The best or "luckiest" shot you've ever made

[Stetson_CO]

Luckiest shot...

Plinking out in the Nat'l Forest with a bunch of friends. We had been shooting aluminium cans and, naturally, they were all laying down. I used the infamous line "Ya'll watch this!", quickdrew my .45LC Vaquero, fired from the hip and hit one of the cans' bottom right where it touched the ground and the can stood back up.

None of us have been able to do it again.

c):{

 

[foghornl]

About 25 years back, I was un-employed. Out hunting to fill the freezer. I had the 20 Ga Remington for squirrel, rabbit, etc, and I had my 1858 Army Rem BP .44 revolver. I looked up the hill, about 75 Yds away, and saw a deer standing. Quietly put down the shotgun, and drew the 44. Estimated the range, brought up the muzzle, added a bit more since shooting uphill, and squeezed one off. Deer fell, and I walked up the hill....didn't see the deer, couldn't find a blood trail...looking, looking, looking....I know this is the right spot, 'cause there is that old sogn nailed to the tree....looking, looking tripped over something, fell face first. Got up and looked back..had hit a spike buck just behind/below the ear, and he never had moved.

 

[WhoKnowsWho]

The first time I had fired a real gun, all I had fired before were Airsoft and BB guns. I was handed a Sig P220, great gun, .45 ACP, and the targets were cans 20-25 yards away. 8 shots later, seven of seven cans were hit and no one had anymore to shoot at, they were all staring at the new shooter out-shooting them all.

 

[modifiedbrowning]

Was messing around with some friends, they had set up a watermelon on a tree stump at 250yds for the rifles. I started shooting at it with my Walther P88 and actually hit the thing! I was surprised to say the least.

 

[45King]

Two lucky shots, one with pistol, one with a shotgun.

With a Smith M25-5 .45 Colt, took the head, clean, off a lark sitting on a telephone wire at about 30 yds.

With a Fox/Sterlingworth 20 ga. SxS, was out hunting squirrels in the woods. I came to a small clearing in the woods about 15 yds or so, with no overhead growth. As I approached the midpoint of the clearing, I saw a dove passing overhead. One handed, I whipped my shotgun straight up into the air, butt on my hip, and fired the right barrel wihout even looking up. I then spun around, and the dove crashed down, stone dead, right at the edge of the clearing.

 

[45King]

Double tap-sorry

Deleted.

 

[AmericanFreeBird]

When I was a kid, out in the woods with my Daisey 880 pump BB/Pellet/Dart gun, I saw a Blue Jay, fairly large, and it had to be all of 100 yards away in the top of a 50 foot or taller tree. Using a BB and 11 pumps, iron sites. I think the holdover had to be about 2 feet or more, not to mention BBs don't travel that straight either. There was no way I could hit that bird.

But I did, blasted him right out of the tree!

Lucky shot.

 

[bluecowdawg]

I went skeet shooting with my brother-in-law one time i carried a Glenfield .22 with me just to do some plinking when we ran out of shotgun shells. Well we ran out and i told him to pull another clay out and let it fly,he did and i nailed it with the .22.As if that wasnt a lucky enough shot he said i couldnt do it again, but i did it 3 more times in a row before i missed

 

[2nd Amendment]

When I was very young I had a Daisy Model 1894. I packed that thing everywhere, shot blackbirds and spatseys off the chicken coop fence, perforated targets all day long. But my real fun came in the evenings when I went Cicada hunting. I'd locate them by sound, home in on them and then pop them off the tree limbs, sometimes 50, 60 feet up.

Oh, did I mention that the front sight fell off right after I got it and I did this by just eyeballing the end of the barrel? I miss that old BB gun, no idea what eventually happened to it after I got married. Funny thing is that in an antique shop the other day I noticed an old BB gun in the corner. Daisy 1894. Missing front site. Familar crack in the top of the receiver. I wonder...nah, couldn't be.

 

[Plan-B]

Here are a couple stories late to the game...

About 10 years ago I was fooling with my brand new air gun shooting out the window of my bedroom at targets in my backyard. I saw a robin land on the back fence and thought "what the hell." Honestly I didn't think I could hit it (range was about 30-35 yards) and I was new to shooting anything in addition to being a pretty poor shot. Gave the thing the maximum of 10 pumps, took aim 2-handed (it was a handgun) and fired. Next thing I know the bird sticks its right wing straight out and keeled over the far side of the fence.

I was shooting with my cousin at an indoor range and he handed me his scoped 10/22. I put up a Shoot-N-C exploding target and moved it to about 20 feet, which is about where I shoot pistols. He prodded me and had me move the target all the way to the backstop. Probably about 100 feet now. I had to check twice with the naked eye and twice through the scope before bringing the target back after that first shot. Turns out I had taken out the "zero" in the number "10." I was sure glad I had a witness for that one. What's funnier is that after I emptied his 25 round mag I put up a new target for him. He proceeds to take one shot and bring back the target as well. The both of us had a pretty good laugh because he took out the "one" in the number "10" on his target with his first shot.

 

[redneck]

Constantly tryin to get rid of the sparrows roostin in the barn. Keep a gamo 220 hunter (.177) handy in the tack room, and take a .22 with ratshot out on occasion too.

Shot a sparrow from about 40 yards with open sights with the gamo, offhand. It had flown out of the barn and landed in the arena. I was very surprised when I got the tell tale POOF from the little super H pellet smacking it at 1000fps Usually get them from around 10 yards. Didn't think the gun was all that accurate out to 40 yards but I played around with it afterwards and was surprised. Ended up and took a crow from about 45 yards with it, had to knock him over with it twice to kill him.

Using the .22 with ratshot, I killed 2 sparrows with one shot once . The way that crap patterns I consider it very lucky to even hit one

 

[coonan357]

clay pigoen with a rossi Mdl 92 in .357 while in flight , got everyones attention including mine , won't even try it again .

 

[Carbon_15]

I was out at the range with a friend, sighting in a new-to-me Ruger 77/22 w/ a Tasco 40mm 8x24 scope. After spending a few minutes getting it zeroed and figuring out the trajectories, we got bored with paper targets. We started plinking at the usual range debre lying on the 75 and 100 yard berm...broken peices of clay targets, chunks of wood, shotgun waddings, small rocks, etc. I was amazed at how accurate my new toy was even though I was unfarmiliar with it and it was wearing cheap glass. My buddy thought I was showing off, but I was amazed myself at how easily you could make a quarter sized scrap of clay pidgeon disapear. To put an end to my glee, he set up a line of empty .38 shells on the 150 yard berm. 5 out of 6 went flying with 6 shots. We found one...luckily it was the one with the perfectly centered hole. He shut up for the day

 

[CWL]

Shot a poker chip outta the air with a borrowed 1911.

'Bout 15+ years ago, was shootin' with some buddies, one guy had a .45, I think it was a Colt Govt. Anyways, he said it wasn't that good of a shooter and I wanted to try it out. He found a poker chip on the ground and and said something like "Here! Hit this!" and flung it downrange about 15-20 yards into the air.

I instinctively pointed and shot the pistol, and amazingly blew the chip out of the air.

This was pure luck and had nothing to do with any skill I have. I kept my mouth shut and everyone was in awe. -Good thing there weren't anymore poker chips lying around.

 

[Carbon_15]

Not the worlds record or anything, but I was proud of it. It was the first, and last shot I fired for the day...off hand from a stock Glock 20 using Winchester 175gr Silvertips. I couldn't have placed it more perfectly from 10 yards. To be completly honest I was just aiming COM (to be brutaly honest, the front sight covered the whole front half of the target), but it kinda gives new meaning to 'Glock Perfection'

 

[12.7x99mm]

I shoot clay pigions laying on there side at 360-380 yards. Downhill about a 20 degree decline.

Rem 700pss with a springfield 6x20

 

[bad_dad_brad]

This was once a popular post on TFL.

I hit a crow at 50 yards perched on a telephone poll with a Sheridan Blue Streak .20 cal. pellet rifle at eight pumps with factory iron sights. He flew, cawed, and at about 20 yards, dropped like a stone. For the record, I think this was a lucky shot, once in a lifetime! Cool though.

 

[Preacherman]

Not the "best", but the "luckiest"? You bet!!!

I was walking through a township in South Africa in the aftermath of some pretty serious mob violence. I was there as part of a team helping the victims of violence, but of course, having the wrong skin color for that area immediately set me up as a "target" for the BG's there. One of them ran up behind me and stuck a knife in my back: it chipped the edge of one vertebra, and just missed a kidney. I'm pretty lucky to have survived it without major/permanent injury, according to the doctors.

I'd heard him coming, and arched my back forward as the knife went in, while I was reaching for my pistol, holstered IWB at 4 o'clock. I didn't waste time trying to draw, but fired backwards through the holster as the gun (a CZ-75) was only half-drawn. The bullet (a handloaded 88gr. Speer JHP, originally designed for the .380 Auto, but moving at 1,500 fps out of a 9mm. P. cartridge with a handload of MP200 powder) went through the holster, out the back of my pants (leaving a heck of a flash-burn on my butt! ) and struck the attacker square on his left testicle. The bullet disintegrated on impact, but removed the testicle very thoroughly, with bullet fragments entering his thigh, hip and bladder. He screamed like a stuck pig, and folded up on himself. Best stopping shot I've ever made!

The cops eventually got an ambulance in to us, and we both went to hospital. It took me a few weeks to get over the knife wound, but he developed severe infection from his ruptured bladder, and was still in hospital last time I checked, two months later. Apparently bullet fragments had also affected his right testicle and penis, and there was uncertainty as to whether or not he'd ever be fully "functional" again. You will understand that this was the least of my concerns!

I changed my load after that... I'd been impressed by what the high-speed 88gr. bullet did to wet phone books and gallon jugs full of water, but hadn't considered that it might blow up on human flesh without penetrating deeply enough. I was just extremely lucky that on the one occasion I needed it, it hit something so painful that its poor terminal performance didn't make any difference to the outcome. I went back to the designed-for-caliber 115gr. JHP bullets, and was grateful to have learned an important lesson. However, the flash-burn on my butt still showed red after several months... I had to come up with some pretty creative explanations for a couple of GF's! (I hasten to add I wasn't a pastor at the time, or even interested in becoming one. That took a few more years to develop.)

 

[J Miller]

I was out shooting with some friends who were trying to shoot a limb off a tree. They were using Mini 14s IIRC and I had a S&W 25-2. They both emptyed their rifles and couldn't shoot this branch off.
It was about 50 feet and the branch, what was left of it, was about 1" thick.
I smarted off that they needed bigger bullets. I said I could do it with the .45.
They challenged me to put my money where my mouth was. So I used a two handed hold, fired one shot and the branch fell to the ground.
As I stood grinning at my lucky shot, my friend commented that he would never hear the end of it.

 

[Carbon_15]

A few years back I was sitting around the hunting club after the morning hunt watching an elderly gentleman shoot bumblebees out of the air with a 3in S&W 29. After about his 12th shot and 12th confirmed kill, he had gathered a pretty good crowd. Oblivious to the group of amazed onlookers, he continued to relax in his favorite rockingchair, and casualy, one handed, pick off bees as they hovered around the nearby late-blooming azalea bush. It was several weeks (and several enthusiastic tellings of the crusty 'ol marksman with his deadly .44) before my Uncle let me on that he was using ratshot

 

[KMKeller]

When I was a wee lad of about 10 years old, there was an older kid who lived across the alley who tormented me constantly. One fine Saturday afternoon, I was in the back yard devastating my army men with my Daisy BB gun when this little so and so shoots me with a sling shot (wrist rocket if I remember) and it HURT. I hid behind the fence for a few moments nursing a growing welt and decided to make a break for the house. No sooner did I get clear of the fence than I get nailed in the back with his second shot. I ducked back to the fence and sat there trying to figure a way out of this. I realized after a few minutes that I could see him through the gap between the boards of my fence and a combination of the gap between the boards of his fence and a knothole. *BLING* The light pops on.

I lined up my shot and the first shot went between the boards on both fences and nailed his thigh. He yelled and moved. Second shot-same result, third shot-same result, fourth shot through the knothole to hit him in the arm. This went on for about 15 minutes and probably 20 shots with only a couple of misses. He eventually cried uncle and never bothered me again. I'd heard some years later from his siblings that his mother had witnessed the whole thing from his first shot and refused to put a stop to it to teach him a lesson.

And suddenly, I remember why I always wanted to be a SWAT sniper...

 

[MarineTech]

On the rifle range as a Marine in 92, I knocked the spindle out of the shot spotting disk twice in a row at the 500 yard line at the 29 Palms range. My line coach just happened to be watching me when I did it the 1st time. Fired the round and saw the disk drop off the target. Coach called down to verify the keyhole shot. Came back to the line that I had blown the spindle out of the spotter. Coach made the comment that he bet I'd never do it again. I told him "Probably not." Next shot, I did it again. Coach spent the rest of the day going on about "His great shooter. I can't claim skill on either shot. Both were just pure luck. That's why I've resigned myself to never winning the lottery. I used my luck up that day. Finished the qual with a 238, so I was happy.

 

[Moondancer]

Somewhere around 1975... my best friend and I are into squirrel hunting and handguns in a big way. I've got a S&W Model 19 4" bbl and he's got a S&W Model 29 6&1/2" bbl (the Dirty Harry gun). We decide to try birdshot in handloads for the squirrels.

We head back to the woord through the marsh and up flys a pheasant. To this day, I cannot remember which one of us it was that drew and fired, but down it came. When we cleaned it, we found a single pellet in the head.

Luck, pure and simple. But to paraphrase Skeeter Skelton from one of his "Me and Joe" stories... It's better to be lucky than good!

 

[Smoke]

I once had a coyote running straight away from me. Jumping the broom weeds at regular intervals.

I timed the shot so that I caught him at the peak of the jump. Shot him right in the back of the head with a 30-30 lever gun. Iron sights, approximately 80-85 yards.

Have witnesses. Never had the chance for another try. Don't really want one.

I made a spectacular shot on a quail once that the brother-in-law still talks about. It was just a reflexive shot that I have no idea how I did it. Couldn't repeat it....ever.

 

[Missouri Mule]

150 long paces standing, 1 shot. 1 Coyote running broadside.
Rem M700 .243 & 4X Bushnell scope = 1 dead coyote.

***********

100 yard rifle target range. 1 unopened evil green Shasta lemon lime soda can.
1 shot standing of .45 acp from Colt 1911A1 = 1 dead Shasta.

Every now and again I try to duplicate this one. If I'm in the mood I'll usually only make 7 trys at a time. In almost 10 years I have only come close a few times in maybe 100 trys.

Oh yeah, the can is free hanging from the top wire. Nothing significant to use as a reference to assist the Kentucky windage.