RSVT, I too must play the devil's advocate:
It is obvious those folks are just using the 50 to stroke their egos and "blow a big hole in something".
That, in my humble opinion, is idiotic and cruel.
I don't think it's obvious at all that they are
JUST (using your word) doing this to blow a big hole in something - I think they are ALSO ya know, HUNTING! Where you make a kill and eat the meat. I would agree with you if that's JUST (or all that) what they were doing. But I'd venture a guess they they ate the meat just like any other hunter. Don't suppose you have any evidence that they didN'T eat the meat, do ya? No, of course not. So it's NOT obvious. And if they were hunting, but also wanted to see how a certain caliber acts upon a living target, for curiosities sake, it may be a bit odd, but there's nothing wrong with that, provided that it's ethical. This was most certainly ethical; if anything, ethical to the max extreme with such a large effective caliber.
They used a rifle more suited for disabling vehicles than hunting, and at a range of what, 100 yards?
So what? It's not unethical. It's far more humane and ethical than from a longer distance.
To go back to my prior statement, they are doing it just for the sake of grins, and I don't feel like killing anything "just for grins" is right.
So you don't have a new point; you're going back to your (now-refuted) first point.
I'm a hunter, but I don't just indiscriminately shoot stuff with the biggest gun I have so I can show it off on the internet.
Where do you draw the line? The 2nd biggest gun you have? The 3rd biggest?
Of course I have. Just last year I took a 10-pointer at 170 yards with my scoped .454 Casull FA83.
Ha. I got news for you - a *good* argument could be made that what YOU did is far far more unethical than what these guys were doing, shooting a dadgummed handgun at a much farther range than is ethical for a limited range weapon. The ONLY reason someone would do that with a handgun instead of a rifle is simply to show off, to try to be a macho man - I'll bet you even laughed. In fact, only show-off macho men would use a .454 when everyone knows that a .44 mag will do the job just fine (see, how's it feel to be judged?).
I have hunted most anything in my area with success, I just don't get all giddy with excitement when I kill something just because I "blew that thing away!"
Well, to each his own - some people are more excitable than others - just because he was noting the incredible damage done with the chosen weapon doesn't necessarily make him a cat torturer/serial killer.
I wouldn't say "exactly perfectly", he hit it pretty far back in my opinion.
So he wasn't the greatest shot - maybe he knew that and that's why he used a bigger-than-normal caliber.
And since he was using a gun that, by shear necessity due to recoil, was surely wearing an uber-dollar Swarovski scope or the like, I really don't think it was that great of a shot given the mild distance.
Exactly. Hence the bigger gun. Smart hunter if you ask me. Better than some dipstick who is undergunned and overconfident.
My problem is that it portrays hunters and sportsmen in a bad light to other people outside the sport.
Maybe, if they have unenlighted attitudes like yours. But that's chicken & egg. We'll win the illogicals & antis over one person at a time. First the actual hunting FUDD antis like yourself, then average person, then the PETAs.
It makes us all look like dumbass rednecks who just wanna "blow some shi* away" for the sake of pulling the trigger.
Not any more than people using handguns on animals at extreme distances. See, your ONLY problem it appears, is with posting it on youtube, not any of the acts themselves. So would you feel the same way if you posted your own 170 yd .454 shot on youtube? Would you feel that YOU are contributing to make hunters look like dumbbutts? Because if you WOULD, then maybe you have a point. If you WOULDN'T, then you're incorrect, because the exact same type of criticism can be leveled at you.
Frankly, i don't really care about the deer,
I'm sorry to hear that, because I do, and this one died just about as humanely as you can ask for, short of a CNS shot.
Sheesh, with 'friends' like these....
