We all know the limitations of the calibers we choose to use. We promise ourselves we won't take shots beyond the acceptable range for the game we're after. But sooner or later, we're all going to be tempted to take that shot that's only 25 or even 50 (hopefully not 100) yards too far.

I have 2 questions for the grizzled veterans out there:

1) What shots have you taken that maybe you shouldn't have, with what caliber, with what results (assuming good shot placement, I'm talking bullet performance, not aiming error)???


2) Would you place your shot differently on a long shot than on a close one? Specifically, would you go for the shoulder as opposed to behind the shoulder?


I started to wonder after reading the "35 rem and elk" and the "bush gun" thread.

HHHhhhhmmmmmm.......

My longest shot on big game is 40 yards......probably because I started as a bow hunter.

Overly long shots are not the only way you could be marginal.
I've seen guys shoot at whitetail deer at 50-75 yards that were making marginal shots. When a hunter fire ten rounds of 30-06 from a semi-auto rifle and hits laurel, rhododendron, and oak trees at 50 yards, but never touches the deer, marginal doesn't come close to discribing his shooting.

Lobo in West Virginia

I think it all boils down to practice. My longest shot on big game was an antelope at 425-450 yards. It was with my 280 Rem with a 140 gr load. One shot through the shoulder, lungs, heart. I had practiced all summer long for that hunt and shot out 600 yards getting ready. I have taken deer at 200 yards with the 35 rem and 30-30, and so far the longest with my 38/55 was about 160 yards. Shot placement is key and practice makes shot placement a lot easer.

To me marginal shots are those that you don't really think you can make.

I am no veteran. All I know about my rifles is 100yds and in. I would not hesitate to take a 200 yd shot with my 06 and .308 but my 44 mag has now been limited to 80 yds max. It now wears iron sights and if I can pick a spot with those sights I am within my range for the little lever. That works out pretty good. Oh! I did learn that thru trial and error and it was not my finer moments.

We all know the limitations of the calibers we choose to use. We promise ourselves we won't take shots beyond the acceptable range for the game we're after. But sooner or later, we're all going to be tempted to take that shot that's only 25 or even 50 (hopefully not 100) yards too far.

I have 2 questions for the grizzled veterans out there:

1) What shots have you taken that maybe you shouldn't have, with what caliber, with what results (assuming good shot placement, I'm talking bullet performance, not aiming error)???


2) Would you place your shot differently on a long shot than on a close one? Specifically, would you go for the shoulder as opposed to behind the shoulder?


I started to wonder after reading the "35 rem and elk" and the "bush gun" thread.

Boy zen what a good question. Your definition of marginal shots begins with shots that are to far away and then you talk about shots past acceptable bullet performance, but still given good shot placement. I'd think with your reference to the "35 Rem and elk" your talking about shooting to far for the cartridges/bullet to perform as it should.

I believe folks do this a lot more than most would admit. I guess that's the reason I went to the magnum cartridges soon after I found that my dads old 30-30 just didn't knock them down near as well as my buddies 300 magnum.

You can believe that once I found that a scope sighted accurate magnum rifle shooting high performance bullets could kill elk and deer well up to 500 yards the old hundred yard 30-30 went in the closet and was soon history.

I've seen a bunch of big game wounded, not just at ranges further than the cartridge/bullet combination should be shot at, but mostly because increased distance usually resulted in poor shot placement.

I'd also have to add in here that running game or moving game shots also are sometimes "beyond acceptable ranges" for lots of shooters, at least for me at anything but extremely close distances.

One of the fella's I hunted with when just starting out was an exceptional running game shot. He tried to teach me, but failed I'm sorry to say. I just don't shoot at running game anymore, except coyotes. But there are lots of us hunters out there that those kind of shots are beyond acceptable ranges for also.

I really do think that shot placement errors plays much more of a role in missing or wounding game at any range rather than bullet performance.

Now for the part of your question about a shot that I've taken that I probably shouldn't have. In 1979 I was on an Alaska Dahl sheep hunt in the Chugach mountian range hunting between the Eklutna lake drainage and the Eagle River drainage. My hunting partner ( the guy so good on running shots) and I worked our way to within long shooting range of three nice Dahl rams nestled in the head of Thunderbird creek just belown Thunderbird peak.

At that time we didn't have rangefinders and our best guess was 550 yards. Both rams were lying down in a glacial bowl in the Thunderbird creek drainage and we were shooting down from above them. We just couldn't get any closer without spooking them.

We shot from the prone position and I was shooting a Ruger 77 30-06 and my partner was shooting a 300 magnum. We both had shot these rifles out to 900 yards and we both were pretty good shots.

We fired together and all three rams jumped up and ran towards us. The one my partner had shot stopped and he put another round into it and it fell down. My ram turned at the second shot and ran diagonally away across the canyon floor. I shot four more times at this ram at between 500 and 800 yards while it was on the run.

I got down to the vally floor and found a large blood trail across the canyon bottom and then found where the ram had went thru a pool of water about 30 feet across and headed up the canyon wall.

He was stopped about 150 yards up and I could see he was shot behind the lungs thru the intestines. There had been enough wind drift over the distance I had shot him that my bullet had drifted about 8 or ten inches sideways from my aiming point, or I had just bobbed a little when I pulled the trigger. I'd like to think it was the wind rather than me though.

As I hurried to follow him I found him on the steep hillside. I sat down and using the sling put another 165 grain Sierra 30 caliber bullet right behind his shoulders. He didn't even flinch as the bullet whacked him. About two minutes later as I was contemplating if I should put another round in him down the canyon wall he fell.

The shots I shouldn't have taken were the four I took as he ran across the canyon bottom. I don't know how close I came, but luckily I didn't shoot a horn off that nice 35 inch 7 year old ram.

When we paced off the initial distance we fired from it was just a tad over 650 yards. The only thing that saved us was the near 45 to 50 degree downward angle we were shooting at effectively shortened up the actual distance enough that our guess was right. I've never since taken a shot at a game animal that far away.

This is my buddies sheep, they were both identical size. Notice the rugged country behind him. We were shooting from the knob on the top right.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q172/faucettb/Hunting%20pix/DicksSheep.jpg

This was us packing in our supplies for our upcoming hunt in two weeks. It's actually steeper than it looks.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q172/faucettb/Hunting%20pix/SheepscoutinginAK.jpg

That's a great story! I'll have to run that range through the ballistics calculator at biggameinfo.com to see what your bullets had left when they got to the sheep. Obviously they did the job, but I wonder if they "should" have. Congrats on some fine shootin by the way!

The first deer I shot when I was 15 or 16 was about 425 yards... bit of a stretch for a .243. I cringe looking back, it was basically the spray and pray method... Don't think I EVER hit a running deer, don't even try anymore. Still, if the right set of antlers was getting away...

The topography nor the water jugs for camp haven't changed in all those years since, Bob. Great pictures. That area at Thunderbird Peak is a drawing hunt only, now. As you said, it is much steeper than it looks!!! Great sheep area though. Tony Russ killed the archery World Record Dall sheep the next drainage over a few years ago. That area holds some real bruisers, but they do hang out in the "walls", the nearly impenetrable comb like cliffs at the head of the valley. Gorgeous area, though.

We went in two years in a row. The first year we got blown off the mountain with 120 knot winds on opening day. Both years we camped just below Thunderbird peak. The top pix is my hunting partner and were in the Glacial basin at the head of Thunderbird Creek.

To get into the basin you can't cross over from where we were camped to where we shot our sheep. It's just to dangerous. We had to drop down two or three thousand feet and then come back up around the peak and down into the head of Thunderbird Creek.

The second year we went in three days ahead just to be ready. The day before season opened we had six nice rams a thousand feet below our camp and an airplane came in and buzzed them. They ran right out of the country.

We had packed in there a total of seven times including the last time when we finally got our rams. It was to steep to climb up to the peak then down and back up to our camp.

We had to climb over the devide into the Eklutna drainage and down to the lake with better than a hundred and thirty pounds each on our backs and our guns and a sleeping bag.

When I went back to retrieve our camp a week later it had snowed two and a half feet where our camp was and my tent and gear there had blown away.

I had a pretty good gunsmith and gun sales business going with my hunting partner aside from my military duties and had built an armaloyed Winchester model 70 in 264 magnum. About two weeks before the hunt I was offered so much money for it I couldn't turn it down. All was left was the Ruger 06 and it went.

My hunting partner had an armaloyed pre-64 model 70 in 300 H&H mag that was rechambered for 300 ICL Grizzly (a 300 Weatherby clone). When we finally decided to shoot I was sure wishing I'd turned down the money for the 264 mag.

Bob..lookin' lean and mean back then! DIdn't we all?

Great hunt and story.

Gents,

Although it pains me to admit it, I certainly have taken a few that I wish that I hadn't.

Six years ago, hunting hard, I was one morning session away from being shut out. Earlier in the season I had to pass on a 8-10 point deer, a real brute, because of a nonexistant backstop, and I hunted him hard the rest of the season to no avail.

I had also seen this high racked 7 point five or six times, and passed, as had my hunting partners, although one later admitted to shooting at him and missing. He had become such a fixture on the place, he became "familiar Fred."

Well, last morning, as I have said, and I decided that if Fred showed up, Fred was dead. Fred showed, running a doe, and he was close enough that I thought I could swing with him, and did, sort of- it was obvious by his reaction that it hit him too far back. He cruised into a thicket and stopped, and I figured once he got his wind back he was going to walk my legs off. The only part of him that I could see through the thicket was one side of his butt, so I put the next round (270 WIN 150 Horn RN, loaded pretty hot) right in his hip joint. The bullet came apart spectacluarly on the joint, but it did anchor him, and the third and final shot was easy to make, afterwards. We didn't get much venison from Old Fred.

I don't like to shoot bone unless I have to, so I'll always try to put it behind the shoulder, which also compliments the bullets that I use in the field when long range shooting is possible, normally Sierra's or Nosler BTs.

Best to you fellows.

Steve

"The shot that I wish I could take back" was on a Woodland caribou in Newfoundland. I had my 350 Rem Mag sighted in for 200 yds, and had shot all summer @ ranges up to 300 yds. After taking all precautions with the way I packed the rifle for my drive from NJ, the pilot of our "puddle jumper" slung my rifle into the back of the plane,hitting the scope on the side of the plane.(unbeknownst to me!!)My friend later clued me in about it as he was already in the plane and thought he heard a bang when my rifle case went into the plane.
Upon arriving at camp, the caribou were drifting by in ones, and twos fairly close to the camp. We decided to fore-go with checking our zero's, confident that we had been flawless with protecting our rifles. Big mistake!!
I stalked a 17 pt double shovel bull to within 300 yds, took a rock solid rest, figured my hold-over and drift, and proceeded to put a 35 caliber 200 gr Hornady spire-point directly in one ear and out the other of my bull. I kid you not , you could not find a single hole in that caribou. While he went down instantly, and I had ruined no meat, that mistake really took away from my hunt.
It turned out to be dumb luck that I even hit the bull as my rifle was 7" left at 100 yds,(21" left @ 300) While I put the bullet at the right elevation,(his head was down) I shudder to think of the what could've beens.

ALWAYS CHECK YOUR ZERO!!

Good shootin'
johnny