Whats your best shot?

[Coyboy]

About 5 years ago we were running coyotes in ND with a couple buddies that live out there, we had one on the go and I bombed down a praire trail to try and cut him off. Well it crossed infront of me by about 200 yards and dropped into a draw, as I got stuck in a snow drift.

I bailed out and ran in the direction he went to try and get a view of him, about that time I see him running 1/4 away on the far side of the draw, I pulled up the 16" v-match and send one that turns him straight away. the second one went in under his left ear and came out his right eyeball, never touching his eyelids.

Mike pulled in next to my truck and ranged him at 425 yards, I figured I had run about 40-50yards before shooting. Arnie was a half mile away and was filming the coyote running when it rolled, so everyone got to enjoy it back at Mikes place that night.

But I think I shot 22 running coyotes that year and 7 were head shots, it just happens to be that one was my longest.

 

[theflyonthewall]

My story isn't nearly as glamorous as the rest of yours, but here it is......

I was about 14 yrs old and my cousin was over at my house. As young boys do when they're bored, we decided to go try to shoot something. I grabbed my bow, and out the door we went. It was summertime, so we headed out to the pond. I was hoping that there might be a fresh batch of bull frogs out there. I ate a lot of frog legs back then. Anyway.....I spied one across the pond about 15 yards away. I was feeling a bit cocky and asked my cousin to point out something for me to shoot.......in a bragging manner, of course...lol. Well, he happened to see that frog too and told me if I thought I was so good, shoot that frog over there. So I drew, settled my pin, and let her fly. There was a big splash and he said HA HA you missed! I knew you couldn't--------and right then is when the frog jumped and spiraled round and round my arrow as he went back down toward the water. I drilled him!

I'd never dare to try that again even though it was only about 15 yards. Ahhhh to be young and cocky again....

 

[Joaquin B]

My best shot was hitting a house fly at 10 meters with a pellet from my air rifle, while practing. The little sucker landed on the paper target while I was loading a new pellet into the rifle, which had a Weaver KT-15 mounted on it. I was practicing on scaled-down silhouettes. I started lining up the cross-hairs, and as the rifle discharged, I saw a red splat on the paper target. One wing was sticking out of the hole made by the pellet on the paper target, while the fly's head had come off and was lying at the base of the pellet-stop holding the target. I never thought those little flies has so much blood in them.

 

[Sammie]

While mine isn't some remarkable long distance it is still impressive to me. I have only been hunting for 2 seasons now. This is my first season using a rifle. I chose a nice Savag lefthanded bolt action 30-06 with the Burris Eliminator scope in the hopes that one day soon I would get to hunt WY antelope but still hunt dense wood deer in the meantime. My furthest shot ever was 60yds with a shotgun slug on a deer and I had sighted the rifle in at 100/200 and about 3 shots at 300yds.

I ended up on a trip with Respect Outdoors TV show for my daughter in South Carolina (hopefully airing sometime soon!). On the last day with light fading we had 4 bucks head out at 275yds which was too far for my daughter. I decided to give it a try and lined up on the largest deer. I missed low. I then re-ranged and lined up again making sure I was holding the gun properly and dropped the largest buck of the 4 and my largest one ever. A nice 12pt with a 3inch drop tine that was on the back of the browtine. What I had not realized on the first shot at the time was that when I ranged the animal it was 275 but it was walking diagonally away from me so it was closer to 307yds. My first shot was a miss due to a combination of rushing for excitement and improper hold-over. Was a great time and I'm glad my daughter was right next to me to see it all.

 

[Tnwhip]

My luckyest shot was a long time ago. I was down at the farm praticeing my quick draw. Not really quick, just quickly pulling the six shooter out of the
holster and shooting cans. Making sure I did not shoot myself in the leg or foot LOL . Anyway, I was doing pretty good. I was hitting about 80%. I had just shot my last round in the chamber and hit a can dead center. I looked at my black lab and said to her. I am a natural born gun fighter and laughed. I reloaded and had just put the pistol back in the holster and I looked over my left shoulder and there was a crow flying away from me at a 45 degree angle about 75 yards away. I wheeled around and drew and fired from the hip and to my surprise he folded and hit the ground. I looked at my Lab and said to her. Nobody will believe me but you saw it. Natural born gun fighter. LOL . Fetch. She went and brought it back and the bullet went right under the wing.

My best shot was elk hunting about 10 years ago in Utah. My firends Aram and Joseph VonBenedikt, Who is now the editor of Shooting time's magazine had invited me out to their ranch to hunt during the muzzleloading season. I was lucky enough to get drawn that year for a cow elk and a mule deer. I am a traditional muzzleloader shooter. We even dress the part. I shoot a custom 54cal flintlock long rifle 42" barrel. We loaded up the horses and went up in the mountains. On the way up, we passed 3 hunters on snowmobiles with inlines muzzleloaders. They looked at us kinda funny, we did look like we were out of the movie Jeremiah Johnson. One of them looked at my rifle ask you going to shoot an elk with that I just said yep and rode on. later we found a herd of elk down in a valley. I got off the horse and went down the mountain after them. I was sneaking down the draw and saw a cow about 100 yards in the thick scrub oak. I found an opening and laying down over a log and took carefull aim and shot. At the shot she took off. I reloaded and I eased up to where she was and nothing no hair or blood. Looking around, I had hit a limb and my round ball had got deflected. I took off running the way she went. As I topped a small hill there were 6 to 8 cattle, they took off running beside me. Like running with the bulls in Spain. When we topped the next hill I saw the elk herd. They were down in a draw that had a narrow path that they were trying to get through. They had a trafic jam and could only go up single file. The scrub oak was thick but there was a 10 yard opening that they had to pass through. I sat down, got ready for the shot . It was 175 yards down hill . I picked out the biggest cow and when she went through I put the sight on her nose and squeezed the trigger. At the shot she rolled like the elk on Last of the Mohicans. Joseph and Aram was watching up on the mountains. They said it was something to see. They saw the smoke come out of the gun barrel, then the elk tumbled, then they heard the shot. The 230g round ball with 120g of 3f black powder, went through the top of the shoulders clipped the under side of the spine and stopped under the hide on the far side. Another firend was helping Packing the meat out the next day and ran into the guys on the snowmobiles. They could not believe it. I can't find the picture of the elk right now but I here is the picture of the mule deer I shot at 90 yards.

 

[Tumbleweed]

Ok, I'll tell it but it's not exactly a "hunting" story. And I must tell you that I have nothing against cats and don't go around shooting them. It was about last summer I had my 300RUM set up on the farm to shoot a crow at around 500 yards with my middle boy looking though the spotting scope behind me. I get everything all set up and Alex was looking at the crow through the spotting scope when they flew off. He was bummed that we had nothing to shoot at. I told him to give it a few minutes because something would show up. As I was scanning through the spotting scope I noticed a stray cat pop up from the river bank at the far edge of our 75 acre farm. We see them once in a while down in the blackberries but always too close to shoot and not near enough challenge. (It had to be an extreme challenge before I would shoot at one) I estimated based on where this cat was in relation to some markers I know of that he was around 1,050 yards. I felt safe this cat would survive but it would be fun to watch him jump and run, I was certain I would be within 1MOA of a hit. I got Alex on the cat in the spotting scope and I adjusted my elevation to fit the 1,050 yard estimate and watched the wind in the "short" grass for a while and decided on 2.5MOA left wind. I settled in tight and let the 210VLD go. I watched looking for bullet splash but didn't see anything. Suddenly the cat shot up in the air like you set off dynamite under him, ran like crazy, stumbled and tumbled, got up and ran and then was out of site below a small hill in the field. I couldn't believe it, I told Alex "I think I might have got him!" We drove down there and the dogs quickly found the blood and we traced it into the blackberries about 15 yards away where the big tomcat lied dead. We backtracked and found where the cat was when the bullet struck and there was chunks of bone and fir and well, you get the picture. I ranged back to my shooting table and it was 1,060 yards. Needless to say, I retired that shell to the gun cabinet. I don't just go around telling this one because not everyone can appreciate it.

 

[trebark]

My favorite longrange shot is my first longrange shot at a groundhog. 810 yards. I was shooting a mostly factory Rem700 308 with a Bushnell 10x fixed power scope with no parallax adjustment on it.

At 810 yards the crosshairs covered up the 'hog completely. So I dialed the elevation, covered him up, squeezed the trigger and had to be told by my spotter that I got him.

Kinda' shooting blind.

 

[Michael Eichele]

I have 3 kills that I am VERY proud of. None are my longest but due to the conditions at hand, I concider to be my best shots.

1: Sitka Blacktail buck 505 yards. Not too far. Judged and measured the wind at 10 MPH at my location. I dialed the drop and wind and fired. The buck just stood there. My two buddies could not tell where the bullet went so I fired another. Same thing. I assumed since I was shooting accross a HUGE canyon that if the wind was 10 MPH at my location, it was probably faster over the canyon. So I decided to set my windage back to zero and held off target using Kentucky windage just uising my best guess and fired. The buck lungged forward a few yards and dropped. Come to find out, the 178 AMAX center punched the boiler room. After I got home and did the reverse math based on my hold over, the wind was estimated to have been 17-19 MPH.

2: My buddy made two bad shots on a bull moose right at the very tip top edge of darkness (we dont have time of day restrictions for legal shooting light up here). The bull ran off to 440 yards and was about to nose into the alders. He did not have the rifle or the ability to make a 440 yard shot. I asked him if he minded if I finished him off. He said go for it. I lined up my 1st mil right on the top of his top most vertabre and touched it off. The bull fell straight down. My only rest was a frame pack sitting upright due to the very steep hill side we were on. Between the tough position and the low light, I feel like it is a noteworthy shot.

3: The same buddy wounded a dall ram at 350 yards. He rolled to 702 yards. We were going to have to take a couple of hours to go around and down to finish him off. I asked him if I could put him out of his missery. He gave me the green light and I set up. The tricky part here was the extreme angle of the shot. I was using the ACI which led me to 37 degrees. I set up and fired. My buddy said I missed just high. I aimed for the low brisket and fired. The ram dropped in his tracks due to the high shoulder/spine hit. After further analyzation, it turned out to be 45 degrees. Then I inspected my ACI to find that it would periodically stick a bit. What made that tough was trying to find a suitable rest for the rear of the stock. Typically you lay down prone and use a bag or pack to support the butt of the stock. Here the butt was a foot off the ground. There is no way to support a rifle steady trying to hold it with just your shoulder. It was too dangerous to lean over the rocky edge so I had to take the shot from the top of the rocky spine. The only way to make it possible was to remove the ball head from my tri-pod and use my tri-pod as a rear support. Even then it was a real trick to get everything to line up right. In the picture below, you can see the angle of the rifle barrel and the legs of my tri-pod under the rear of the stock.

 

[Outlaw6.0]

^^^^ Michael, that is a great picture, puts things into a much better perspective. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Greyfox]

My best/luckiest shot happened a while back on an antelope hunt in Sheridan, Wyoming. I ended up filling my tags early and had two days left on my hunt. I intended to try to call coyotes but my outfitter asked if would be interested in shooting some whitetail does. The wildlife dept wanted him to reduce the herd on one of his leases. He said the area was very open and would offer some good long range opportunities. Sounded good, so I bought a few licenses. Made two good shots on two does between 600 and 700 yards. Next day we spotted a doe moving out at 500 yards and she ended up beddng down on a slope at a lazered 998 yards. All you could see clearly was her head in a clump of sage, but her body appeared positioned so that a miss to the head, if off, would hit the body, offering a vital target area that I felt good about. I don't normally take head shots. My 6.5x284 Cooper was well tested out to a 1000 yards and I had my outfitter to spot for me, so I decided to take the shot. Had lots of time to set up. At my position there was no angle, wind was 5mph coming from 5:30 for a 5" left correction, spin drift, 5" right, so I held dead on for windage, with a 1000 yard elevation adjustment. My aimimg point was centered between the eyes. I shot and lost sight of her, so I looked up at my outfitter that was just staring through his spotting scope for about 20 seconds. I thought he was going to say I missed but he looked down at me and said "I don't believe it, you hit her in the head and she went right over!" When we got to her the bullet had struck a half inch left of the point of aim between the eyes, Don't think I can repeat that one!

 

[Tikkamike]

My best/luckiest shot happened a while back on an antelope hunt in Sheridan, Wyoming. I ended up filling my tags early and had two days left on my hunt. I intended to try to call coyotes but my outfitter asked if would be interested in shooting some whitetail does. The wildlife dept wanted him to reduce the herd on one of his leases. He said the area was very open and would offer some good long range opportunities. Sounded good, so I bought a few licenses. Made two good shots on two does between 600 and 700 yards. Next day we spotted a doe moving out at 500 yards and she ended up beddng down on a slope at a lazered 998 yards. All you could see clearly was her head in a clump of sage, but her body appeared positioned so that a miss to the head, if off, would hit the body, offering a vital target area that I felt good about. I don't normally take head shots. My 6.5x284 Cooper was well tested out to a 1000 yards and I had my outfitter to spot for me, so I decided to take the shot. Had lots of time to set up. At my position there was no angle, wind was 5mph coming from 5:30 for a 5" left correction, spin drift, 5" right, so I held dead on for windage, with a 1000 yard elevation adjustment. My aimimg point was centered between the eyes. I shot and lost sight of her, so I looked up at my outfitter that was just staring through his spotting scope for about 20 seconds. I thought he was going to say I missed but he looked down at me and said "I don't believe it, you hit her in the head and she went right over!" When we got to her the bullet had struck a half inch left of the point of aim between the eyes, Don't think I can repeat that one!

guarantee he is still talking about that one

 

[Goofycat]

A tip of the cap to the previous shooters. Mine is far less exciting.

While hunting ground squirrels with my Remington 40XBBR bench-rest .222, I encountered one of the little varmints exiting his hole at 270 yards away. It was dusk, with no wind. The first shot went over his head by 6 inches, after which I nailed him with a second shot, using Kentucky windage. Surprisingly, another squirrel came out of the same hole and started to cannibalize his dead partner. I nailed him too with another Nosler 50-grain Ballistic Tip. Doesn't sound like much of a shot, but to put things into perspective, ground squirrels are about half the size of a prairie dog.

 

[BH107]

My best shot so far was on my mule deer last year in Colorado. It was my first year with a long range rig, and I hadn't really had alot of practice so I set my limit to 500 yds which was still more than twice my previous long shot. Opening morning I was planning on sitting on a high ridge looking over a large cut where I shot my deer on our prevous trip. I had scouted there the day before and saw 40-50 does, but no bucks. I got a little lost in the dark on the way in, so I finally sat down and waited for daybreak. Once I finally got to my ridge I set everything down and just started glassing. 10 minutes later I saw movement coming from the right of the cut and only had my glasses on him long enough to see tall antlers. I immediately grabbed my rifle and got on the bipod. The buck was walking from right to left and then stopped to feed about halfway into the clearing. My rangefinder was still in my bag, but I had ranged the entire field the day before so I was comfortable with getting a shot off. I estimated he was right at the edge of my 500 yard limit, but my range card was still in my bag as well. Knew I didn't have alot of time, so I held over his back and touched my first shot off.... just over his back! He didn't spook, just simply kept walking. I reloaded and adjusted my hold for a second shot only to get a click, I hadn't chambered a round! Reload again, make sure a round goes in. Now he's walking again and headed for the brushline. I made the decision to take the shot and not loose him, so I held a little forward and still just above his back and touched another round off. I watched him drop in his tracks. When I got to him and could finally see how big he really was, it ended up being about a 150" 4x4, my biggest deer to date. I ranged it at 440 yards and was happy to have connected with my first semi-long range kill.

The deer was about half way down that field, you can barely see my orange backpack.

 

[Tikkamike]

My best shot so far was on my mule deer last year in Colorado. It was my first year with a long range rig, and I hadn't really had alot of practice so I set my limit to 500 yds which was still more than twice my previous long shot. Opening morning I was planning on sitting on a high ridge looking over a large cut where I shot my deer on our prevous trip. I had scouted there the day before and saw 40-50 does, but no bucks. I got a little lost in the dark on the way in, so I finally sat down and waited for daybreak. Once I finally got to my ridge I set everything down and just started glassing. 10 minutes later I saw movement coming from the right of the cut and only had my glasses on him long enough to see tall antlers. I immediately grabbed my rifle and got on the bipod. The buck was walking from right to left and then stopped to feed about halfway into the clearing. My rangefinder was still in my bag, but I had ranged the entire field the day before so I was comfortable with getting a shot off. I estimated he was right at the edge of my 500 yard limit, but my range card was still in my bag as well. Knew I didn't have alot of time, so I held over his back and touched my first shot off.... just over his back! He didn't spook, just simply kept walking. I reloaded and adjusted my hold for a second shot only to get a click, I hadn't chambered a round! Reload again, make sure a round goes in. Now he's walking again and headed for the brushline. I made the decision to take the shot and not loose him, so I held a little forward and still just above his back and touched another round off. I watched him drop in his tracks. When I got to him and could finally see how big he really was, it ended up being about a 150" 4x4, my biggest deer to date. I ranged it at 440 yards and was happy to have connected with my first semi-long range kill.

The deer was about half way down that field, you can barely see my orange backpack.

can we get some rifle /load specs?