The Best Shot You Ever Made - Part II

Well, operatin' on the basis of "I'll take luck over skill, any day!", I managed to get a triple on doves with a full-choke Model Twelve, one time. One time...

Broke the neck on a running buck, one time--one time--at around 150-yards. I don't think the distance has grown with the telling. Yet. Gimme time...

Dunno about "best", but I've had a couple of interesting shots. There was the "Patient" buck--or maybe, Stupid--who sat around while I whanged away. He ignored the first three shots, but then she was a real pretty doe. I was figuring 400 yards and holding accordingly for a chest shot. The fourth shot hit a rear toe. Duh! The next several didn't disturb him at all. He finally cooperated and walked toward me. I held on the top of his horns and center-punched his brisket.

And last was my "Feel Good" shot. Last day of the season. Camp all closed down, and me with one tag left. One last jeep-ride around the lease. Saw a decent buck way up a hillside. I held a little high, just above his back; touched it off, and down he went. Heart shot. I'd figured 350 yards; my father said 400. The 150-grain Bronze Point made a 3" diameter exit wound, which makes me wonder why I'm not still using them.

But I'll take luck over skill, any day.

:), Art
 
Here's a good one... OK, before I start, I admit... this was a once in a lifetime lucky shot.

Deer hunting in Texas, 40 miles west of San Antonio:
Walking with 2 other guys through the brush... saw a group of does about 120 yards away, they were in a small clearing surrounded by brush. I was carrying a 30-30 with scope. Glassed the area, only saw the four doe. NO bucks/ NO antlers... that was OK, we could take 1 doe. I picked out the biggest doe, squeezed off a shot and the 4 deer just exploded, taking off running. One deer we saw trip and stumble and fall into the brush. "Got it!" I thought...

Walked over, and there it was: a nice 6 point buck, shot through the heart... I never even saw it.
 
Great posts everyone! I could read these for hours...

Two best shots ever fired or witnessed:

1) I was about 8 and had a lever action pellet gun (one with those round mags that go into the barrel just above the forearm and have to remember to turn with each shot). My dad and my two uncles were shooting clay pigeons out in our field and I wanted to join in. They said "sure! why not... let him shoot at a few."

First clay pigeon is slung... I aim, shoot, and break the sucker into 3 or 4 pieces. Needless to say when the asked me to do it again...

2) A friend and I were up on a storage shed in my back yard with one of those bb pistols that shoots darts and comes with a dart board. Well he sees this cardinal about 30 yds. away and says he's gonna take a shot. I say "you're never gonna hit it with that thing!" Well, he fires and I can actually see the bb in its trajectory from the muzzle to the bird. He hit that sucker square in the head and it dropped like a rock. We're talking about a bb gun that would barely shoot holes in a coke can.

There have been others with real rifles but these seem to stick out in my mind the most.

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Anarchism: The radical notion that I am the sole authority when it comes to deciding what's best for me.
 
Here's one kinda like Art's stupid deer.
Was out plinking at clods of dirt and other "dangerous critters", like dried up cowpies one afternoon about a year and a half ago. I was using my four-inch S&W M15. About twenty-five to thirty-five yards away a $hitbird (grackle, starling, I don't remember) landed and started pecking around at the ground. I held a couple inches high and fired. Well, the dirt a few feet forward and a bit to the left of the bird puffed up instantly. The bird flew up in the air a bit, but then landed again. And, proceded to walk right to where the bullet had struck! So, I'm using my head and aim at the same point I had before. BANG! No more bird.

That was definitely a lucky shot!
Just for kicks I fired again, holding at the same original spot. That time I missed the carcass by about a foot and a half.
-Kframe
 
The most memorable shot I recall is with my first handgun, a six inch Taurus 357. My friend and I took it out to his family's place in the sticks with a bunch of 38s and a few 357s. To my embarrassment, my friend was consistently outshooting me with my own gun...and then we fished a small (two inches long) wooden elephant figurine out of a junk pile and set it up as a target about 20 yards away. I took my first shot and the figurine went flying...we went to look and I had shot the tail off. Set it up again and I took my second shot and again it went flying. I had shot the nose off. Third time, I shot, it blew into a hundred pieces. I felt a bit better about myself after that. <g>
Other best shot...last year on BLM land in Arizona near the Grand Canyon, I took a jackrabbit with my Kimber Gold Match, firing offhand in low light with a snapshot at the critter while it was on the run at 40 yards.
 
Well I don't know if it was the best shot I've ever made but I know it's the one I'm the most proud of.
Growing up in Southern Illinois, as some of you might know, we're best know for having lots of strip mines.
My late father was an engineer at one just west of the town I live in. One of the few perks this mine had was a nice trap range. Need to keep those miners busy.
I'm not sure how old I was when it happened, but I do remember not being very experienced shooting guns. I think all I had at the time was a single shot H&R 20. Well mom took me out to the mine to meet dad, they had just finished up some kind of match at the range, and dad thought it would be a good idea for me to get my first taste of a 12 gauge.
I said sure, it didn't look that hard, I'd seen dad blast'em out of the sky with ease. Well I chambered a shell into his Model 12, got ready, and yelled pull. Smoked it, couldn't have done better if I'd tried. Dad was real proud, seeing his son break his first clay bird, especially in front of everyone he worked with.

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As to marksmanship, it is not what you once did, rather it is what you can do on demand.



[This message has been edited by six 4 sure (edited December 10, 1999).]
 
Yesterday - when I went to the range I mentioned up near Bountiful, UT...

I demonstrated a fast draw and double tap...
This was with my big Springfield. The target was at the 25 yard line...
I wasnt perticularly trying for good hits - just demonstrating the Draw sequance, grip and basic weapon control...
Well - a few seconds later I decided I wanted to chance from a bullseye target to a standard B-27 target. The hits were in the 10 ring - about 4 inches above the X
The holes were touching - sitting in a perfect figure 8.
SWEET.
I didnt comment on it - but there was some muttering about it... :)

Why cant I do that when I WANT to do that?

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"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." - Sigmund Freud
We, the people, are tired of being taxed, penalized, supervised, harassed,
and subjugated by a federal government which exceeds the powers
enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.
 
Shoot, I don't know about "best", how 'bout "luckiest" on several different levels.

Took my girlfriend out in the woods to teach her how to shoot the .25 Beretta I had just bought her for defense. She was jerked off 'cuz she couldn't hit anything (duh, I kept telling her targets beyond about 2 feet wasn't what it was for!). About that time, while we were talking, facing each other, I saw a snake coiled up with it's head raised about 10-15 feet behind her. With my left hand I swept her aside while raising my Python with my right. Smooth and easy motion, one handed shot, and she hadn't even seen the snake when the bullet neatly removed it's head, looked like a guillotine job, no sign of the head anywhere.

We got married about 2 years later, been married 32 years now, and she STILL brings up that shot from time to time. To her, as far as guns go, I are de MAN!! Couldn't repeat that in a million years, if I get only one in my whole life that was the absolutely perfect time.
 
Dropped a male coyote outside of Bend, Oregon with a Marlin .22 rifle. We spotted him moving parallel to us at a range of 150 yards. From an off-hand position, I placed a CCI Stinger in his skull, killing him instantly. It was a cool shot!
 
4 hits in a row on a 10"x16" steel plate, from the prone position at 100 meters.
I know that doesn't sound like much, but I was using a Glock 27.
 
I go out to our area gun club with my Dad often, down on the lower range there is a metal target stand with eight round plates on it and a rope to pull them back up after you shoot them down. It's 50 yards down range by the way.
We had been shooting at them all morning.
Well any way I had just put a fresh eight round magazine in my kimber. He bet my 50.00 I couldn't knock them all down. well the first shot missed, I kept shooting any way I knocked them all but two down and I had one shot left, I fired it off and hit the frame knocked them both down and got my 50 bucks.


I could never do that again ever, I try every time I go there.



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ACCEPT NOTHING LESS THAN FULL VICTORY!"

General Dwight D. Eisenhower-- June 6,1944
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http://www.homestead.com/gunrights/Guns_and_Gunrights.html
 
Best shot I ever made was with a Crossman BB gun. I had pumped the gun up way more than it was designed for and was looking for a shot to take when I saw a sparrow flying across my line of sight. The bird was flying (more like dipping) from right to left about 20 yards away. I took the shot never expecting to hit the thing, but damned if it didn't drop like a stone. Hit it right in the eye.

Couldn't do it again in a 1000 tries.

Robert
 
Hmm tuff one I've had a few. With a muzzleloader, 54 cal penn. longrifle, patched round ball, fixed iron sights, flintlock. I had a orange marker strip hanging from a tree decided to shoot it off the tree at 110 yards, measured it after, one shot from sitting position, shot the twig holding it.

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"Solidarity is the Key"
 
Best (worst) shot I ever made was when I was a kid out dove hunting. I always made it a practice to pop a blackbird for the cat.
So just as I was coming back, a bunch of blackbirds lit on a fence wire and I carefully aimed at the one closest to me and let fly.
That was the day I learned that you don't shoot at the first bird in a LINE of birds.
About 7 fell off the fence. That was almost 40 years ago and I can still see that shot. What a lesson.
 
Lavan, that reminded me of a shot that I made when I was 17. Me and 3 other guys were out dove hunting. Where I lived in Texas, there were THOUSANDS of Robins. So we were walking along, and one of my buddies shot a dove. As we waited for him to go pick it up, a group of Robins landed in the trees above us... then another group landed... yep... then ANOTHER GROUP...

I figured what the hell, I took aim with my 20 g. shotgun. I pointed it at the biggest group of Robins near us and let fly... 6 fell to the ground with one shot.
 
Almost broke the law with my shot. I was groundhogging one summer day with my SKS as the beans were getting high. I had just stepped around the culvert guardrail and looked about 110 yds out and saw a fat one standing up. As I was too close to the road, I was illegal to take the shot and also heard a car coming down the road and it would scare mr critter ( deceased) away. Took a couple of steps into the field off the road and from kneeling, fired, and saw the sucker keel over backward in my scope. It is my experience, that with the surplus steel bullets, they go right through, and the 'hog usually runs a bit, so a followup is usually necessary. So I quickly fired #2 at the little devil, and then went to look for him. I thought I lost him, looked and looked, and to my surprise, he had a couple of neat holes clean through. Deader'n hell!

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So many a'holes-- so few bullets!------
Ford Fairlane
 
Poking around in the NM desert. About 20 yards from my (now ex) wife. She sees a pretty flower and turns towards it. A HUGE western diamondback comes out of a yucca like a cobra a foot from the wife. Did a half turn, drew my 4" 29 & took the shot. Wife's yelling at me "what are shooting at!?"
Walked over & held up the snake & watched her go absolutely white. Equal parts of skin on bothe sides of the hole & about 2" in back of the head.

Wish I had it on video.

Too, turns out I shoulda let the snake have its bite. :-( Me & that snake might have turned out to be good friends.
 
Dunno if this would count as the best shot, but it is pretty funny. When I was approx 13 or so, I moved out of the swamps of La. and out to Johnson City Tx. Well, the first weekend out I'd heard of quail hunting an wanted to try it really really bad.Keep in mind at this point that there are no quail in the swamps. Well off i go with 2 boxes of shells for my 20 ga., Boy I tell ya, I was mopping up that day, I shot both boxes of shells and had almost 1 bird for each shot!So after a few hours i go back home an show my step-dad all the quail i shot.After he gets up off the ground from laughing so hard, he quietly explains to me the difference between a quail and a meadowlark. All I can say is that quail are alot harder to hit. Live an learn .---Cuz
 
While ground hog hunting, I spotted one in the field at aproximately 70 yards away. The groundhog was eating the fresh spring grass and would grab a mouthful and then sit up to see what was going on. I had a scoped Mini-14 and I laid the cross hairs on his nose. Before I could fire, he bent down again. I waited until he popped up again and squeezed the trigger. After letting him have a 55 grain HP (Damn that Samson stuff was good ammo), I ran over and checked my kill.

Looking him over I couldn't find a entry wound- just a exit wound on the back of the head. I was slightly perplexed until I notice that his right front incisor was freshly chipped on the bottom! Unbelieveably, my shot had went thru his mouth while he was chomping away on dinner!
Poor guy never knew what hit him- instantly executed!
 
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