Worst ammo:kill ratio?

J

jaughtman

New member
Just because I am bored perusing the internet (thanks Al!) how about a non-serious topic? What is the worst ratio of ammo spent-to-kill you have expended? A couple of years ago I went through 2 1/2 boxes of shells and killed TWO doves. I blame it on the fact it was the first dove shoot of the season and I did not have "the swing" down yet.

Jamie
 
My worst was about 50 .22 LR rounds to kill one ground squirrel. It is hard to hit them little buggers at 200 yards when your gun will only shoot 6" groups at 100 and your scope is zeroed for 75.
 
That's hard to put a finger on. Two years ago, I drove half way across the Tx Panhandle to a dove hunt to find I brought a 12ga shotgun and a sizable sum of 16ga shells! It ain't much fun just watching a dove hunt. Nosir, not much of spectater sport at all.
 
I'd like to blame the ammo but it's hard to do that with shotgun ammo.... A friend was having a heck of a time on the dove opener a few years back and wanted to trade ammo since we were both shooting the same gauge... I agreed and before he got out of sight I dumped two birds with one shot with the "bad" ammo... He was mad the rest of that morning... Sometimes I have a bad day and the next the birds fall from the sky...
 
My dove hunting kill ratio went up dramatically once I learned to pick a bunch of landmarks that were about 40 yards away from my shooting position and then not shoot at any bird that was outside that circle of landmarks.

Learn and respect the limits of a shotgun and your dove hunting kill ratio should be about the same as your sporting clays scores. You'll probably kill about the same number of birds but you'll go through a lot less ammo doing it.

I have always felt that the game of sporting clays should include hopelessly out of range birds that you get credit for if you hold your shot along with illegal birds that you must not shoot.
 
It was the first dove hunt I'd been on in several years, a couple of years ago. I hadn't shot a shotgun in a while, either.

It was a short morning "shoot", and I shot about a half box of shells without hitting a single bird. They weren't out of range; I just couldn't hit them. I actually think they were too close for the full choke barrel on my shotgun. It shoots a very tight pattern, so maybe I should have let them get a little farther out.

Gotta make the first shot count with a single shot. :D

Daryl
 
Too many dove hunters never pattern their shotguns to find out which variety of #8 works best. It can be a real eye-opener to shoot at a three-foot sheet of plain paper and see "vacancies" in the shot pattern of several inches across.

What I found which made a quantum-leap improvement in my dove shooting was the three years of messing with IPSC pistol. "Front sight, press!" made a big difference. I went from mostly misses on doves to reliably getting doubles and an occasional triple. And that was with an old full-choke Model 12 which with plastic shells was more like Xtra-Full. :)
 
My worst big game kill was an antelope. The problem turned out to be a loose scope mount (which was fine earlier that morning :(). Everything would have been fine, if the first shot hadn't actually wounded the antelope. From then on, I had to use what was in my hand (while trying to close the distance - since I knew from the first shot, that something was wrong).

13 shots later, it was finally down. I am a firm believer in quick, humane kills. Having to chase down (and properly euthanize) that wounded doe was one of the worst hunting experiences of my life.


Other than that - it would have to be a prairie dog at about 600 yards. I unloaded more than 40 rounds at him, from my .220 Swift. I was so caught up in trying to get the damn thing, that I forgot about barrel heating. The more I shot, the worse things got... Eventually, I had to calm down, let the rifle cool, and watch the rest of my family make fools of themselves. We were not successful in eliminating the menace. Somewhere in Wyoming, that prairie dog is still laughing at us.
 
I am not much of a dove hunter but this past deer season me and four friends shot 15 times in two hours and brought 3 deer out of the woods. Fortunately all three deer were clean quick kills the rest were misses.
 
When I was a kid we were out rabbit hunting and comming back to the farm we crossed a bridge, under which pigeons nested. One of the guys had an M-80 and we decided we would scare the pigeons out from under the bridge and shoot them.

I know I fired four times and the others emptied their shotguns. I think it was then we decided the pigeon must have been genetically altered in order to grow bullet proof feathers.
 
ammo per kill

One coyote I got last winter was about a record. I shot at it on four occasions over about 3 weeks and expended 8 rounds of .223 and 3 rounds of 220 Swift. I've fired more shots w/o killing an animal but not lately. The reason I know this was all the same coyote was that it was mangy and I hit it in the left hind leg with my first shot. Couldn't possibly be two just like that in one small area. Haven't hunted doves for a long time but didn't do too bad on them back then-usually in the 3-5 shots per bird average.
 
Dude, I shot a possium about 50 times one night under my garage. Little freeloading bastard was helping himself to what was left on the grill. It was a little red rider bb gun. Cocktapthumpcocktapthumpcocktapthump :D never did phase him till i rubbed one across his nose. boy, he took off then :D Vroom! Hasn't been back since:)
 
Well, when i was a kid i did a lot of coon hunting. I used a .22 rifle and every coon fell out of the tree adn to the dogs on the first shot. Except this one coon. After taking 4 shots, he was very badly hurt and just started crawling down the main part of the tree like he was begging to die. It took 8 shots to finish him off and make him fall. He wasnt even a big coon in proportion to the other ones i've killed.
 
Grasshoppers with .22lr at 50 yards minimum... "on the wing" brings triple points but i think I am 0 for 500 on those!
Brent
 
I saw a Coot in the middle of one of my duck sloughs once and I was probably a little over 200yds. with my Ruger MKII. Probably went through 30-50 shots before I connected.
 
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