We had a thread for called shots. How about off the cuff stupid shots you made? I’ve made lots of them and lucked out and always had witnesses. These shots are like the lottery, you have to play to win. I never cared about a little hacking if I missed, some do. One memorable shot was with a S&W m48 that a friend had just bought. Me and several buddies had spent a couple hours shooting birds out of tame raspberries. We were serious and were shooting 7.5 trap loads on the birds. The birds started to smarten up and action stopped. Then we started sniping birds with 22 rifles. The one buddy had the m48 and wasn’t having much luck.
He wanted me to shoot it. He figured if I couldn’t hit anything with it he was going to scope it. He handed me the gun and just about a perfect 300’ away was a starling sitting on top a power pole. They are 300’ apart average on level terrain. Anyway I two handed the 48 and touched off. Bird exploded in puff of feathers.
Owner couldn’t get over it. I said yep, needs scoped, was aiming for its beak and hit it in the head. I couldn’t do that again in 100 yrs. That’s time to spin gun, put it back in holster and act like no big deal.

I was 9 years old the first time my dad took me shooting with a .22 rifle. I don't remember much. I don't remember the distance. What I do remember is that I put 2 bullets through the same hole. I had shot a string of fire. My dad taped up the holes and I shot a second string of fire. In that second string, I had managed to put a bullet directly through another hole that had been taped.

Needless to say, I was beaming with pride. My dad looked at me and said, "Lucky shot."

The first time I went duck hunting with my Dad, he kept going on about how much faster that ducks fly compared to the dove and quail we normally hunted. I was 17, cocky as heck and when the first two ducks flew over, I fired one shot and got them both. He just looked at me and said " I guess you've got this".

Many years ago I was one of the younger members at a local gun club. The only rifle I had was an old sporterized 03-A3 with a 4x scope and I usually shot surplus WWII ammo because that's all I could afford. I had just bought a Lee Loader (and a hammer) and had some new handloads to try out.

There was an old **** at the club that had a very expensive custom made rifle. He would lay it out on a felt pad on one of the shooting benches and just talk about it. Guys would come by and admire it but I never saw him shoot it.

The day I went to try out my handloads he and his SIL were the only one on the range. After setting up 2 benches away I asked to clear the range so I could put up a target. The SIL said "Dad, why don't we shoot too".

As we walked down range the old man was telling the kid that these old milsurps were simply junk and he wouldn't own one. He was so loud that he must have known I could hear him! In passing I mentioned that I was trying out some home-made cartridges. He laughed.

When the range was ready we each fired 3 shots. I said lets go downrange and see how we did.

His target was pretty good. Three holes about the size of a quarter, maybe an inch off center.

Now, I don't know how I did it, and I never was able to do it again, but I managed to shoot out the X, making one single hole, with three 3 bullet strikes quite visible.

I immediately ripped down the target mumbling to myself "gee I thought i could do better than that - I guess i'll go back to shooting 1943 surplus armor piercing..."

The old guy left his target, raced back to his bench, packed the gun in his trunk and hurriedly drove off.

Some years back a group of us that normally shot the bullseye league on Tues evening in the winter would go to an outdoor range in the summer on Tues evenings. Just about anything in the way of firearms would be brought from time to time. One evening one of the group (who had a fellow employee where he works have a 40th birthday and they had filled his office with black balloons), and he brought several to the range to shoot. He had placed 6 on the 100 yard target frame, and a couple had been shot with rifles. I took one shot with my 1911, and broke a balloon. Of course they called it a lucky shot, but I proceeded to shoot and break the next three in a row. Then I quit and haven't tried it since.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Mine is a slingshot story. When I was about 13 we had nothing but fields behind our house. I could stand on the electric box in the corner of the yard and shoot my .22's whenever I wanted. I got my first Wrist Rocket and promptly got into Dad's hardware bins. Grabbed a handful of 1/2 inch nuts and got up on the electric box. There were always grackles flying by and a big male crossed in front of me about 15 yards out. I pulled back and tracked him, releasing as my aim went past his nose. I could see the bolt like it was moving in slow motion right up to when it clouted him on the side of the head. He folded up and went in like a plane when its wings fail. I could not believe it.

Told this here before, but here goes. Some 40 years ago, I was fishing a small lake in the mountains in a rental boat. I'd just quit fishing for the day and heading back to my car, heard gunshots, investigated, found some young guys with deer rifles shooting at a floating 1 gallon milk jug on the far side of the lake, about 125 yards. Three shots, they didn't hit it, I asked if I might try. I had my 8-3/8" 29-2 with me. It was my metal silhouette gun, zeroed at 100 yards. I took aim, long story short, I was in "the zone". Saw the barrel rise, saw the flame come out, the jug jumped. I hit that thing five more times and drove it up on the opposite bank. Those guys looked at me like I was Quigley with a pistol. I wasn't about to tell them I probably never could do that again, and said to their dumbfounded, How'd-he-do-that? faces as I walked away "Thanks - practice".

I had responded to a car/deer crash in a rural part of the county on either the evening shift or midnight shift. I had a reputation for always tracking down the wounded deer so they wouldn't suffer or get back out into traffic. I made contact with the property owner to let her know I was going to be in her back yard and looking for a struck deer. I had a Deputy friend on scene with me as it was a fairly slow night. Had my flashlight in my left/weak hand and my issued Beretta 96 (40 S&W) in my right hand. Walked into the pitch black back yard and out of no where lunged a fairly good sized buck, straight at the Deputy and I. Without even thinking or taking aim, in one quick motion I pulled up my pistol and flashlight in classic Harries technique and fired one shot. The buck flipped over backwards stone dead. Upon approaching the buck I had hit him squarely, right between the eyes. Pure instinct and luck. All the Deputy could do was shake his head and say "holy sh*@".

I never bothered to tell him it was just a lucky chance shot, I didn't want to ruin his image of me as a true gun fighter.

Once upon a time, I was renting a small cottage right next to my landlord's house. It was in a rural area, and he being a contractor, kept a dumpster out back of his house. I was competing in metal silhouette and bullseye then, and my contractor/landlord friend pushed up a big dirt backstop behind my cottage so I could practice at home.
He and his wife of course knew I had guns, and one day his wife knocked on my door and said "Quick, bring your gun, there are rats out back.
I grabbed my 1911, hustled around the back of the cottage and sure enough, there were two big rats gnawing on some corncobs near the dumpster. At about 25-30 yds, I drew a bead on one, -BANG- he flopped dead and the second one took off, with me swinging sights to follow -BANG- and it kept running and disappeared near my landlord's house, where I could not safely risk another shot. I figured I missed my second shot. Later that afternoon my landlord came over and asked me if I shot a rat earlier. Yeah, I said referring to the dead one by the dumpster.
No, no he said, it's up by the house. I went with him to see, and there it was, rat #2, almost blown in two. I had hit him mid torso, and the only thing keeping the upper half attached to the lower half was his spine and some flesh around it. Even missing most of his lungs and guts, he still managed to run ~30 yards to die in a shrub bed. Tough critters.
I was pleased with myself that day at 2 for 2, one on a dead run at 25 yds+.

Years ago one of the sergeants and I were at the range with me qualifying with an off duty sidearm. We were done and he challenged me to pick a target. I chose a sunflower fired one round and the flower fell over as I had clipped the stem. He cried foul saying I missed the flower, I replied “it will never survive the wound.”

That was a once in a lifetime shot.

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I am a sheep dog!
1601 (ret)

I was teaching a group of recruits , many were having difficulty making their headshots , for failure drills, at 10 yards. I was lecturing them that the head was much bigger than the 10 ring and they had no problem hitting it, so the problem was in their mind,etc. I said it was really easy and picked up a piece of white gravel and flung it at the target. YEP dead center like you drew an X in the head and left a nice white dust mark. They just stood there mouths (me too) finally one spoke up and said do it again. But I had long ago learned the secret to "Miracle" shots, and stated ' I dont need to he is already stopped, Back to work. Probably better than any shot I ever made.

Years ago a neighbor and I bought scoped pellet rifles to cull swarms of ground squirrels in his woodlot.

He and a bunch of friends were at the house one day and he pulled out his rifle. They spotted a tree squirrel on a tree trunk about 50-75 yards away and challenged him to hit it. He aimed high and fired one shot. You couldn't see any dirt fly and he said, I hit it. The squirrel stayed right there.

Naturally his friends had to try, too, but you could see they were missing. He insisted he had gotten it, so everyone walked up the stream bed to the tree to have a look. The squirrel stayed right there on the tree trunk. It was dead as a door nail, tacked to the tree.

He said he normally didn't take shots so close and everyone howled! Later he told me he really did try to hit it, but was really surprised when he did.