Will a semi-auto get you more game than a bolt-action?

Varminterror said:

This is a false construct.

There is absolutely nothing inherent to the design of a single-shot which does ANYTHING but fire a bullet. The mechanical device cannot and does not force any enhanced focus or prevent any reduced diligence. If a person is willing to take a sub-optimal shot, the mechanical device in their hands won’t change that.

It is true that reloading a single shot is slower than the self-loading action of a semiauto. But nothing about any of these designs forces anyone to be more or less responsible for their own actions.

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Accuracy begins between the shooters ears

entropy said:

I can tell you from personal experience it will if you are hunting ducks.

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I am quicker on a 2nd shot with an O/U or side by side than any of my semiautos can cycle.

jmorris said:

I am quicker on a 2nd shot with an O/U or side by side than any of my semiautos can cycle.

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What about that third shot?

That said I have only doubled on deer once and it was with a double action revolver, shooting double action.

I tripled on ground hogs once. From the roof of the chicken-coup. I shot at a ground hog and muffed the shot. He streak for his hole and three others stood up to look at what all the commotion was and I hammer three ground hogs as fast as I could cycle the bolt on the old Winchester M70. Four shots in about 6-8 seconds, longest shot was ~60 yards I missed the chip shot at ~30 yards. 270 Win does bad things to groundhogs

Unless I am hunting a type of pack animal (like hogs or coyotes) I won't use a semi-auto. When it comes to hunting I am a little more old fashioned and like bolt and lever guns.

I tend not to shoot at running game.

That doesn't mean that it's not a skill I value.

Sometimes, it's just necessary. Maybe you've already made a killing hit, but due to circumstances you don't have absolute proof, and it's better to take the insurance shot.

A faster action helps, some. Operating the bolt gun in rapid fire is not a natural thing, but it can be done with stunning, almost sleight of hand speed. More important is how the rifle is stocked. Until you've hunted with a rifle stocked with the considerable drop at comb and heel of most 19th century rifles, it's difficult to appreciate how near to the shotgun they point. But even with modern weapons designed to be shot from the bench, rapid, accurate manipulation can and should be learned.

And once in a rare while comes that situation where you're deep in, hungry, little left to eat, and you realize that sporting ethics aren't the only consideration. It's either you or the animal. You miss, you starve.

@jmr40 makes a fair point when he says that due to recoil there may not be a ton of difference in the speed of follow up shots between the repeating action types.

I know that as a lefty, bolt actions are not in high supply and usually not in the configurations I like so I have written them off. I know I can’t cycle a lefty bolt or a righty bolt as fast as a lever or pump rifle. Some folks can and if they can then they are on equal terms with all the other action types.

When shotgunning I can shoot a pump as fast and accurately as a semi auto.

All that said I have made more deer kills with a pump shotgun than anything else and the fast repeat shot capability has many times allowed me to knock a deer down before it got to a property line. That is the kind of hunting I did then.

If it is still standing and offers me a second or third shot, I shoot until it goes down. Period. Be that as it may I don’t often shoot at running game but I will often be ready when the deer gets to a fence it will often hesitate for a split second before hopping over. I can usually put another one on them there and finish what I started.

I used to watch hunting shows where a guy would shoot, say, a moose and the guide would say you shot him good and would say there is no need for another shot. Not me. I shoot until it falls down and then I stay on it to make sure it doesn’t get back up. If I were to ever go on a guided hunt I would ask the outfitter about their policy on this before I signed off. Based on the TV shows, it almost seems like it’s some kind of rule to only shoot once and shooting any more is some kind of bad form.

For my hunting I demand a gun I can cycle fast.

A semi-auto will certainly help you miss faster!!

mcb said:

What about that third shot?

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It doesn’t exist, it’s the first shot again

talking about semi auto shotguns, I had a friend who cut his teeth on a Rem. 1100. The rest of us grew up on pump action guns. He was definitely super fast with that semi. I think it was good his dad started him on it.

I was elk hunting a feller that had a semi-auto 30-06. Well he was sitting at the edge of a meadow and a bunch of elk came through. It sounded like a war broke out.. I went over to see what had happened and he had fired 8 shots and not hit anything. There was a track of a bullet hitting the snow 20 feet in front of him.. He was mad at me because I told him he would only need one box of ammo when we were getting ready for the trip.

He didn't get an elk that year.

Will a semi-auto get you more game than a bolt-action?

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John Moses Browning thought so.....in the hey day of market hunting the A-5 was considered to be an unfair advantage when hunting. JMB and his son Val were convinced that legislative measures being floated could eventually become law, thus banning the A-5 semi-auto shotgun. That was the motivation behind the development of the Superposed O/U in case legislators restricted shotguns to only two shots.

It could help on multiple targets like birds. For big game it doesn't matter to me. I have shot plenty deer with all types. It doesn't enter my thought process when I shoot. Operating the action is second nature to me.

I've never hunted big game with a semi-auto. Never felt the need for it. Bought an AR-10 and suppose I will have to take it hunting to break it's cherry. But there are vast differences in the types of hunting.

I went jackrabbit hunting in southern Idaho last winter and brought a semi-auto and a lever-action along. When you are killing dozens of animals a day that are nearly all running and zig-zagging between sage brush, then you need a faster action.

I can see a semi-auto useful for situations with dangerous game in which a fast follow up shot is needed. Hog hunting would seem to be the ideal application of an AR-10.

My father has killed two deer at a time several times using auto shotgun. Said that with the first shot, often the other deer can't tell which way shot came from as sound is all over. They would freeze looking for the hunter. He could then fire and kill a second deer with auto. The noise of a manual action would give your position away. Never tried it myself as I do not care to clean two deer at once.
I have shot running coyotes with a scoped bolt action when in an open field.

When I was a teenager I was jack rabbit hunting with a friend from school. We both had SKS rifles and both had converted them to have 30 round magazines. We were hunting in high desert so not a ton of cover for running rabbits. One took off out of a bush at full speed up the side of a hill. Only lost sight for split seconds from the bushes. Both of us opened up hitting just behind the rabbit every shot. 60 rounds and 30 seconds later the rabbit lived to see another day and both of us about died laughing. Good oL days. Bolt gun cant make you laugh till your eyes water like that.

If you shrink down the rifles to rimfire .22 and hunt a active game like raccoon, I can relate my experence.

My first rifle was a single shot manual cock Marlin the model 110 Glenfield.
My first hot and heavy action was one winter night just before bed I stalked over to my famlies silage pile with my single shot and a 6 volt lantern.
I came from down wind of the pile and when close enough I picked up 5 raccoon digging and feeding on the warm silage.
I prepped my loose round ahead of time with 4 rounds in my lips and one in the chamber.
I cocked and ligned up and nailed my first coon.
All heck broke loose I had tried to get a second but moving coon at 10 pm in the dark I missed hitting the other 4.
Infact I had to shoot my inital coon again as it was only wounded.

Later on I had a leveraction rimfire.
It was a good rifle but It was a great First shot rifle with a followup kill shot.
90% the time I could hit a coon and get it to flail, and poke it a second shot to stop the flailing.
I found bolt actions and levers were pretty good at hitting a still target the first shot if its standing still.
But hitting a moving critter with a single shot bolt action or even a lever took more skill than Id ever developed.
Most my skill honeing was at night on moving bushy tails.
Most vetran coon hunters liked semiautomatic rifles like the Marlin model 60 or the Ruger 10/22.
They were great on moving targets and hitting pairs or small groups.
The tactic was to at least wing each critter to get them to flail.
Once they were winged a second shot would usually finish them off.
Good shooting takes practice and fair expenditure of ammo.

I always wanted to be able to use a single shot on a running target but that takes more practice than I could afford time for.
That takes lots and lots of practice.
Kinda like billards.

Since this discussion is about a larger caliber rifle and the game is most likely Deer, the best tactic is nail it with the first shot.
All the best shots are when you solidly know your range.
You instinctively know where to 'hold over' at certain distances.
That takes practice, Lots of Practice.
Not paper target practice on a comfy shooting range but realistic shots at angles, up-hill and down slope.
It takes practice to dope distances.
It can be a game you can play every day destimating distances and even confirm by pacing it off or using a rangefinder.

My Experence, my shot accuracy is 85% at 200 yds.
It drops off as the distance grows.
Ind drift and leading a moving critter all work against you.
So I stalk in till Im confident I can make a solid hit.
In only one case was I lucky and lobbed a Hail Mary and hit a deer.
It hit bad and was a hassle tracking a wounded deer through some rough ground to expire is some plumb brush requireing more work than was needed.

Semiauto can be a crutch for bad marksmanship, so no spray and pray hunting for me, too much meat damage and its just poor form.

Hunting is about the pleasure of being outdoors and being self-contained, the rush of opening morning and the spiritual act of hunting; the action type, caliber, personality of a firearm, etc are only a mechanical means to that awareness - academic preparation to the emotional experience. The taking of the game is the anti-climax.

Steve S. said:

Hunting is about the pleasure of being outdoors and being self-contained, the rush of opening morning and the spiritual act of hunting; the action type, caliber, personality of a firearm, etc are only a mechanical means to that awareness - academic preparation to the emotional experience. The taking of the game is the anti-climax.

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99% of the time now, i agree. There are still times when hunting is simply to get a specific type of meat, or because i want to do a big batch of something....I dont think Ive shot a game animal in a couple months even tho ive gone hunting 1/2 a dozen times. My mindset will change once the freezers get low again, but for now its simply because I enjoy it.

For some folks tho hunting is still a primary a means for collecting food. To this day where i grew up folks are as likely to pull the rusty old rifle out from behind the seat and off some critter, as they are to go to the store. Venison, fish, and home grown/wild pork made up a huge portion of what we ate, specially at parties....Grad season i was shooting 4-5 deer a week, and my freezers were never full.
Course there are significantly more deer than people on Molokai.

Picher said:

I think it could, provided the user is as good a shot on both still and running game as a bolt, lever, or pump hunter. That doesn't mean that the average "Gravel Pit Master" can fully take advantage of the firepower afforded by a semi-auto. Why? I think that many semi-auto hunters tend to shoot the first shot before they are on-target for a quick kill, especially on running game! Each shot after the first one is usually a worse situation than that first shot, so that first opportunity should be delayed until the sight picture is as good as it will probably get.

The first deer I ever shot was running across a big field, after being shot-at by another hunter. I took my rifle out of the car, loaded one round, then leaned on an object and fired as it topped a ridge in a hayfield, 200 yards away. It went down dead. That was about 55 years ago, when in my early 20s.

Since then, I've killed several running deer, and yes, missed a few, but rarely wounded any to have them escape to die a horrible death. A few times, I've mentioned my favorite, shot left-handed from a tree stand, but all of them that I hit were done with a bolt-action. I've missed with handguns and a shotgun with slugs and think that a bolt-action might have gotten those critters because I'd have been more deliberate because I may have had only one decent opportunity, and would have used greater care.

JP

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Growing up you HAD to learn to shoot moving animals. When hunting as a group we primarily used post and push, or kinda sneaky driven hunting (hunters still hunting the same direction so that animals pushed by one would likely run past another). When I was by myself I usually still hunted, or just wandered around and shot stuff that popped up. In those situations I rarely took more than one or two animals.

I spent a few years hunting with a remington 7400 in .30-06, and honestly Im not sure i was any faster with the semi than i was with a bolt gun THEN.
It did take me a few times to learn not to shoot at the herd, and pick up specific animals...course by the time I got my semi (I bought it because Id developed a flinch, and I DID want to be able to quickly send 4-5 rounds down range), Id already gotten tired of emptying a 5 round magazine into everything besides stuffs that are edible.

I havent hunted with a semi for a couple years, but IM confident that they can put more meat in the freezer than other action types, as long as they are used with equal skill.

Picher said:

Why? I think that many semi-auto hunters tend to shoot the first shot before they are on-target for a quick kill, especially on running game! Each shot after the first one is usually a worse situation than that first shot, so that first opportunity should be delayed until the sight picture is as good as it will probably get.


JP

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Quite an assumption. I have a policy - call it part of my ethical hunting, not to shoot at running deer. The chance of wounding but not killing them is too great. I have NEVER fired off a shot without first acquiring a good sight-picture and being aware of what is behind my target. In all the deer I have killed, about 15, only one has ever required a follow up shot. If a semi auto gives one license to point and "bang away" then I am not in favor of using them but I doubt for many that that is the way it is.

I would say it depends on the shooters skill.

Robbins290 said:

I would say it depends on the shooters skill.

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I don't think skill level would matter that much. The semi-auto would increase the capability of both good and bad shooters. A bad shooter might actually kill that deer despite missing the first few shots using a semi-auto but would not have using a manually cycled gun. ie quantity has a quality of it own or if you put enough lead in the air they eventually walk into a bullet. The good shooter might get that triple on the coyotes where with a manual he might have only gotten a single or double. I think shooters of all skill levels will gain some capability with the semi-auto vs the manual in the right situations. The better shooter is going to have more right situations. ie luck favors the prepared.

in the hey day of market hunting the A-5 was considered to be an unfair advantage when hunting.

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Yet they are still legal to hunt with and the punt guns were made illegal.

Picher,
I think you opened up a can of worms. Action type is a personal choice. Yes a semiautomatic is generally the fastest action type (double barrel?). Speed can depend on game and caliber of firearm. With a heavy recoil rifle in a semiautomatic there is some recovery time from recoil. A lesser recoiling rifle in a lever or pump can be as quick. In practiced hands a bolt can be very fast as well. The most important part is ethical shots taken safely knowing what is beyond the target.

Safe shooting and hunting!

Jeff