My MOST MEMORABLE shot.

Landgroove

Landgroove

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Joined
Apr 2, 2012
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107
Many years ago but still clear as day.
Out shooting at the range with a friend.
A guy down the line noticed my friend's gun. A Ruger 45 Colt with some handloads that were HOT! VERY hot!
Guy came down and remarked, "Pretty ...groiny... gun." :rofl:
They got to talking and the guy noticed ...I...was shooting a measly 38 Special.
He strutted up to me and said, "Think you can handle MINE?" .... A 44 mag.
I didn't really care but said...oh, okay....
And I took .... ONE SHOT .... and (hope to die if Im lying) ..I agreed.
That shot not only hit the black but also.... exactly took out the little white X smack dab in the middle. :neener:

I couldn't do that again so I declined to shoot it again.
Slithering back to ...his...bench, the guy left us alone after that. ;)

My friend and I from then on frequently repeated between ourselves... PRETTY GROINY GUN THERE, PARDNER !!!

Some laughs with guns.
Worth it, too. :)
 
Love it!

Many years ago I went to a shoot organized by guys on a Pennsylvania gun forum. Great fun. One guy brought a rolling block in .45-70; sorry, don't recall the brand. He was letting guys try it out and I was watching them shoot it from the bench. The recoil was pretty stout, and most of them didn't want to shoot it more than a couple times. He asked me if I'd like to try it, and I said, "Sure!" But rather than benching it, I took a slow offhand shot at a 10" gong at 100 yards. Pretty near center punched it. Smiled, handed it back to him and said, "Thanks! Pretty cool, but not really my thing."

Quit while your ahead, right?
 
Mine was shooting a flying grouse with a .38 wad cutter out of my Colt Trooper.
The friend I was hunting with was such a good shot with his 1100 that we thought it would be more sporting if I shot at them sitting first. (It was usually far enough away it got them flying)
I was lining up on this one, and saw it start to prepare to jump up to fly, so I pulled the gun up about 3 feet above it and dropped it.
 
Good shooting.

I have told this story before on this forum. But being you asked, I was dove hunting in Texas with a pair of brothers who are excellent shots with a shotgun. Me on the other hand, was a terrible shot. I brought my 1911 Gold Cup and when we are done hunting for the morning the younger of the two brothers wanted to try my 1911. It was very flat ground so I tossed an aluminum can about 10 ft away and handed him the pistol and a full magazine. He couldn't hit it in 4 shots. He handed it back to me with the slide locked back and two rounds in the magazine. I grabbed the gun with one hand quickly shot the can instinctively, it popped up in the air and I pulled the trigger again driving it back down into the ground. The gun was empty and locked back. I released the slide dropped the hammer on an empty chamber and holstered it. I said that's the way it's done. Turned away so he wouldn't see the astonished look on my face. I couldn't repeat that shot again in a million tries.
 
Mine was a house fly which landed on my 50 yard target. I was using a supremely accurate .22 rifle with good glass, but still had to hide my surprise when I hit the thing. The bug-splattered target floated around my shop for decades after.
 
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The most memorable shot for me was one that my older brother made when we were about 6 and 10 years old. We had my Dad's Model 121 out, looking for things to shoot at. We went into one of the barns, into one of the empty corn cribs at the back of the barn, and looked out to see what was going on with the vultures eating on a dead hog about 150 yards away, just barely over a small rise which left only the vultures' necks and heads sticking up above the rise. My brother stuck the rifle barrel out between the planks of the wall, aimed and shot at one of them. The vultures flew away at the sound of the shot, we walked out to look at the scene where they'd been working on the hog, and there lay the vulture with a .22 slug through his head. We were amazed at how big a bird he was, what a wingspan he had when lifted vertically alongside our standing heights.

I've since had other memorable shots that I've made with rifles and handguns, but that one sticks with me the most even though I was just an observer. I still have the gun.

G6cYfzm.jpg
 
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Deer hunting in the adirondacks on our lease. A buck passes on my right I only caught a glimpse of a horn. I called him back in sight with a grunt call but he was jittery. This is heavily wooded with spruce and small hardwood trees. I was shooting a 7MM-08 with 165 gr. Hornady Interlock Spitzers. I had to shoot under a downed needless spruce and harvested the buck after tracking about 25 yards I found him. When I went back to pickup my stool and pack I found I had shot through an inch and a half maple tree not seen in the scope about 2 inches infont of the barrel.
 
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Two that I made,
First one, my brother was shooting at a dart board. He was blasting away, I said what are you trying to hit?

He said the center but was all over the board. I raised my .22 and bang! Center flew out the back of the board.

He hated when I did that to him, it goes back to one day walking down a road. Rabbit was sitting there frozen, he fired about 3 shots and misses! We were only 10ft away, I raised my .22 and he said wait. Fired 2 more shot and missed, raised my rifle and the Rabbit took off. I just laughed.

Second was a out in the desert, someone put a bottle out about 30 yards. I was shooting my friends 50AE desert eagle. Another friend said, if you can shoot the top off, I'll buy lunch.

Told him thanks after finishing off a double double at In-n-out.
 
Whitetail season 2017. After hiking forever into a new to me area on guvmint land, I sat down overlooking two streams at their confluence. I stood up after a snack and promptly spooked two big does who had wandered into my overlook unnoticed. I was pretty bent about it and I went up the hill behind me to a small rise which over looked the one creek to the north. I was storming and stomping and doing everything beside being subtle. I crested the rise which had a log across it, only to see a chandelier with legs sprinting away to cover. I used gravity to prone out with the log as a rest and the stud disappeared behind some hemlocks. I did some sort of magic calculation in my head using time and velocity and distance and yanked the trigger on the .270 into the woods in the space of 1.2 seconds. I knew that there was no human for miles beyond so I had no safety concerns.
There was no possible way I hit but at least I fired my rifle. My buddy texted me asking if I shot and I replied that I did but there was no possibility I hit. I did my due diligence and went to look anyway.

I crossed the creek and toddled around and there it was.

Blood everywhere. Sloppy trail leading away for 40 yards. Piled up was no B&C winner but certainly the nicest male deer I’d ever shot.
 

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6 years old and saw a little Thrasher bird across the yard. According to my dad: 30 or so yards away. I had my little pump up BB gun with open sights.

Me: “Daddy can I shoot it?”
Dad: *scoffs* “sure go ahead”

I can still see the POOF of feathers above the iron sights (I’m now 35)

Now here’s the best part:
Me: “NOW WE GET TO EAT IT!”
Dad: “no, no, we don’t have to eat it”
Me: “But daddy YOU SAID whatever we kill, we eat”
Dad: *sighs*

According to him, that was the worst tasting bird he ever tried. To me it was better than gourmet Cornish game hen. And it’s the last time he let me pull the trigger on anything he wasn’t willing to help me cook up. 😂
 
Dad, his buddies and I were sitting at a picnic table out on the ranch in Florida after a few informal rounds of clays. I had brought a couple of hunting rifles out, including Dad’s old sporterized Arisaka. I thumbtacked a range target to a log a ways out and we started taking turns plinking. When it’s my turn (I’m clearly the youngest by a generation) Steve says he’ll give me five grand if I hit the thumbtack. The rifle has a 2 power scope and I can barely see the Bull, much less the silver thumbtack. My bullet hole hit about 3/8” from the tack, so Dad and the other guys yelled hey you should at least give him $2500! It was just a great laugh.
 
I’ve told this one, too.

My buddy Jeff brought along a four-pack of one pound plastic tubs of Tannerite to the canyon where a bunch of us were shooting. He mixed them up and set them out on the ground a ways, the closest was about 85-90 yards from our firing line.

A couple of the guys were firing at it offhand and were just missing it with various guns. I happened to have my 629 .44 mag Mountain Gun in my hand, so I loaded it up and moved to the line. I fired one shot and hit the tub… but the velocity was not high enough to set off the boom. I just cracked open the tub and spilled the little white pellets all over the ground. 😞

Even though I basically wasted 1/4 of the Tannerite Jeff brought, I still felt pretty darn good about the shot. :thumbup:

Stay safe.
 
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First and last time I tried a "mad minute" with a bone stock K98K. Got off 18 shots and all landed in a 6" meatball at 50 yards. Hardly world-class, but I shocked myself.
The RSO was pretty impressed too when he came down the line to yell at me for freaking out the whole firing line by going Rapid Fire with a short 8mm.....😁
 
1986 or there abouts I was stationed down in Pensacola at a crypto training base. I was on the Navy police force there.

We had a 2 man Marine detatchment there, a Sgt that was a decent guy, for a crayon eater and a crusty old Gunny that hated rust picking squids with a passion.

Those two were in charge of the range and our shooting quals. As it was a super high security base, our training was pretty intense at times. After a long range qual session I volunteered to stay behind and help clean up the range with them. Thats where I sourced all my .45 and .38spl brass. 3 or 4 5gal buckets each.

I had high scored that day with a rattletrap old issue .45 that had see better days, but I loved that old gun.

The Sgt and I were shooting for bragging rights and generally just wasting time. Ol' Gunny was watching me with his usual sour look, daydreaming about nailing me up on that target board I guess.

So he barks out a cease fire and picks up two 12ga hulls out of the trash and walks them out to the 25yd line and sets them up. Comes back and says that whoever hit it, in 1 magazine that he would work their next 2 duty days.

The loser had to feild day the MC offices and duty room. Y'all see the set up on that?

How could I pass that up? Well, the Sgt was under no pressure from 21yo me so he shot first and hit it on the 6th shot. No way was I going to beat that so I just drew and fired in the general vicinity of that hull, intending to mag dump and take my lumps. Hit that shell on the first shot, flicked on the saftey and holstered. Turned to Gunny and asked him if that was what he wanted. I got a congratulatory grunt and he went back to the shoot shack.

Best part of that was ol' Gunny showed up on my next 2 duty days and patroled with me the entire time. He loosened up quite a bit and told me a lot of stories of his 3 tours in Vietnam. I understood his sour look after those 2 shifts.

Gunny and I became pretty good friends after that. He'd call me up and invite me out to the range to shoot with the Marines. He had me join him and his buddies for my first Christmas dinner alone after my divorce. We stayed in contact and visited each other whenever I was passing through.

He told that shotgun shell story at every gathering. I attended his funeral shortly after 9/11. I miss that old crusty Gunny.

I do have another shooting story to tell about him, but that will have to be on the "stupid mistakes" thread where he chewed me down into a raggedy pile of hamburger in front of my entire command.

Did I mention he was loud?
 
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in 1985 i was in a local blackpowder/buckskinning club. it was arranged to have a competative shoot, 250 yards at a 3'x3' target. 10 rounds each. whoever had the most hits was the winner. we had a telescope on a tripod and somebody had a caliper to measure the hits on the target.

we all got off our shots but there was a problem with the telescope, nobody could see the target well enough to tell anything. so they went and got the target and found why the telescope wasn't doing what we wanted, it was because nobody had hit the target. the only "hit" was one .45 caliber ball stuck in the pole holding the target up. from my TC hawkins rifle, the only 45 shot that day. so that's my memorable shot, when i won the long distance shoot.

if only daniel boone had been there, he would have straightened us out.
 
Two stories, one I've told here before:
1. Back yard, I'm 12, got my BB gun, took careful aim at an inoffensive dragonfly alighted 5 or so yards away. Found the poor thing with a caved-in body, the BB still inside. I was sick and the memory still bothers me. Yeah it was just a bug, but it wasn't bothering me, I wasn't starving and dragonflies eat mosquitos!

2. I had just finished practicing for a high-power shoot on Sunday and decided to wander down to the other end of the firing line where a bunch of bubbas were milling around and occasionally shooting a gun. I met a friend who explained they were having a running deer shoot. Out yonder was a break in the 100 yard berm and behind that, maybe 10 yards farther, an I-beam lay on the ground forming the track for a car that ran back and forth by means of a rope. On the car was a target frame and on the frame was a life size picture of a deer, with scoring marks: 5 points for a head or spine shot, 4 points for heart/lung, and anything else was a miss.

You could take one or two shots depending on how many dollars you paid. I had burned all my Garand ammo so my friend offered his slug gun. OK! I knew nothing of shotguns then except that they ran at low pressure and threw a heavy payload slowly. Hmmm... a lot like my Brown Bess. I asked my friend how high to hold, and watched that deer run across the break a few times, saying "Boom..... thwack" to myself.

Lead estimated, I took my two shots and waited for the trusting soul downrange to radio the result. "Two fives," and I was high man of the relay. I thanked my friend, "That was fun," and took home a frozen turkey. And to this day, none of those guys knows it was just beginner's luck... unless one of you rats me out.
 
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Most memorable shot for me has to be my first experience shooting a shotgun. Ive been shooting since 5 years old with my great grandpa and my dad but just using the winchester model 67 single shot bolt action 22s,l,lr which was left to me by my great grandpa and its still my favorite firearm i own. But at the age of 6 my dad borrowed my great grandpas single shot 10ga shotty and we headed to a turkey/card shoot. After awhile of seeing my dad shoot and everybody else shoot i wanted to try. My dad was trying stand behind me and help me but i wanted do it alone. So 6 year old me layed that barrel across the rail they had and lined up and bang. Knocked me back on my butt about 4 or 5 feet from where i was standing. Barely got a couple pellets on my target but boy what a rush i was immediately hooked on firearms and shooting. And oddly enough old single shot shotguns are the biggest part of my collection today.
 
This one is for Dad. In his late years, at 81, he had an itch for a hog hunt. My parents spent winters at an RV campground in central Florida and hung out at a cafe called Manny’s in Lake Wales. Dad struck up a conversation there at the bar with a guy who claimed to own a dairy farm overrun with hogs. He invited Dad to come over and have at it. We drove out there in the jeep all loaded up, and met another guy there who claimed to be the brother. He told us two things- there hadn’t been any hogs around in a couple years, and his brother didn’t drink. Oh, well. Dad joked that guy doesn’t know his own brother. I felt bad about it so a couple days later I booked a paid hunt for us not far from the campground. Dad and I were in a blind. I had my Tikka deer rifle and he had his old Winnie 94. After a while and nothing sighted the guide rolled up in the 4 wheeler so Dad rode with him over to some brush to flush some hogs out and it worked. He got one running in the opposite direction from the moving buggy, bouncing across the pasture, what a shot! I got one standing still and one running straight at me. Easiest hits possible. Fast forward to when his time was up, in the final minutes, we knew he could hear us but he was unresponsive. We liked to tease one another, so I leaned in and told him Dad, I love you and I’ll miss you, but always remember one thing- I got two hogs and you only got one…. I think I saw a smile.
 
Did one similar - a friend handed me his new (to him) muzzleloader and asked me to take a shot. We were posting those Davy Crocket Vee notch targets. I took a shot, and put the ball absolutely perfectly in the notch. Had the presence of mind to stay cool, and hand the rifle back and say "Shoots good." He asked if I wanted another shot, and I came up with some BS about needing to keep working with my rifle.

Was perfect - he wasn't quite sure that I knew what I was talking about. Still argues (he has a PhD), but all I have to do is to point back to that target.

David
NM
 
The shot that comes to mind each time as my most memorable was at my one, and only, PRS match back in 2014. I was using a highly modified 18.5" barreled AR in .308 with my first handloads and was grossly outclassed. I just wanted to see what I could do with it. One stage was simply take 1 shot at an egg resting on a golf tee at 200 yards, cold bore in the prone position. If you hit it on your first attempt, you scored 50 points. If you hit it on your second attempt, you scored 25 points. If you missed the second shot, you got zero. I saw the egg explode from the 175 SMK in my scope and scored 50 points.
 
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In my early teens I was mowing grass at my grandfather's and a skunk walks out of a brushpile.
Concerned it might be rabid because it's out during the day, I turn off the mower and run back up to his house to grab his Benjamin .22 air rifle and a few pellets and run back to the where the mower was sitting.
The skunk was still milling around about ~20yrds out so I put 8-10 pumps into the rifle, load and lay it across the top of riding mower.
With the skunk facing away from me I took the shot at the back of his head, the skunk flips onto it's back and the legs twitch twice, no spray or even smell.
Turned out I put the pellet right into the base of the Skunk's skull.
That old Benjamin is a good shooter to this day.
 
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