The Best Shot You Ever Made

[anglaispierre]

One day at the club another guy gave me one of those life size targets with the guy aiming at you. With my 686 at 25 yards I placed the first 5 shots where they should go, in the chest. With one shot remaining I decided to play, so I aimed straight between the eyes. And that is exactly where I hit. I kept the target as a souvenir.

 

[Jim in Wisconsin]

Glad TXSWFAN 'broke the ice' re: ah, chemically enhanced marksmanship. Visiting a friend in CA years ago, he decided we should go camping in the desert in NV. He had a client who paid part of his bill with a really sorry looking K22. He complained that he could never hit anything with it.
We had built a charcoal fire to cook steaks, and I took a charcoal briquite, threw it in the air and popped it good. Told Tom there was nothing wrong with the gun.

 

[venomballistics]

Ive committed several great shots due to never being informed of the limitations of arms.
50 yards, 30-06 browning bolt action with Leupold optics hard crossing clays for 3 in a row.
Same rifle, 700 yards thinning crows out of a recently cut hay field. thing performed like it was radar guided and would take more skill to miss.
629 smith in its first day with me, limb rat at 150 yards for a perfect head shot.
Strange ones .... 22LR is a "charmed" caliber and leads the category of freak unrepeatable incidents.
the strangest of all was the drain plug shot.
Im not sure it was mine or one of my friends shots that did this...
we were having a good range session with the line of fire a good solid 700 yards away from a gravel road and parallel with it with some error to the away side as well as about 75 yards worth of thick brush between the field and the road for a little extra buffer.
targets were at the 100 mark.
we had run out of ammo and opted to walk the road back home when we saw a line of splattered motor oil. on a hunch I back tracked the trail and did find the cause ... a drain plug with a lead streak on a wrench flat that could have only gotten there with a course change of greater than 90 degrees and a dead minimum of 800 yards.
this does not account at all for the high probability that it played pingpong through the brush prior to entering the auto mechanics field.

 

[LoboGunLeather]

Handgun: Mule deer, about 80 yards uphill in a stand of aspen trees, S&W 586 .357 6", 2-handed hold resting against a tree, entry wound on left side behind and below the shoulder, through the left lung and heart. Deer slid downhill on the snow and stopped about 20 feet from me, which saved some dragging.

Shotgun: Duck hunting over decoys, three birds flared out to land at about 20 yards, one shot with 12-gauge #4 shot, three birds down. Impressed the heck out of my buddies, surprised the heck out of me.

Rifle: Vietnam, 1970, about 250 yards at night with starlight scope (first generation night vision) and M14 rifle on sandbag rest, NVA sapper with a satchel charge crawling through the outer wire in the direction of our helicopter refueling bunker. Entry above the right collar bone, exit through the lower left ribcage. Not pretty, but a pretty good shot under the circumstances.

 

[cjw3]

While dove hunting back in my teens, I fired at one on a crossing shot and killed it stone dead. It was not too high and was pretty much going at 90 degrees. I paced to it and it was something in excess of 60 paces; I was about 6'2" then, so a pace was right at a yard. This was with a 3 3/4 - 1/1/4 - 9 Winchester factory load.

In my mid-twenties, I had my old 6" Model 28 with me at a state public fishing area where I worked. I noticed a beaver on the shoreline nibbling on something at about 35 yards, so let fly at him with a Sierra 150 grain JHC on top of some amount of Unique powder, don't remember how much. He jumped in the lake, submerged and came up at about 60 yards out. He was obviously in distress since he was swimming and gasping for breath. Anyone who has ever seen one swimming knows how little target they present, just the upper half of their head. Anyway, I fired a shot that went slightly over, another that was slightly under. The third one hit with a SWACK and he stopped moving. After he floated to the shore where I could get to him, I found his head had a flimsy/crunchy sort of feeling which was not so good since I wanted to make another skull mount with him. That was out.

A few years later I shot a doe with my Ruger 77 .30-06 from a wooden ladder stand from 193 yards, which I measured with a surveying tape. When I fired, I thought it was a small deer that was much closer. After walking out to it I found it to be a big doe; turned around and looked back at the stand and it was quite small. I 'uz pleased with that one.


All of these were in my younger days when my vision was MUCH more acute than now. I had my eyes checked once along about the time I made the last shot; one eye was 20/13, the other 20/15. I miss having that sharp vision . I'm thinking about getting something done about it beyond the glasses routine.

 

[Vulcan Bob]

Oh about fifteen years ago I decieded to take out and shoot a Remington 03A1, that was the short lived model in between the 03 and 03A3.It still had the 03 style sights out on the barrel, well I loaded up five rounds of some off shore surplus ammo and had at a target at one hundred yards. Went out to the target and it was less than one half inch and almost perfectly centered. Well that was the first and last time I ever fired that rifle, I wasent about to spoil that lucky group! It along with a few other 03's were later sold to help fund my first Harley.

 

[Rugskipper]

Best shot I ever saw--We had hunted all morning and the geese wouldn't ever come down into shotgun range. A friend fired his .25 auto BUG at the lead goose in a V formation at 1K feet in pure desperation. Dropped him cold. BTW we were way, way out in the boonies.

Best shot I ever made was a bowling pin hung from a string at 20 yards. Couple of guys were shooting their compact Glockentickers at it and only hitting every once in a while. They invited me to try and with my Gold Cup I hit 7 of 7 without waiting for it to stop swinging. Being young and dumb, I couldn't help rubbing it in a little. I told them for a 6 pack of beer, I'd cut the string for them. First shot. That beer sure tasted good. I was underage at the time, too!

 

[427mach1]

I was 14 years old, hunting with my brother in law. A small whitetail buck was behind a tree about 100 yards away and my brother in law shot it with his 6mm Remington 600. As we approached the deer, it was laying down with its head up, looking around. We both pulled our hand guns out (he was carrying a Ruger 22 revolver, I had my Colt Woodsman). I asked him to let me shoot, and he told me I would never "hit it from here" (about 20 yards). I told him I wanted to try. I leveled my sites and slowly squeezed the trigger - click, no bang. I had forgotten to chamber a round! I racked the slide, aimed, and squeezed the trigger and the deer dropped instantly. We inspected the body and could find no trace of either shot for quite a while. I finally noticed drop of blood on the lower eyelid and a slit in the eye where my bullet had entered. When we processed the deer, we found that his 6mm had completely shattered the neck just above the shoulder. We couldn't figure out how he was holding his head up with the damage that was done.

 

[TXSWFAN]

Best shot I ever saw--We had hunted all morning and the geese wouldn't ever come down into shotgun range. A friend fired his .25 auto BUG at the lead goose in a V formation at 1K feet in pure desperation. Dropped him cold. BTW we were way, way out in the boonies.

I would have liked to have been there to see that happen. That would have dropped my jaw.

Not sure if throws count. It was 2 am when our neighbors dane bramaged Dobie was just a howlerin. It was a new moon so I couldn't see it, so I focused on it with my hearing. I picked up a piece of paving stone that was a good 8 ozs. and determined that I had about a 60 yard throw. I let it fly and heard it hit nothing but meat. The dog screamed with that hurt dog squell and took off to the far side of his property.

Playing golf one day with some buddies and we were waiting to tee off. There was a 6' gator sunning himself on the far side of a lateral hazzard about 65-70 yards away. I told my buddies that I bet them that I could throw a golfball and come within 5' of the gator. They took the bet. Lunch and two beers at the 19th hole. I wound up and hit the gator on the fly right between his running lights. He jumped up about a foot in the air, landed and just stayed there, I'm sure wondering what the heck just happened.

 

[G-Mac]

When I first became a handgun owner, my brother-in-law and I decided to join the Syracuse Pistol Club. We sent in our applications and received notification that we would need to be checked out by the range officer on safety, gun handling, range rules, etc. before being allowed to use club facilities unsupervised.

We made an appointment to meet with the gentleman at the club. At the time, I owned two handguns...a 4" Ruger GP-100 and a Jennings J-22 semi-auto.

I planned on using the Ruger for "qualifying", but only had magnum ammo for that gun with me. Range rules disallowed all magnum ammo. Therefore, I had to demonstrate my competency using the Jennings, which the range officer promptly discounted as a "piece of junk"...saying that I'd be lucky to even get any shots on paper.

Well, not only did all six rounds in the magazine from the Jennings "get on paper" at 25 yards...one was a dead-on bullseye and one was just outside the black!

I realize there was some luck involved there, but I was pretty damn proud....turns out most of the club activity centered around bullseye shooting with .22 rimfires. As I said, no magnum cartridges were allowed...for me, this was a drawback...I liked shooting .357's in my GP-100. I let my membership lapse after the first year and never went back. The club I belong to now lets you shoot any type of ammo...handgun or rifle.

 

[Sprefix]

My luckiest/best shots

A few friends and I were hunting Ptarmigan from a lodge here in Alaska on the Denali highway(not maintained in the winter time) on our sleds. We were about 26 miles out and the wind started howling about 30-50 mph in gusts with a steady 20-25 mph blow. We topped out on a little ridge and were taking the brunt of the wind (and wind-chill) and saw three flocks of ptarmigan in a draw about 100yds across. One flock was about 17-18 yds out, one flock about 30-32 yds out, and the remaining flock at about 60-62 yards out. There were about 8-10 birds in each flock and the wind was in my face and from my right. Two of the guys went down the draw and were about 8 yards closer than the ranges I was at. After about 20-30 shots, they had three birds flopping with their tricked out Ruger 10/22 rifles from the first two flocks. I decided it was my turn and only having my Smith 41 in 5.5 inch (no rifle or scatter gun), was hoping to get a few shots in-between gusts. I aimed off the windshield of my sled and got two in the close flock(2 shots), three from the second flock(3 shots), and two from the third flock(3 shots) at 60-62 yds in the wind. They were all head shots but for the last one at 60-62 yds. I was informed that I was "done" 'til they got more birds. They quit giving me such a hard time about my "way over-priced" .22 handgun. Life was good and so were the ptarmigan after three days of soaking the breasts in milk(new milk each day). I hope I don't have to try to repeat that shooting..........Sprefix

 

[seagill]

I once shot a dragonfly out of the air with a slingshot, don't knw if that counts. I did shoot the "X" out of a target at 20 yards with a cap and ball revolver. My second shot hit dead center in the cross.

 

[viceunit]

Great thread idea, some good stories. I may have done some other accurate firing, but this one I always remember.

About 20 years ago my father in law and I went to see a guy he knew that just had a large pond dug out. While he was showing us the hole he pulled out a CZ style 9mm he had just bought. He threw a metal coffee can (remember when they were metal?) down into the empty pond and started blasting away, missing the can every time. The can had rolled down about 35 yards away. He put in another mag and asked me if I wanted to try it. I took the gun and started shooting at the can, hitting it with every shot with a loud clang and sending the can flying around the pond crater. When the gun was empty the guy just looked at me and said, "Gimmie that thing", and stormed off into the house with it. Me and the old man just cracked up.

 

[Faulkner]

One shot drop of a south Arkansas whitetail deer, standing offhand with a M1 Garand (pictured below) across a pond. Later measured it wth a EDM at 327 yards.

Though I was aiming at it, no one was more surprised than me when th deer dropped.

 

[MajorDude]

One of my best shots ever was a first shot hit on a grain of rice glued onto a wire at 50 feet with a .45 ACP S&W 25-2. I used a 200 grain Rainier plated swc over a light charge of Clays, my pet target acp load. It was a "novelty target" in a pistol league. Couldn't see the rice or the wire at 50, so I hung it the exact length of the clip under the target hanger and aimed at the space. My most recent great shot was just this morning. I was demonstrating my new Cold Steel .625 magnum blowgun to some friends and hit the previous dart with the second shot at 30 feet! Two shots in 1/8 inch is pretty good shooting with anything in my book. Anybody reading this forum would be interested in those blowguns. Check them out on youtube. They're too much fun!

 

[Marksman]

My best shot ever was on a '93 elk hunt, I was walking an ATV trail when a fork horn mulie exploded out of the timber. I brought my .338 Win. Magnum to my shoulder releasing the safety as I did, the crosshairs behind his ear and fired. The 275gr. Speer RN found its mark, result instant lobotomy and one very dead mule deer. The range was approximately 35yds., it remains my best and fastest snap shot.

 

[Mule88]

Mines not all the spectacular after reading some of these, but I shot a Taxas Dall Ram with a 6 1/2 inch 629 (open sights) with one shot at 105 yds. Didnt realize it was that far till I stepped it off.

 

[Beaver]

I shot a jackrabbit at 90 yds with my first Model 29 6". I was leaning out the passanger window of Sonny Kadow's Chev PU, resting the revolver on his sideview mirror. I got the jack and busted the heck out of Sonny's mirror. He was my witness. Crystalline, pure luck.

 

[dinooch]

At the range one day I was shooting an 1860 Army black powder .44 an older member came over and asked if it was accurate. I had changed targets so I said "let's see" and one handed a shot dead center in the bull at 25 yds. What a stroke of luck......the old man walked away. I think he was trying to break my chops........

 

[BUFF]

I was thinking about this event yesterday, New Years Day, as it happened on a New Years Day in the mid-to-late 1970's, while we were all attending college, about 35 years ago.

A group of us that fished, hunted and shot together decided to go shoot jackrabbits out in the desert south-west of Salt Lake City. Sometimes we attracted coyotes who liked to snack on our dead rabbits. Sometimes they got too greedy, too close and got ventilated themselves. We liked to use our deer rifles, one last chance to shoot them before putting them away for the winter.

Our tactics were to cruise the few country roads until we found dead rabbits flattened out by the passing cars and trucks, then park and walk the sagebrush, cedar and juniper. As we drove, a jackrabbit flashed across the narrow road in front of us with a coyote just behind it! I slammed my '68 VW Beetle to a halt and the four of us sprang out, loaded our .270's and .30-06's and ran after them, hoping to get a shot as they ran up the side of a bowl. Nothing.

As we stood, talking, a big, loud, crow came flying towards us, fighting a cold headwind. It was about 25 yards above the ground and flew right overhead. I swung, found the crow in my 4X scope, drew ahead of it a bit and squeezed.

The Sierra 150 grain spitzer at 3,000 fps blew the bird apart like a small bomb might have!

I was shocked. It was pure luck. My best buddy whistled and said, "Bad day to be a crow."

We formed a skirmish line and walked across the land, gentle hillls rolling up and down. Middle of nowhere. At the top of a small ridge, we stood and tried to decide if it was time to head back to the car, as we weren't seeing much. I sat on a convenient rock.

Here came a magpie flying passed. I hate magpies, but other than they are cruel, eat game- songbird chicks and eggs and are obnoxious, I don't know why, I just do. The bird "ackkk-aaaccked" at us as it passed us and came to light on the very top of a juniper tree. It cawwed some more as it bobbed and waved slightly in the breeze.

I had been shooting this rifle and load for quite a bit and quite often then. I knew the drop. I loosened my sling, threaded my arm into it and pulled it tight. Took a deep breath, let most of it out, good brace on my knees, held a few inches over the magpie's head, presssssssssed..... BANG! The magpie exploded! Same buddy said, "I guess it's a bad day to be ANY corvid!"

It was a long 347 paces from where I was sitting to the base of the tree the magpie died on.

My buddies bought my gas that day and my lunch. Every now and then, when two or more of us get together and start reliving our past, "Dead Corvid Day" comes up.