How often do you need more than three shots when big game hunting?

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hdwhit said:
I don't hunt "big game" so please tolerate this question; how often does the prey remain standing or runs away slowly enough that it is practical to even fire more than three aimed shots?

I ask because the biggest thing I have hunted was white tail deer and if I didn't kill or at least cripple it on the first shot, it was gone running and the second shot came at close range after tracking it through the woods for a mile or so.
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Which is the reason I never need more than three.
 
It happens , even to those of us who hunt year round.
My calander shows 11 Caribou since May (bulls we dryed). Of those most were one shot affairs but a couple were in need of 'another' and a notable couple a 'few' shots'.........
It isnt like the Animals are co-operating in this, either.....
Sometimes the animals just dont get hit in a vital in a way it takes them down right away. Sometimes they are straight up misses, and some are due to the rifle, the weather, the shooter, the animal is now running, etc.

If you dont hunt, you wont miss.
 
The only time I can recal shooting a deer twice with a rifle was on two different days. I grazed it on the first day due to a scope that went south and shot it the next day at the same time with a different rifle. I have also shot a couple twice after blood trailing them but magazine capacity was not an issue as there would have been ample time to reload between shots, as in minutes.

It's been my experience that if you hunt in the woods you generally don't get an opportunity for a second shot. I don't think 3 rounds vs 5 is any real handicap. I also believe hunters should be required to use a single shot there first 3 years of hunting.
 
I'm too girly to use Magnums, so just as you might expect, I wind up having to shoot most of my game 10 or 12 times before finishing it off with a knife/rock/tree branch... ;)

Just kidding of course, I don't remember having to shoot any animal more than twice, and usually the second shot has been to hasten the coil shuffling on an already immobilized critter. That said, I do pretty much always hunt with a full mag and 6 - 8 rounds in a stock sleeve, I'm a bit paranoid about running out of bullets several miles from the truck for whatever reason.
 
When I was a younger man I deer hunted the swamps of south Louisiana and we run dogs down there. I was in a tree stand once when the dogs jumped a buck and I could tell from the sounds of their barking that he was coming straight at me. I heard him busting through the rose oak cane and he come out on a dead run about 75 yards away. I was hunting with my BLR and iron sights. My first shot missed and cause him to quarter away from me and pick up his pace. I proceeded to do my best Chuck Conners impression and unloaded the rest of my rounds with alacrity. I didn't cut a single hair.

The moral of my story: if your quarry isn't hit on th first shot, generally all subsequent shots are a waste of good ammo, and if your hunting buddies are within earshot of your blasting away, it's a source of teasing when you get back to the camp
 
cdb1 said:
Gtscotty, I've never heard the term "coil shuffling" before. Is it a typo? If not what does it mean?
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To shuffle off this mortal coil. To expire. To die.

The first deer I shot was the only 4 legged beast that I put more than 2 rounds into, second shot is almost always an "insurance" shot.

Using a Savage 99F with a vintage Weaver, 200 yards or so out in near blizzard conditions. I emptied the rotary magazine, emptied my ammo wallet and had to dig out the extra box of shells from my pack before he finally laid down and died. There were two in the gut, two in the neck, 7 between the liver and front shoulder and one in the offside antler.
 
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I've always been picky about my shots. I can recall two coup de grace occasions, but only to shorten the dying time. Regardless of skill or luck--take your pick--I always had the magazine loaded in my bolt action, and commonly had the remainder of the box of shells in my fanny pack.

I did have a terminal attack of the stupids about fifty years ago. I thought the buck was at 400 yards, but it was more like 550. I banged and whanged and he ignored it all, EIGHT times. :) I was disgusted with myself. He then turned and moved toward me; stopped and posed in calendar-picture fashion. The wind quit. I held just above the tops of his antlers. The bullet hit low in the brisket/heart and he crumpled. So, about 450 yards. I felt stupid, but he was indeed tasty.
 
I have thought about this a lot and this is why I stick to the 30-06 or 338-06 for my hunting rifles, I like to walk. I generally hunt up in the mountains or strive to get as far away from people as possible. This means I am carrying my equipment for the day or few days and I like having as many rounds in the rifle as possible. I am sure that I over think this, but I always have 20 rounds of ammo when I leave the truck. I have seen folks run out of ammo many miles from camp and turn their hunt into a nature walk for the rest of the day. For one friend this, Walk of Shame, was a good time for him to reflect on how much practice and preparation he actually put into the hunt. It really helped him to grow as a hunter and become more proficient.

Also, for the ranges I shoot in the field, I see no practical difference between a 30-06 and a 300 WM or a 338-06 vs a 338 WM. I am in no way knocking magnum cartridges and understand their purpose, but up in the mountains I limit my shots to about 300 yards. When in AK, I like the feeling of the extra couple of rounds in my 338-06 and for me, the 06 based cartridges feed much smoother than belted magnums or the fat boys. I am a rifle nut though and fully understand why folks buy magnums or particular rifles for particular hunts.

I guess it really comes down to how and what you are hunting.
 
I have a superstition, I only carry 5 rounds with me when I am big game hunting. If I am using my single shot, one in the chamber and four in a cartridge sleeve. Magazine rifles have one in the chamber and 2 in the magazine plus two in my pocket. Silly, I know, but old habits die hard. With that having been said, I have only needed 5 rounds one time in my career. I ran into a sounder of hogs and killed 4 of the critters. I missed the fifth shot but still don't know how.
 
One time. Hog. Hit him the first time, was not going anywhere.
Just spinning around on the ground.

Put another one in him just for good measure.

525yds out. Never shot a big game animal more than once
except for that hog. That was my first hog.
 
I know the image folks like to project is that of the perfect broadside shot and a perfectly placed one shot drop but sometimes a little more excitement gets injected into our adventures. Critters move. Vegetation does not cooperate. Nerves get the best of us. Sometimes our shot placement is not perfect. Sometimes you take a chance you maybe shouldn't have. Some critters just don't want to go down easy. As they say, "it" happens. I've been surprised by two deer where I thought there was only one and shot both with two quick successive shots. I have been surprised by hogs while eating a sandwich and forgot where in their skull the brain was located. I've also pursued critters that took more killing than one shot provides.
 
hdwhit said:
Thank you, horsey300 and cdb1. Those animals are totally outside my experience so I had no idea.

Also, thank you for not making fun of my ignorance on the subject.
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Not at all sir! Shocks a lot of people who think whitetail and then the muley hangs around to see if you'll buy drinks with your approach. Usually the gun is already getting unshouldered after the first miss and I'm whispering, "No no no, you've got time!"
 
^ ive seen that more than once.
Gun comes down when the critter quits kicking or i cant see them anymore. Untill then i keep the gun up and prep for another chance. Including putting a bullet into the base of the spine and or pelvis on a wounded animal.
 
When I was a kid I remember the hunting buddy of a friend's dad shot a deer 5 times. When they had it hanging, I saw that most of the rounds skimmed the rib cage at a downward angle (from a tree stand), not doing any real damage. That was the woods of Vermont where shots rarely exceed 50 yards, so poor shooting was at play, but quick followups did down the animal. It's why Remingon 760s and 7600s were so popular back there.
 
cdb1 said:
It blows my mind that I'd never heard of it. Seriously.
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"To be, or not to be...."

I've whacked mebbe 40-50 deer. You just never know. I had one head on quartering shot. Hit him with a 12 gauge 3" Copper Solid. He spun and ran across a hay field, maybe 100 yards. I was slinging slugs the whole time. The first slug blew out the front part of his right lung, most of his heart, and 2/3rd of the right lung. Exited in front of the ham.

Nearly all the others were bang flop.
 
MCMXI said:
Since the thread title mentions "big game hunting" this is where all the old timers who claim to have killed hundreds of elk with a .243 Win and no tracking chime in that it's all about shot placement and only one shot is needed. But before I digress too much, most every repeating rifle I can think of will give you a 3+1 option but there's no guarantee that 4 rounds will be enough even with good shot placement. A couple of years ago a coworker and his brother shot a bull elk three times in the heart/lungs at 300 yards with a .300 Win Mag load and he still managed to go 50+ yards and almost fell into a coulee before he finally dropped. They had good bullet expansion, three good sized permanent wound cavities but the elk didn't know or care. The point of that story isn't that the elk needed three rounds but rather that for some, the difference between 10 yards and 50 yards might mean 1 hour to pack the meat out or 12 hours depending on where the animal drops. I'm sure that folks will be along shortly to tell you that elk aren't tough and that all you need is a 6.5 Creedmoor and one round with good shot placement for one-shot DRT kills on elk out to 600 yards. I'll stick with my Talkeetna and 4+1 rounds of .375 H&H plus six extra rounds in a belt pouch since I like a statistical advantage commonly referred to as stacking the odds in my favor.
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I'll go there. Shot placement really is key, regardless of what you're shooting, and regardless of the stories you've heard. The story mentioned above about the guy's friend who shot the elk in the foot is a great case-in-point of this phenomenon.

I'm not entirely sure exactly when the super duper magnum fad started with regard to hunting North American game, but it seems to me that it really took off in the late 1990's. Now, I have no problem with someone bringing a gun on a hunt that is a bit more than someone needs (or even a LOT more), assuming they can shoot it accurately. But, I roll my eyes every time I hear someone tell me how a .308 Win or .260 Remington can't do the job on an elk. More often than not I find those statements are spewed by people who simply can't hit what they're aiming at, and want to blame the caliber for the loss of game... they then tell me stories about how they (or their uncle's, cousin's, friend's, girlfriend) even lost an elk with a shot from a .300 Ultra Magnum just last season (surely the fault of the caliber, naturally).

Here's why shot placement matters:

If you hit and substantially damage a vital part of an animal that the animal can't live without, the animal is going to die. How fast it dies depends on how immediately vital the part is to the animal, and how greatly it is damaged. We're talking of shots that damage critical blood vessels, central nervous system shots, and/or vital organ damage. So, the ultimate goal when taking any shot (with any rifle) in hunting is to put it into a spot that quickly incapacitates the animal by damaging one of the aforementioned areas. In various hunting groups there's some debate on the best shot to take, but the standard "boiler room" shot on an elk is often chosen because it's a target rich environment for essential organs and blood vessels, and it's also a target of substantial size.

Nevertheless, if you gut shoot an elk with a .458 Win Mag it isn't going to go down faster than the heart shot elk that got hit by a .243 Win. That's reality.

With that said, the entire goal in choosing a bigger caliber is usually to increase your odds of reaching and damaging the vital areas of the animal. There is some value in choosing a more substantial cartridge for this reason! Some cartridges simply fire more substantial bullets, or bullets with better penetration capability. But, to suggest that a 6.5 Creedmoor is inadequate simply because other hunters have lost game with larger cartridges is conjecture at best.

And, I do completely believe your story about the heart shot elk that ran 50 yards. Honestly, it probably didn't matter if you shot that elk with a .300 Win Mag or a .50 BMG... he was going to run until he ran out of steam, and he did exactly that. I've seen this same phenomenon happen with humans who were pushed by adrenaline after being shot. In the most notable example I've seen, a guy ran 130 yards before dropping after being shot right through the heart. He was destined to be dead the second that shot hit him, and no hospital on earth would have been able to save him. But, he had enough survival instinct to run until he fell, and he did exactly that. Again, it wouldn't have mattered if it was a .38 Special or a .50 BMG in that case. He was dead on his feet, and running on borrowed time. The only guaranteed DRT anchor shot is a solid CNS hit (that's why it's the shot used by police snipers). That's obviously not recommended for hunting for the obvious difficulties in scoring that shot, weighed against the odds of wounding an animal that might limp away and die slowly and painfully. As such, the heart/lung shot is a more reliable choice in most cases. But, even as you and I have both witnessed firsthand, it isn't always enough to drop the animal (2 or 4 legged) in their tracks.
 
Jason_W said:
When I was a kid I remember the hunting buddy of a friend's dad shot a deer 5 times. When they had it hanging, I saw that most of the rounds skimmed the rib cage at a downward angle (from a tree stand), not doing any real damage. That was the woods of Vermont where shots rarely exceed 50 yards, so poor shooting was at play, but quick followups did down the animal. It's why Remingon 760s and 7600s were so popular back there.
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Ayyyup. The 30-30 lever gun, some even older lever guns, and "those pump guns" populated the deer camps and weighing stations of my youth. As far as I knew when I was a kid, there only were 22, 30-30, and 30-06 rifles I remember being about 12 the first time I saw a fancy new fangled bolt gun with a scope! My uncle was talking to the fellow outside the Jacksonville General Store and asked him if he was an assassin :rofl:
 
RPRNY said:
Ayyyup. The 30-30 lever gun, some even older lever guns, and "those pump guns" populated the deer camps and weighing stations of my youth. As far as I knew when I was a kid, there only were 22, 30-30, and 30-06 rifles I remember being about 12 the first time I saw a fancy new fangled bolt gun with a scope! My uncle was talking to the fellow outside the Jacksonville General Store and asked him if he was an assassin :rofl:
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There were plenty of .30-30 levergun fans where I grew up. Bolt guns were mostly sporterized or stock military surplus guns (Lee Enfields were more common than you'd think) and the real "cool kids" so to speak had a pump action in .30-06 or .270.

I don't remember anyone being a particularly great shot. Most of these guys were the dust off the rifle the day before the deer season opener and make sure the scope was still sighted enough to hit a paper plate at 50 yards. I have a feeling that if the terrain allowed longer shots on deer, the hunter success rates would have been way lower.

Shot placement is always crucial, but it can't hurt to have the ability to poke a few more holes in an animal should it get back up. Or, why wait for it to get back up? Why not followup while it's on the ground, just to be sure?
 
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