Stories

[scottbird]

I love to hear the stories of fellow shooters, what excites me the most is when people make a shot they did not believe they can.

For instance, my father was in Special Forces in Nam, he had sniper qualifications and taught me everything he could about shooting. I remember as a young teenager shooting 22lr's one day, he marked off 50 yards set up a bowling pin and said, shoot off the rubber tip. I laughed, you can do it, he said, I carefully aimed like he had taught me, took in a breath, held it, concentrated on the sights, and gently pulled the trigger. The first thing I saw, I had shot the tip and took half of it off. I cannot believe I hit it, I shouted. He responded that is why you miss a lot of your other shots, if you believe you cannot hit it, you won't.

 

[Radagast]

FYI, due to the prevalence of gun store commandos, any post including the words "was in special forces in nam" will be treated by many as just another "story".

Best I can give is knocking over 4 out of 5 100 yard rams with my first five shots from a new to me 4 inch Model 66. Second best would be 10 x 25m chickens, rapid double action with a six inch 686, again the first time I had fired the gun.
More amusing, while shooting an IPSC nationals we had shots at 3 meters out to 35 meters on one stage. I blazed the 3 meter targets and used sights at 35m, firing a back up shot on each of the long range targets as a miss would be too expensive. Of course when it came time to patch, I had clean misses on the 3 meter targets and tight little three shot A zone groups on the 35 meter targets.

 

[gspn]

I was at the public range one day with my 7mm mag to sight it in before deer season. I confirmed it was zero'd and then put up a new target. I knew the rifle was on so I decided I'd shoot offhand at 100 yards to see if I was on too.

I hoped to hit somewhere inside the huge circle. I was the only shooter on the 50 man line who wasn't shooting from the bench. I fired one round...and couldn't really see where I hit. I was a little embarrassed that I couldn't see a hole in the target so I figured I'd wait til the range went cold and see if I even hit anywhere on the target.

When I walked downrange I discovered that not only had I hit the target, I drilled the 1 inch black bullseye dot with my one offhand shot. I was tempted to pack it up and go home after that...

The range is the only place I'll attempt a shot that I don't know if I can make...never in the field.

 

[plodder]

Not too proud of this, but when I was about 14 helping a neighbor bale hay and working in the haymow (the upper level of the barn where bales of hay are stacked for storage) the 3 of us boys had a .22 that we would plink away with when waiting for a new load to be dropped on us for stacking. I saw a pheasant (not a "peasant") strutting in the mown alfalfa field nearly 1/4 mile ( not paced off or measured, but with the way 80 acre patches were fenced off, it is fairly accurate)
away. Lifted a generous portion of elevation on the buckhorn sights and let her fly. The poor bird dropped like a rock. Not that it was a good shot, it was a very lucky (for me, not the bird) shot.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

I took a pot shot at a cat at roughly 500yds away at my dads farm with a milsurp 8mm and hit the damn thing.
I heard about it from my wife for about 2 yrs before she dropped it.

I told her it was feral but that didn't matter to her. I sure hope it wasn't someone pet.

Dad and I drove over to look at it and it wasn't wearing a collor but that didn't appease my wife any, Dad laughing his ass off didn't either.

 

[BUGUDY]

My son shot a woodchuck at 520 yds with a Savage M110 223. Never have heard the end of that one. It was ridiculous.

 

[littleguns223]

What a great shot. That is something that he should be proud of good shooting.

 

[303tom]

I once shot a crow at a 100 yards with a 12 gauge, 3in. mag BB`s...............

 

[Swichblade]

Once I was shooting at a 12" circle at 400 yards with a mosin nagant. I fired two shots from a bench, missed both, then fired two shots standing. I missed the first one, but I heard a "ding" on the second. I was happy that I made the shot, but then my brother told me he saw it hit the dirt before the target. We were the only ones on the range that day, so it must have ricocheted off the ground and hit the target. Bad aim, good luck.

 

[smalls]

Not a shot taken with a gun. But when I was younger I shot bow competively. My dad and I were at a 3D bow shoot. I took a shot at one of the targets, and it went straight through and hit a bunny sitting ten yards behind it. The target was pretty beat up, and the vital area was all shot up.

 

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

Not a shot taken with a gun. But when I was younger I shot bow competively. My dad and I were at a 3D bow shoot. I took a shot at one of the targets, and it went straight through and hit a bunny sitting ten yards behind it. The target was pretty beat up, and the vital area was all shot up.

I've had something similar happen as well, though it was practice in my own back yard. But the strange thing was, it's happened twice. Some years apart, but yes, twice.


~On The Road Again...~

 

[Davek1977]

I headshot a pheasant at over 100 yards with my dad's BL-22. I also shot a flying pigeon out of the air with a scoped .22 rifle. I also dropped a crow out of a big cottonwood true with an SKS at roughly 200 yards with open sights. All shots were instant kills, and I'd be hard pressed to ever repeat any of them.

 

[Deus Machina]

A friend of mine, not me.

Local 100-yard indoor range. Brand new target, my friend loads up his Mosin Nagant as we wait for the target to reel out to the backstop. He sits, takes aim from his rest, pulls the trigger, and the target falls off.
So we reel it back in to replace it, to find that he had cleanly removed the clip from the mount with his round.

Same Mosin Nagant, after adjusting the scope. Target hits the backstop and turns sideway. Jeremy says "Eh, I wonder if I can flip it with the blast or something" because the rifle range is three narrow lanes. So he fires, reels it back in, and we discover that while four rounds had missed, one tore into the curved side of the paper, left scrape marks across the printed portion where it rubbed across the wrippled parts or tumbled--forming a line across the bullseye--and tore out the other side.
We couldn't shoot for another few minutes for the laughing.

 

[MrDig]

So it's not a combat story or a hunting story, but it is a rather interesting ( at least to me ) story.
I put a long eye relief scope Weaver 1.5x on my 1894C I shoot 158gr HP out of it and was getting the scope sighted in at my brothers range and sot her dialed for 50 yards and my brother told me to try the gong out at 200 yards, I knew I was going to waste some rounds but thought what the heck, I tried it took me less than 10 rounds to ring the gong. I don't plan on taking a lot of 200 yard shots ever but it was nice to know I still had enough knowledge of Kentucky Windage to make that bell ring.

 

[Hardtarget]

I was 12 yrs old (about) and just plinking with my cousins with our BB guns. My gun shot a nice curved trajectory. But I shot it a lot and knew how to compensate. My cousin put a can on a fence post then positioned me at 50 feet...with a huge hickory tree between me and the can. OK ...hit that. I looked it over and knocked the can off with my first shot! I refused the second try... In fact, I never tried it again.

Mark

 

[Skribs]

I don't know the distance, but I was having trouble hitting a melon with my pistol using deliberate, aimed fire with my strong hand, so I swapped to my weak hand, held the gun about 6 inches off my line of sight and fired 3 rounds rapid fire, the third round hit dead center on the melon.

 

[TAKtical]

17 out of 17 on a three inch shoot-n-c at 25 yards with a glock 17.

 

[Captcurt]

My lifelong friend and former policeman hit a coke can at 100 meters with open sights. When he started to shoot I said no way. He rolled it with his first shot. When I told him to try it again he holstered his gun and said that he had proved his point. This was a 4" model 66 Smith. I guess that Yogi was right, it isn't bragging if you have done it.

 

[EmbarkChief]

I hit a jack rabbit dead center in the back of the head mid air while he was jumping over a log from offhand with my Browning .22 auto. Distance was only about 50-60 yards but I was pretty surprised to find him dead on the other side...

While shooting .22's down at the river many years ago my cousin and I had two bullet's collide in midair and splatter in the water. I know I know impossible right? We both saw and heard it happen and it was just dumb luck that it happend at all.

I hit a white tail deer through the head from just under 200 yards using another cousin's shoulder as a rest while standing. We were about 15 at the time. Model 70 in .243 7 power scope.


Shot a jack rabbit through the right eyeball with my little .22 when one of our party cast doubt on the number of jacks we had shot that day. He bet me $20 that I couldn't shoot the next rabbit we saw in the right eye. Fortunately for me the next rabbit was facing the right direction and not out of range I was so confident in the shot that I didn't even get out of the truck, just told him to pay up. Of course he had to walk out and look, once he got there he just shook his head, walked back, and paid me the $20. I couldn't have been more than 14 years old.

 

[Hunterdad]

Hit a coffee can a 200yds with a slug from an H&R SB1 20ga with only a bead sight. Pure luck....I know.

 

[Perfesser]

Not a "one-shot" story, but too funny to leave untold any longer.
Many many years ago, at the range in Grand Prairie TX, my 14 yo daughter and I were shooting .22 (Buckmark, I think). She'd been shooting a few months and was getting pretty good. On the short pistol range someone had been blasting a target on the backstop wall from 5 feet - with a 12 gauge...must have been 100 hulls laying around. We had the place to ourselves so I set up a couple rows of them on the ground about 20 feet from the firing position and we started taking turns knocking them down. Couple of young dudes show up with a big .357, dump a bunch of loose rounds on the table and set up a target.
"clear to fire?" "OK, go ahead". They spotted the shotgun hulls knocked down and asked if they could try. Six shots: pop, pop, bang, BOOM!, bang, BOOM! - poor handloads or mixed ammo, and 6 misses. I pick up the Buckmark, start left to right, and drop 7. Kid picks up the Buckmark, starts from the right and drops 8. Kinda quiet for a moment, then they fire 2 rounds and the gun "locks up". They went back to the truck, and fiddled with the gun till we left. As we drove out they were heading back to the line.

 

[TrickyDick]

Qualified Expert with an M249SAW on the first try, right after they issued it to me. blew me away. More surprising than amazing...