Best Shot You've Made

[white buffalo]

I don't know if it's a best shot but it is one I'll remember the rest of my life. As an 8 year old who was out of school for the summer, myself and a couple of my friends grabbed our fishing poles and headed to the creek. I also took my daisy lever bb gun. As we were walking down the center of the railroad tracks, a cotton-tail jumped out of the weeds and ran towards a concrete drainage ravine, about 20 or so yards away. I dropped my pole and raised my daisy and squeezed just as that rabbit jumped into the ravine. He hit the bottom of the ravine with a thud, and then started to try to pull itself with it's front legs. My buddies were going crazy screaming you nailed him etc. I just stood there in shock as I couldn't believe I even hit it, much less put it down. I remembered one of the things my dad had taught me, was to not let an animal suffer so I jumped down into the ravine and proceeded to shoot that rabbit in the head to end it's misery. I cocked and shot and cocked and shot, but the little daisy wouldn't penetrate that poor rabbits head. He was trying to crawl away with his front legs as my first shot had hit him in the back and paralyzed his rear legs. As I stood there over this wounded rabbit I wandered why I had even shot at him. I couldn't just walk away and let this animal die a slow cruel death, so I did the only thing I could think of at the time, I put a foot on him and beat him to death with that daisy bb gun. My friends sort of freaked out and took off and left me there. Another of the things my dad had taught me at a young age was not to shoot an animal just to shoot it, if I was going to eat it that was ok. So I picked up the rabbit and headed home by myself to go skin and clean it. I got home and gutted and skinned the rabbit and found the meat covered in wolves. Yet another of the things my father had previously told me was to hunt rabbits after the first freeze and the wolves would not be in it. So what started as a one in a million shot, ended up reinforcing several lessons my late dad had tried to teach me at a young age. That was one shot I'll always remember.
WB

 

[ADKWOODSMAN]

About 20 years ago, I just had a set of bomar sights put on the GI slide on my accurized Original Gold Cup. We were going to shoot clay birds. I tried the first shot with the .45 and I broke the bird about 20 yards after it left the thrower. I knew the mountain was a safe background because no one could go on the land. I would say it’s my best.

About 20 years before that, a buddy and I were on our way home from hunting with our pellet guns. I turned around from our after hunt target practice to see a grouse walking in the brush about 15 yards away. I whispered to by buddy to say put, I pumper the Crossman .22 air rifle and took it in the neck, dropped it for the count. My dad cooked it for my buddy and I the next night.

 

[Steve 48]

602 yard shot of a prairie dog in Kansas. Steve48

 

[buck00]

At the range of 6 inches, I fired a .45 at a masterlock and freed some friends who were trapped behind a fence at night in a place they were not supposed to be. (loooong story so let's focus on the shooting part)

I have heard many people on this forum say it is impossible to open or destroy a lock this way (as commonly done in movies).

Sure enough, the .45 slug hit the lock dead center (almost no damage) but the impact sprung the mechanism and the lock opened promptly. The good guys escaped.

I've told this story before on THR and usually get no response or a lack of comprehension. I don't really care if people belive me or not, but I thought I'd share it.... although I do insist "don't try this at home kids."


http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot5.htm

"OP, I wonder how difficult it is to shoot a lock off? I've seen it done on TV and in movies, but wonder if it is as easy as they show it to be. How about if I send you some funds to buy some locks. Will you shoot them and report back?"


Guys on the movies sometimes place the muzzle against the lock, but I'm not that crazy.

 

[geophysicishooter]

I have 2. Both invloved shooting dove.

For the first, let me drop this disclaimer. I know it wasn't legal or maybe even ethical but I was 8 and was soon taught how, where and under what circumstances it was ok to shoot game birds. I was patrolling my grand dad's junk yard with my air gun, stalking pretend bad guys. I came to the back end of the yard and I saw two dove picking gravel off the ground. I had a bb chambered and charged. I took aim at the back of the head of one of the dove. drilled him, dropped him and bagged my quarry. his partner was startled at the the abrupt cracking sound but didn't fly very far. I tracked around the corner and found him there on the ground, clucking around. I jacked another round in the chamber and pumped the handle. Put a bb in the back of his head. I scooped hiim up and ran my kill back to the shop to show my dad and grand dad. Neither could believe that I had killed not one but two dove with a bb gun. That night, I got my first taste of bacon wrapped dove breasts. It was awesome.

The second took place later on that same year on the opening day of dove season. My dad, grand dad, uncle and one other man went out for the afternoon's hunt. They posted up around the water tank and they posted me about 75-80 yards away under a mesquite tree over looking a plowed under field. I had my little beretta 410 single shot fold-over and a pocket full of shells. At some point a single dove comes flying in to water and everyone of the grown ups takes at least one shot at it, it manages to avoid all the lead flying across the tank and books it about eye level about 50 yards away across the field full speed. I raised up, shouldered my shotgun, leveled the barrel, flipped the safety, brought the sight over the bird, pulled the trigger, followed though and down he went. That was the first bird I ever took, in season, with a shot gun. I didn't hit a thing for the rest of the day but it didn't matter. I made the shot of the day and my dad was super proud..

 

[Calibre44]

Two occasions stick in my mind.

The first was with an air rifle when I was a kid. My friend turned up with his brand new rifle and I asked if I could have a go with it. We lined up a few cans at 25 yards and just as I was about to shoot, a Wasp landed on the ring pull and I shot it in half. (complete fluke!) but it was a great feeling handing my friend’s rifle back after one shot saying ‘yea it shoots okay doesn’t it!’

The other was putting a bullet dead centre in a simulated ‘Quigley Bucket Shoot’ at 200 yrds using a Marlin Under-Lever in .357 with iron-sights – don’t ever ask me to do it again though!

 

[Funderb]

calibre44, that quote is from "the man who shot liberty valance" right?
Memory fails me, great movie though.
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
I think that's a good quote for this thread!

 

[Japle]

About 25+ years ago, I was at the range with some buddies. We were shooting metallic silhouettes at the usual 50-200 meters with our competition guns.

Just for fun, I pulled out my 6 ½” M-29 and some medium-light handloads. Shooting double action, I nailed 5 chicken silhouettes at 50 meters.
My buddies immediately demanded I do it again, but I was, tragically, out of ammo.

 

[theotherwaldo]

My greatest shot was a fluke, an error, a clean miss, an embarassment, and illegal as all get out. It didn't even involve a gun!

My whole family and I were spending the summer on the Rogue River trail, as we often did back in the late 60s and early 70s. I was in the process of packing in the bedding when I heard something crashing through the brush down by the river.
I set down the pack frame and peered down the almost sheer drop. A little fork-horn buck ambled carelessly out into the river, belly-deep, and began trying to drink the river dry.
I just couldn't resist. I grabbed a big chunk of rock and gave it a toss, visualizing the huge Ba-Loosh the rock would produce and the panicked dash of the deer.
Didn't happen. The stupid deer turned and walked right under the rock. Caught him just at the base of the neck and dropped him kicking.
Oops.
I couldn't see any way down to him that would let me get back up to the trail. I dithered a few minutes. He quit kicking. I picked up the pack, took the load on to the campsite, and never said a word.

Later that night, as we sat around the fire eating trout and drinking Jello, we all heard a cougar arguing with a black bear over something upstream. About where that little buck was, more or less.
I guess that deer didn't go to waste, after all.

 

[Funderb]

I hope primitive weapons season was in!

 

[1200 meters]

My best favorite shoot.

I was shooting in a sniper course at Ft Bragg. On my second to last shot, my scope dropped a lens and I missed the target. I had one target left. It was a Man size silhouette at 500 meters, standing off hand. I ask the grader if there was a spare scope and his comment was ,"You don't have a spare in combat.". So I stood and removed my scope and cranked in what I remembered was My 360 meter zero for my M-14 at Basic training (14 up and 3 right). I took a good standing firing position aimed a half of body length over the head and pulled it off. There resounded a clear clang of bullet to metal and the disbeleiving grader said" do that again.". to which I said "Don't have to, it's combat and he's dead.". Blitz

 

[Nate C.]

I think it was 680 yards (more or less) at a steel plate/gong that was roughly 36" across sitting halfway up a hill. Made the shot offhand with a Yugo Mauser that looked rough. There was enough crosswind that I had to hold about a foot to the side to get on target. I couldn't duplicate the shot.

 

[Calibre44]

Funderb wrote: calibre44, that quote is from "the man who shot liberty valance" right?Memory fails me, great movie though.
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
I think that's a good quote for this thread!

I’m not a 100% sure but I think it came from ‘The Cowboys’ where Wayne used a bunch of kids to drive his cattle herd across country … also one of the few films his character died in.

‘A Legend? … I’ll say!’ … True Grit is still one of my favourite Westerns but not necessarily for the action: more for the dialogue that is just jam packed with ‘Waynisiums’

 

[Old Guy]

Not my shot!

A few years ago I worked with some Israeli guys, one of them came up to me with his Glock 17, issued! He asked if I had my sight tool with me, he had dropped his 17, and the sight was way over one side (he was a good shot by the way) anyway I cranked it back to the center of the slide (rear sight) I stuck one of my diploma gold seals on a shot up target at seven yds, he aimed, two hands, fired the shot... dead center of the seal! I mean the exact center! Drilled it.

I said "one more?" "Oh no" he said, took that seal with him!