Miracle Shots?

[tjj]

Years back my wife's sister's husband got a surprise Christmas gift from my wife's sister. A used Rem 742 in 30-06 with a 3x9 scope. He invited me to go with him to make a hunt on public land so we headed out a day early to check the sight-in on his new rifle. Didn't have any real targets so we made one with a cardboard beer tray by marking a 2" bull in the middle with a black marking pen. We paced off 75 long steps in a heavy wooded area and got to work sighting in. He shot from the hood of his truck and I spotted with some cheap azz Bushnell binos. Well after about a half box of ammo we got it to within a couple inches of that black bull and he said "thats close enough".
Well I brought my Marlin 336 in 30-30 (my only center fire at the time) and I hadn't shot it in years so I said I'd better check zero before the hunt. I sat on the bare ground in a military sitting position, took aim with the stock pronghorn open sights and let er fly. He said clean miss and couldn't tell where it went because of the bushes surrounding the target. I said it couldn't be that far off so we better check the target. The hit was less than a bullet diameter off of dead center in the black bull. I said "that's good enough". He said some things I can't repeat here but he's a believer in open sights now. The fact that I said I couldn't believe it could be that far off made him think I was confident in a bullseye shot at that range.
To this day he doesn't know if I normally shoot that good or if that was just luck.

 

[gvnwst]

When I was younger, I once buried two torpedoes into an exhaust port that was flat on the deck, about two meters wide. I was doing about 140 knots at the time. Some of my comrades were impressed, but I'd been bullseying womprats in my old T-16 back home, and they weren't much bigger than two meters...

Hmmm...that seems familier, where did you say this was?

 

[Stirling XD]

When I was about 12 my grandpa and I went out to our farm to do a few things. We took along my dad's .22 rifle along just for kicks. We always passed by my uncle's place on the way there and he had a couple of coon hounds that always followed us there.

On the way back out, the dogs treed something not to far from the road. It was squirrel season so we decided to check it out. The dogs were barking at something in a long-dead, hollow tree (tall stump). Grandpa pushed on it and a squirrel came flying out and jumped onto a nearby oak tree. He ran up the trunk and was jumping from one limb to the next. At that age, hitting a squirrel on the run was a challenge to me even with a shotgun. I shouldered the rifle and looked through the scope trying to follow him. Just as he launched himself off a limb, I shot. He fell straight to the ground. I had shot him right through the head. Grandpa knew that was a lucky shot and so did I. But he was still impressed and I was still proud of my shot.

 

[Norinco982lover]

1. 14 years old...daisy 10 pump bb gun...it leaked so I gave it 12 pumps for good measure-- it was just after dusk so it was getting pretty dark out and my brother pointed at a duck swimming across the pond about 100 yards away. I took aim about 2 feet above his head and let fly...the duck started sputtering and then dissappeared. We never found the body so I'm sure I just stunned it for a moment.

2. Also, when I was 12 I hit a 2inch thick steel pole from about 75 yards with my co2 bb pistol on my first try.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

two years ago I pulled off the ol two deer with one shot. wasn't on purpose. i shot a big doe and another smaller one moved behind her at the wrong moment. luckily in arkansas, you get two doe tags, and I hadn't taken one already.

 

[armoredman]

Seems a lot of BB lucky shots!
I got 4 out of 6 reloads from my SMith Model 10 on 1 x 2 foot target at approximately 175 yards, two hand hold standing, really irritating the guy shooting the AR with the scope at the same area...and he missed.
Had a witness to making a .75 inch group at 100 yards with 5 round of 303 reloads with my 1943 Enfiled Mk4No1* rifle at 100 yards, but that was off a rest, iron sights, not very impressive.
Brother had one of thoses oddball Cougar revolvers, Ruger with Colt barrel, many moons ago, hit 10 out of 20 birds from a hand thrower. Chewed him out for shooting a revolver in the air, was quietly impressed with the accuracy.
Buddy of mine was out with me doing the blackpowder thing about 25 years ago, and he spotted a lizard runningon our wildcat range, and hipshot with that old smokepole at approximately 35-40 feet - took the lizards head clean off.
That's all I got...everyone else is a better shot than I am.

 

[chuwee81]

well, i used to have a crossman .17 bb gun that had to be pumped 7-8 times to get around maybe 650 fps. I was shooting old starbucks glass bottle with the open sights when a wasp ( pretty big one - red/. purplish kind) sitting on a wall - i was in the backyard, the wasp was sitting on the brick wall in the deck area about 20 - 23 yds away. I can'r remember if it was offhand or was i kneeling down.

So i pumped, took aim and fired a shot. It disappeared. I thought i missed until i walked up to the spot and found bits of pieces of its legs hanging on the ceiling (gutter) and other body parts around the bullet impact mark. It literally just exploded with the .177 wadcutter.

this was during college time when i got nothing to do besides spending 2-3 hrs in the backyard shooting at empty soda cans and the starbucks glass frappucinno bottles.

 

[johncantiusgarand]

Back in the late 90's, my national guard tank company was a Ft. Stewart for annual training. We had a day's lull in the middle of our Tank Table VIII qualifications to allow us to pull some range maintenance. I went downrange about 2500 meters in a jeep (we still had jeeps back then) with my buddy to replace some plywood. I collected a spent 120 mm sabot projectile to bring back to the line and show the fellas. On the way back, around the 1200 meter line, a huge rattlesnake crossed the road. We stopped to have a look, and my buddy wanted to kill the snake to collect its rattle. Lacking any other weapon, I walked up to it and beaned it in the head with that spent projectile.

We enjoyed being able to truthfully (albiet deceptively) report later that my gunnery skills were so good, I could hit a rattlesnake in the head with a sabot round at 1200 meters.

 

[5whiskey]

I shot a fox in a full run @ 150 yards with a .22 marlin. Stupid foxes kept killing chickens, so I declared Jihad. This was before I even knew the .22-250 existed. Anyway, it was almost dark and I could barely see the thing... but I knew it was a fox or a really big cat. My friend shot with his pistol (yeah, that was pretty stupid) before I got to the rifle and aimed in, so I didn't get a shot until the fox was at full speed. 3 rounds fired, I'm pretty sure the 2nd was the one that hit. Hit him right behind the ear and the fox did a cartwheel.

 

[AKElroy]

When I was younger, I once buried two torpedoes into an exhaust port that was flat on the deck, about two meters wide. I was doing about 140 knots at the time. Some of my comrades were impressed, but I'd been bullseying womprats in my old T-16 back home, and they weren't much bigger than two meters...

This is supposed to be about freak luck shots that cannot be repeated. Trusting the force is not luck.

 

[armoredman]

We enjoyed being able to truthfully (albiet deceptively) report later that my gunnery skills were so good, I could hit a rattlesnake in the head with a sabot round at 1200 meters.

Nice! Almost as good as the Gunner's Mate A school story of flattening the Admirals car with the missile dud eject system...no, that wasn't me!

 

[230RN]

I told this on the old Packing dot org website, but since that's defunct, I guess I can tell it again, though it doesn't involve guns directly.

When I was in college three of my buds and I rented a house in Bayville, Long Island, for a semester and partied hearty there. One saturday late afternoon, the party was going on in the house while I was in the driveway fixing one of my roomates' Austin Healey Sprite. Among the tools I had out under the "bonnet" was a long heavy screwdriver I had needed for levering the generator out to make sure the belt was tight. (Yes, "generator." No alternators back then.)

One of the [STRIKE]rowdy[/STRIKE] guests came out and said one of my roomates had told him I was interested in knives, so he wanted to ask me about throwing knives, how to check if they were balanced, etc.

So I told him you really didn't need balanced knives if you knew what you were doing and he didn't believe me. I told him you could learn to throw anything, even a screwdriver, and that the advantage to having "throwing" knives was they came in sets, all balanced alike.

As it happened, a guy I knew from Louisiana Bayou country had taught me a little about it, and I had been practicing on the beach at driftwood and whatnot with a heavy old banged-up pseudo-Bowie and got to be "capable" if not "expert" at it.

So I picked up the screwdriver, flipped it around to hold it by the shaft, hefted it up and down the shaft to feel for the right holding point, and hurled it at a 4X4 picket fence post about 25 feet away.

Thunk! Right smack in the middle of the post. And it stuck in there pretty good, dead straight-on in.

He was wide-eyed and thunderstruck.

He wanted me to do it again, but I demurred, saying I didn't want to damage the post anymore, and besides, I had to get my roomie's car ready. I just leaned back under the car's bonnet and fiddled around in there until he left.

I had been swilling Pabst at the time, and I would have never tried it otherwise. Just an impulse, and I was just as surprised as he was, but didn't show it.

I tried it again later when nobody was around, but quit after I had to make about three trips into the neighbor's yard to retrieve the screwdriver. I was just marking up the pickets themselves, leaving all kinds of dents, and I couldn't repeat the Miracle.

Beisdes, we had run out of Pabst by then.

Just goes to show you.

Practice makes "capable," even with other weapons besides guns.

Terry, 230RN

 

[KC0QGL]

On my 22nd birthday I was out shooting by myself and ran out of targets. After a quick search of my Honda I found 4 old full cans of beer. I set them up about 10 yds out, hit one with my shotgun (easy) hit the next two with my .22 (easy) hit the last one with my .44 Blackhawk right thru the big hole on the pull tab from the hip (hard)! I kept the top of the can as proof. I know I will NEVER pull that one off again!!

 

[sherman123]

I shot a wasp out of the air from 10 ft away with a rubber band pistol once. Never actually thought it would connect but it was one shot one kil

 

[chute2thrill]

When i was about 12 we had this swallow infestation and they'd dive bomb me when i'd get too close to their nests.. i had my daisy red ryder and i popped one right through the head when he tried to dive at me....
Another one is with the same red ryder... my buddy took about 5 seconds to shoot a robin that was at least 150 yards away... just a beautiful off hand shot... no miracles with a real firearm tho...

 

[WTBguns10kOK]

Blew out the heart of a sprinting whitetail buck with a 20 gauge Wingmaster using iron sights at about 25 yards (don't ask why he was running). Never had practiced with that gun before deer season. Man that deer was delicious tasting.

 

[Maverick223]

Once shot a small tree (still alive about 3" in diameter) and fell it with a .22lr on the first shot. Wasn't really trying to fell the tree, but it was an amazing shot. It has been quite some time since then, and I can't really recall why I shot the tree to begin with. Probably my most impressive shot, but there had to be something wrong with that tree (still alive), either way there was no doubt that there was something wrong with it afterwards.

 

[skidmark]

At between 15 & 20 yards (never actually measured it) I shot this

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w186/vaskidmark/downsizerpistol.jpg

Downsizer WSP .45ACP 1 derringer DAO 3.25" 2.25" 0.90" 11.00oz

at a popper, knocking it over.

The miracles were :
- I was not even aiming - was standing 90* to the popper and just stuck my arm out in its general direction
- that the bullet made it as far as the popper (there is 1/8" of rifling in the bore, and a FMJ barely connects with half of that)
-that I did not set the range on fire - can you begin to imagine the muzzle flash from that thing?

I decided I was not going to try to repeat that shot - ever!

stay safe.

skidmark

 

[cpm1888]

My miracle shot was when I was 3 years old it was the first time I fired a gun. My father set a soda can out in a field and set it in a wood chuck hole. Being 3 he held up his M14 and let me sight and fire it and by chance the woodchuck happened to pop up and I hit it.

 

[ChCx2744]

I hit a clay skeet with my sp01 from about 25-30 yards + 20 feet in the air on the first shot...straight out point and shoot, no front sight...I don't think skill had anything to do with it I just got really lucky...And to verify the "luckiness" I couldn't do it again for the rest of the trip lol

 

[aka108]

This goes back to 1952. To friends of mine and I were on a road out of the Owyhee Reservation going up into Idaho and saw several pheasants on the road ahead. We had a 22 rifle and my K22 revolver. Stopped, used the car door as a rest, aimed and fired. Both shots went off at the same time. Distance was somewhere between 60 and 75 yds. The bird dropped. We couldn't believe that the bird was hit by each bullet, middle of the neck about 1 inch apart. I think we could have spent the rest of our lives trying to replicate that and never do so. Just one of the things that happens