What was best/luckiest shot you ever made?

[jr4521]

I was shooting at the dump when i was a teenage boy with my Father and I shot an office chair about 100 yards out, with my 223, the bullet went into the tubular chair and came out the bottom right back toward us and took my baseball hat off! i guess it was lucky it didn't hit me in the head, needles to say we didn't shoot anymore that day or at the dump ever again.

 

[Killermonkey21]

I believe I was 14, maybe 13. First deer hunting trip with my dad in the SE area of Washington state. Nothing but gorges, rivers, and dry brush land, with the wheat farm thrown in here and there for good measure.

Season had just started, and me being younger, had the any deer tag, my dad had the buck tag, so if I wanted to I could take two, if I liked. Yaaaay me. I'm gonna get SOMETHING!

Anyway, we only had three days, as I had to be back at school on Monday, and we left right after school on Friday. We spend the next three days hunting...searching...waiting...and a big fat nothing, besides the occasional doe, and we wanted to wait until the last second if we had to.

Last day, we're walking around a gorge and its getting late. My dad says "Ok, I'm gonna start walking back to the truck, sorry son, I guess we'll try again next week." "Ummm...actually, Dad, I think I'll go up the ridge a bit to see if theres anything there, one last time." "Ok son, don't be too long, and call on the radio if you see anything."

So I go walking around the hill and come out on the ridge of the gorge. Look down in the gorge...damn...nothing....

***! Hell yeah! Theres a herd of does cresting the ridge around 250-300yards in front of me, moving perpindicular to the way the ridge cuts. Today is my lucky day!. I call my dad on the walkie-talkie and tell him I found some.

I creep up and take up a prone position in the shade of a small tree and deploy the bi-pod on the .243 WIN, 5 shot bolt action (don't know what make) with a 9x Tasco scope. I remember in my head my dad telling me it was zeroed at 100 yards...so I pick a deer at the lead of the pack, hold on the shoulder...and bring it up jjjuuusssttt a tad.
Safety off.
Squeeeeeeze the trigger.
Boom!
Aww-man. I knew I biffed it. I had flinched at the last second. I look through the scope again...huh? Whered it go?

Come up to the body and find...a pool of blood around its neck. Smack dab in the neck at (paced out by my dad) around 225 yards...at 13...with a rifle I'd fired like 20 times in all...on the last day. Hell yeah.

 

[C. Rabbit]

Saw a flock of starlings alight in the field behind my house. Wanting to do my part to end the threat of an invasive species, I took my .22 savage with scope and went out the back door.

I took aim, from a little higher elevation, as the flock was on a hill sloping away. It was about 75 yards or more away, and after I shot I could see a bird slump to the ground as the rest took off. So I walked over and discovered, to my surprise, three birds dead on the ground. The bullet had entered the chest of the first bird, then through the head of the second, and into the back of the third.

Twas my most efficient use of lead ever.

CR

 

[qajaq59]

Someone had left a 12 ga shotgun shell on top of the 50 yard target frame. I took my Ruger semi auto pistol, and without aiming, I quickly fired and hit it. I told my buddies that I could do that every time. However...... When asked to do it again I said I was out of ammo.

 

[leathermanwave]

My first deer was pretty lucky. My sister had just shot a deer so we were gutting it out when a curious spike mule deer popped over a ridge about 70 yards out I had my brothers ruger m77 with 6X Leopold slung over my shoulders like a bandoleer a pulled the gun off my shoulders threw up the gun saw the deer in the scope and fired. The deer just dissipeared so we walk up to the ridge and I hit it right threw the head.

My next luckiest shot was hitting a barn from the inside. I didn't even have to close the door.

 

[rodregier]

First attempt at long range rifle shooting - Ruger 77 MK II in .308 Win with 12X optic. Had a large paper target and a piece of wood 4x4 (as a reactive target) set up at 900 meters. Didn't have a proper scope setup or "zeros" for that distance, so I was holding several meters above the target to compensate for the trajectory.

After firing a few rounds, went downrange to see what (if anything) had been accomplished. Didn't hit the large paper target, but managed to put a round thru the piece of 4x4 and knocked it down. Decided that was as good as it was going to get for that day.

 

[MinnMooney]

Sorta luck but more like "Practiced Luck"

I was just out in N. Dak. doing some P.D. shooting with my son. He had spotting scope duty at this particular time. I was hitting every 2nd/3rd shot from 300 - 600 yds and decided to stretch it a bit. I had a distict P.D. mound that I knew was 702 yds 'cause my boy had just been out there to see if he hit one. He used the range finder to shoot the truck which was right along side us.
Well, there were several P.D. mounds just past that & we estimated another 200-225 yds. I looked it up on my ballistics read-out (from Sierra's Infinity 6) and dialed in 36.1 MOA on my Leupold 6.5-20x50 LR and took the shot directly into the wind (15-25MPH) with my Savage Weather Warrior Model 16 .243Win. The bullet hit 12"-14" low so I dialed in an add'l 1.3 MOA and took the shot with only his head showing above the middle of the mound.
BAM! Took his haid(sic) clean off! 970 yards at a 2" dia. target. If I could do that with any frequency, it would amount to .2 MOA at 1000 yds.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

 

[ThomasT]

My best was when a friend ask me to shoot some of the squirrels that were overrunning his property.

I was using a Marlin 39 with a 4X scope. I had a squirrel up in the tree about 40-45 yards away. I was shooting offhand and each time the cross hair was on target I squeezed the trigger a little more.

Just as the gun fired I saw another squirrel run behind the first squirrel. The bullet went through the head of the first squirrel and through the head of the second squirrel. It was all luck.

A friend in south Texas shot at a hog with his Ruger 6mm. He said the hog dropped in its tracks. Then a second hog ran a few feet and fell over. He started walking over to take a look and saw a third hog rolling around in the bushes. Three hogs with one shot. Each was smaller than the other and were hid behind the first hog.

This same guy had been working on deer stands. He had several large washers in his pocket. When he got close to his deer feeder he saw a group of turkeys eating the corn. It made him mad (he hated turkeys) so he threw a washer at them. He said the washer made a loop in the air and hit a turkey in the head killing it.

 

[HB]

My best shot was hitting a soda can, at 50 measured yards, with an air pistol... 2 out of 3 times. My first shot hit low, so i compensated a little and the next two shots found the mark.
Pellets were wadcutters (weighing 7 grains) flying at 400 fps

The best shot I have seen is watching a guy say, "watch this", and hitting a flying bee at 15 yards from the hip. Crazy luck.

HB

 

[wyosasquatch]

Only two times for me...

First:
I was shooting clays with a buddy when he threw one and I clipped it with one pellet splitting it into two pieces. I then picked up both pieces with the second and third shot before they hit the ground. I put the gun down and didn't touch it for the rest of the day.

Second:
Another friend had just picked up a new to him, used Remington 700 in .270 Winchester and we were checking it out. He was shooting it and was struggling to hit the target. He said it was probably the scope. He wanted me to try it out and I shot a three shot group that was under an inch at 100 yards. I didn't touch that one for the rest of the day either.

Neither of these are super spectacular but they have made a couple of my friends THINK I am a good shot.

 

[chriske]

Similar to some of the above, but here's my 2 cts worth :

1) Once on a dare, cleared 5 out of 6 bowling pins with one cylinderful from my S&W 640 snubbie. Never even tried to duplicate it.

2) Extremely lucky & unforgivably stupid: one ND where I barely missed the cat but punctured a -brand new- couch. Also think of that one often. Older now, and if not wiser, much much more alert & careful.

 

[russcoh]

A Minnesota state ranked Biathlon shooter and I were walking at the cabin many years ago, I had a Glenfield 22LR with a Walmart scope I'd mounted myself, had never been bore sighted or even shot with this scope. There was a small plastic bucket about 300 yards away, told him I could hit it. I took an unstable standing shot with the rifle, and to my shock, actually hit the bucket. He grabbed the rifle and went prone, spent about 3 magazines trying to hit it, never did. He still to this day probably thinks I'm a better shot than I really am....

 

[jonmerritt]

I saw a pretty amazing shot once when hunting with some buddies. A couple of us had filled our deer tags opening morning, and we decided to go quail hunting. We had flushed a covey, and were roaming around trying to kick up singles. One popped up in front of my buddy, he swung and fired. The quail exploded into a cloud of feathers and chunks, and we both stood there slack jawed listening to the gentle whistling sound of a rifled slug flying toward the horizon.

I almost fell out of my chair !!!!!

 

[WNC Seabee]

Not my story, but I'll share any way.

1980, I was 7 or 8 and walking the fields with grandpa on his farm. 5 pheasant flushed at one time; all 5 pheasant down with an Ithaca 37 pump made in 1941. He gave me that shotgun when I turned 13 andit's still my favorite gun.

 

[Superlite27]

While dove hunting with my dad two years ago, we spent the whole morning out in a wheat field and, not surprisingly, had only ended up with about four or five doves between the two of us. You know how it goes. You're just glad to be outside spending time with your dad, paying more attention to the conversation than what's flying around. So more shots were missed than hit.
We head back to the truck, and since it's about noon and the hunting is done, I lay my 870 (safety on) down on the hood of my truck and crack open an ice cold beer.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a dove pop over the treeline and instinctively grab my 870 WITH MY LEFT HAND and, since my right is holding a beer, I pop the safety off with my thumb and POINT SHOOT LIKE A PISTOL.

Now we have six doves and a good chuckle.

 

[bnkrazy]

I popped a 2 liter bottle from 110yds standing offhand with an AK on the first shot. I think that's the best I've done with an AK.

Once, standing at about 15yds, I was shooting a decent group with my 229 in .40 when, just before the last shot, a fly landed on the target.

My friend said I'd never do it, but after the last shot, there was a hole exactly where the fly had been.

 

[mikitsubizunizu]

Last year, I took my 1891/30 mosin out to a local shooting spot, where we set up eggs as targets. Someone set up a bottle with an egg on top. I was about 50 yards out, and I hit the cap and egg off the bottle, just some egg white in the bottom of the bottle. There was a large rock behind it, which I didn't notice at first, until I checked the egg I shot, the rock was hit in the middle and cracked all the way through. Lucky it didn't bounce.

 

[WheelgunZealot]

A friend was having trouble aiming his .45 autoloader. He wasn't used to the straight eight sights. He knew I had never used a straight eight sight, so he asked me to come try thinking it was going to be a nightmare for me. I quickly raised the gun and shot two rounds in fast succession at the target. Where did they hit? There was one elongated hole dead nuts center in the target.

He told me to finish the clip, but I just couldn't because I knew I couldn't maintain that. There was A LOT of luck involved, but he didn't have to know that.

 

[Sniper X]

I was about 10. We lived in Albuquerque and I had a bunch of friends who all liked to walk the two miles up to the foothills of the Sandia Mountians and shoot rabbits and birds with our BB guns or .22s. We were walking along and the topic turned to who was the best shot. Everybody picked me as the one. While still walking, a member of our group, Billy Barber, said, hey Kev, if you ARE the best shot, shoot one of those birds out of the air! Her was talking about the small flock of black capped chickidees flying overhead. I cocked the Red Ryder, and shot one BB from the hip, down fell a bird, and that was how it all started....

 

[rondog]

This is a great thread with lots of great stories! Keep 'em coming!

 

[WNC Seabee]

I grew up shooting blackpowder almost exclusively. A bunch of folks would get together for weekend rendezvous with all sorts of shooting games.

Best shot I ever made was with a .54 flintlock ~30 yards or so off hand against a tomahawk sunk into the tree. The game was to split your ball on the axe head (double bit) and bust 2 clay birds with 1 shot.

Many many times we'd have eggs on a post...price for a miss? run down range and suck the egg!

 

[KodeFore]

During BRM qualifying with the M16 I knocked down 2 targets with one shot. I was so surprised at this I nailed where the 2nd target was supposed to be.... Just in case

 

[mikebnem]

I went phesant hunting and flushed one, at the same time a male wood duck
flew into my shot.
GOT THE TWO BIRDS IN ONE SHOT.
I could not believe my eyes.

 

[orvpark]

Circa 1990 ( I was 8) I was grounded so I couldn't shoot my .22 opening weekend of tree rat season. I went out with a neighbor of the same age he had a .22 and I had a slingshot. He was up by two for obvious reasons. Suddenly we were hot on the trail of a fleeing target when it took a chance and jumped from one tree, I stretched the rubber band as tight as I could, the leather was loaded with a 1/2" fine thread nut I robbed out of the garage. I saw the white belly, lead him just a bit and released. That half inch nut did the trick, breaking ribs, the bright red bushy tail was dead on impact with the ground.


Ahhh, One more though I do believe it was all skill lol.

I was around 15 and pitched for a little league team. We were playing a neighborhood pickup game of baseball in my backyard and I was on the "mound". I was pitching slow enough to give everyone a chance to hit (there were a lot of younger kids playing) About 25 yards behind home plate I notice a tree rat making its way to the ground down a pine tree. I stretched back, took a breath as the batter readied, threw a fastball just over his head, just as he ducked I started pointing and laughing, he thought I was pointing at him, then realized the catcher (who I knew probably wouldn't catch one of my fastballs) was pointing too. RIP

 

[mgregg85]

My luckiest moment was when I, as a joke, took a shot at a clay pigeon with my 870 at my hip. It exploded into a cloud of dust and I stood there dumbfounded that I had actually hit the thing, on the first try, while shooting from the hip.

Might not be that lucky of a shot but it was my luckiest shot.

I do enjoy trying to shoot the biggest pieces of a busted clay pigeon before they hit the ground. This isn't really luck or that hard but it does look impressive to someone who hasn't tried it before.