, I noticed his tongue was hanging way out, like he had come a long distance! About that time I heard Don's 30-06 bark and the coyote tumbled end over end in the middle of the roadway.

I congratulated him on the shot and when we picked up the coyote, there was absolutely no sign of a bullet entry or exit. He was shooting M2 ball from which he had pulled the full jacket bullet and replaced it with a 150 gr. Nosler partition bullet. A very mild, but effective whitetail load which we had both used successfully over the years. Obviously the bullet had entered the coyote's open mouth and never exited, as there was absolutely no visible blood to be found. We figure the bullet must have entered the spine, as that is the only way we could explain no exit.

Earlier that same year were hunting together when we spotted this nice buck a bit over 100 yards. It was Don's turn to shoot and I watched through binoculars as he dropped the buck offhand, with that same load.

When he passed I learned that his widow was planning to sell that mount. Never could figure out why anyone would purchase a mount that they had not harvested themselves, but this one means more to me, than my own mounts do.


RIP, Don.

Regards,
hps