What's the best shot you ever made?

Status
Not open for further replies.
When i was about 14, I was riding in Dad's pickup truck with him and my step-mom on a beautiful Arizona late summer evening. We rounded a curve in the road and rolled up on a three-foot diamondback rattler, crossing from right to left. Dad jumped on the brake and dug his Italian Peacemaker clone from under his seat; it was loaded with his somewhat vigorous 260 gr. handloads. He was driving, and I was in the passenger seat, so he handed the revolver, holstered and hanging on cartridge belt.

"Kill that snake, and don't destroy the skin," he said as I took the holstered arm. In those days, you could sell a snake skin to just about anybody (hatbands, ya know...), and a few of the local steakhouses would buy the meat. Whacking a rattler was something you just DID. Still, I wasn't looking forward to this; Dad's handloads created a fireball the size of a Volkswagen and thundered like Armageddon. I dutifully stepped out of the truck and unsnapped the Hunter holster, my mouth going the slightest bit dry.

The snake was about 15 feet away, and normally I would have simply walked up to it and shot it from basically point-blank distance. Today, some devil possessed me to take my first-ever hip shot at high value target. The revolver bucked and roared; the snake's head- and JUST its head- evaporated in a cloud of caliche dust.

All I could do was to stand there, be cool, and replace the spent round with a live one like my ears weren't even ringing (they were!) Dad had his hands crossed at 12 o'clock on the steering wheel, looking at me with one eyebrow raised in appraisal. My step-mom had had the presence of mind to put her fingers in her ears, but hadn't yet removed them. I gathered the snake, found a plastic ice bag to put it in and placed the snake in the beer cooler (I miss the Arizona I grew up in....sigh...), then jumped back in the cab. I made to hand the .45 back to Dad, but he waved me off. "Hang on to it for the drive. We may see another snake, and I'd like to know if you can do that again." Then, with a sideways smile, he offered his hand and said, "Son that was a hell of a shot." Some handshakes you treasure more than others... you know what I mean.

Keeping the adrenalin-spiked shake out of my voice, I replied, "Sure... let's go." I spent the whole rest of the drive home praying that we didn't see any more snakes!
 
I got two. Got fairly consistent shooting clays from the thrower with a 10/22. Most of the time I can get 2 out of 3. You almost need a spotter to call the hits. They don't break only throw a little dust. One afternoon goofing off with an aluminum can on a pond I popped it up off the water with a low shot and hit it again before it fell back in the water. Both shots were with the same rifle. It has a Simmons 3-9 I bought at Walmart 10 years ago. I'm not a great shot. It's amazing the bond you can form with a firearm after thousands of rounds. Good times
 
Recently? Front nine par 5 at Ram Rock in Marble Falls Texas, one of the hardest par 70's in the state. I was 235 out down the hill to a front pen with water front and up the right side and a trap to the left. The green is just 20 feet wide where the pin was. I was too far out to feel comfortable controlling a hybrid and didnt feel I could carry the water with a three iron. So I choked down about an inch on my three wood, took a 90% swing, and let it fly. I hit it right on the screws as the old folks say. It was high with a very slight draw coming right in on the pin. It landed 6 feet short of the pin and rolled about 4 feet by. Made the putt for eagle.

THe other day I was 140 out dead into a 25 mph wind. Took the same approcah with a 6 iron to keep it out of the wind. Stuck it three feet. Made birdie.

As for guns, I have never made a shot worth noting. But I have missed plenty. :banghead:
 
Shot a pee wee flying out of my attic because it wouldn't land anywhere to give me a good shot because it saw me shoot it's mate. Ordinarily I don't shoot song birds but my brother just had the same problem and ended up with bird mites in his house which were very expensive to eliminate. I figured a couple of bullets would do the job just fine. The first one was easy but I had to hit the second one in mid-flight after wheeling around from their exit point like I was in a gunner's chair on a B-29. Feathers flew but he didn't come down. He didn't come back either. Mission accomplished!
 
Probably a crow setting in a tree at about 275 yards.
With a Ruger .22 Standard 4" pistol.

About 1962, a friend & I were plinking cans & clods in the yard when he noticed the crow land in the tree.
He dared me to shoot at it and see if I could scare it out of the tree.

One shot, one kill, standing, one handed.

A shot I will never forget till I die.

I don't know who was more surprised, my friend, me, or the crow!

I never did fess up to him that actually hitting it was just an accident.

But I did learn that the more you practice with a pistol, the more 'accidents' like that you are likely to have.

rc
 
I have made many a best shot, but they were all made following many, many, many not so best shots.
 
My best came when I was at FMF school. We were on the firing range. useing the old 1911's. My D.I. bet me a six pack of coke that I couldnt take out the 2x2 post. I asked how many shots. He said Use the whole magazine if you want. Went to the 25 yard line. 4 shots later the post was down. Have never been able to do it again.
 
Clearly pure luck but it was with my 8 3/8" M29 Smith I bought when I was 16 and we were doing our usual blasting along the Sacramento River where I grew up. A flock of spec's geese flew over head and for the "hell of it" I aimed (pointed?) and fire one shot bringing down a goose probably 100 yards out. I will not disclose the legality or ignorance of the event...
 
A few years back I took a pistol & carbine class with Larry Vickers. There were about 16 shooters in the class, about 14 of them law enforcement from NY and CT. They had some very nice equipment -- all ARs with optics. The other "civilian" had a Sig rifle with a scope, and I had my AK-74 with iron sights.

On the second (freezing, windy) day he had us do a "relay" shoot where we'd stand out on the 25 yd. line in a line and the first guy in line would start shooting at a metal human silhouette about 150 yds. away, offhand. When Larry yelled "HIT" the next shooter would start, and so on down the line.

We ran through that drill and some of the guys had a little trouble. Lots of misses. I hit the steel on my 3rd shot, and that was considered "great" (though I wasn't pleased -- a hit ANYWHERE on a whole silhouette only 150 yds away?).

When the last shooter made his hit, Larry said, "SWAP SHOULDERS!" and had us run the same drill from our support side. Things got dismal. Whole mags were emptied without a hit. I lined up and squeezed, "BANG ... CLANG!" First shot hit.

In the end, something close to half the class even got a hit from their support side.

Larry called us together and embarrassed me with a few very pleasant statements, and said, "Now, anybody who thinks a Kalashnikov isn't accurate enough? He just hit that target from his left shoulder with IRON SIGHTS in one shot!"

I honestly didn't think it was awesome shooting, but I was happy to hit it. Those drills instilled in me a new level of respect for those cops, though, as dinner the night before had been full of tales of patrolling with their rifles and even being called to do active shooter sweeps in schools! ...:uhoh:...
 
Last edited:
Model 19 S&W, 4 inch barrel, full power .357 load. Shooting with one hand at a coke can on a fence post at 50 yrds. Hit it and knocked it off with the first shot and then followed up with four more making it dance on the ground, missed the last one, and I haven't been able to repeat this shooting since.

Second one, was a stray tom cat that someone had dumped on us and we live in the boonies. It kept terrorizing and fighting our cats so I decided he needed to go to a better place. There is only one neighbor we have, my mother-in-law and she lives about 200 yards from our house.

I spotted the stray tom cat in the yard at my MIL's, she has a huge yard and he was out far away from the house so I had a clear shot. Took a ruger 10/22 with a scope and hit him on the run with one shot. I fired and he leaped into the air and I actually thought I missed him until my MIL called the next day and asked if I had finally shot that stray cat as it was laying next to her pool house dead. Guess I didn't miss after all.
 
Took the cap off of a one liter water bottle at 100 yards with my Ruger 10/22, with a Weaver K2.5 scope and Wolf Match Target ammo.
 
I walked out one morning on a friend's ranch after ground squirrels with a scoped bolt action .22LR. A robin landed about 60 yards away and I put the borrowed rifle to shoulder just to get comfortable with it. As I settled into the scope he took off, flying 90 degrees to me, and just for the heck of it I flicked the safety off, pulled some lead, and pulled the trigger. He folded.

I walked over and found I had put that .22 round through his eyeball. No witnesses.
 
Best "skill shot" ever was a deer dropped in his tracks at 690 yards +/- a foot with a 30-06... Best "luck shot" ever was with a Ruger Single six. A buddy and I were plinking at an old paint can with it and on one shot he popped the lid off. he went downrange and set it on top of the can with top facing me. I told him to turn it sideways to "make it a challenge". I drilled the skinny edge of that paint can lid on a quickdraw first shot with a that single action .22lr from about 20ft.... Chances of me repeating that shot? 1 in a trillion.. I'm on my 9,386,571st try at doing it again with no luck :)
 
One time as a kid my friend and throwing milk jugs up in the air and shooting them. I was done and wanted to go inside, put the BB gun up on my shoulder and started to walk off. He just for giggles threw it up in the air one last time to see if I could hit it with the gun rested backwards on my shoulder. I shot when it "felt" right and lo and behold I hit it. After that he thought I was Carlos Hathcock or something.
 
I shot a seven point buck, off my front porch right between the eyes with one shot from my Remington 510 using Remington Cyclone 22 ammo.

My Dad shot a 235 11 point buck at 125 yards with a JC Higgins 12 gauge pump with a foster slug. He said he raised the barrel over his back and prayed. Drug the thing home across the field with his Volkswagen beetle. I was in Australia courtesy of the USMC so he asked my neighbor to help him string it up. When my Dad let go of the rope the deer went down and my neighbor went up!
 
The thing is I could probably have named two dozen shots that would seem like flukes or luck. The reason I have so many is because I have shot a LOT in my lifetime and the odds start to run in your favor eventually. But there's also practice, practice and more practice. You up your odds of making a great shot by learning to shoot right in the first place. Not many first time shooters will have that "beginner's luck" type shot where they shoot a flea off the back of a cat at 200 yards with a sling shot. Heck I even practiced up enough throwing drum sticks at mice running across our living room until I got where I could nail them almost every time. Humans can learn skills that most people just don't think are possible because they just haven't tried it. I even got to where I could nail a running mouse by bouncing a drum stick off the hard wood floor and then under a chair where I pinned the mouse to baseboard and it was DRT. I caught heck when dad noticed how much damage I had done to the baseboard thowing those sticks to many times but I learned to kill mice with them. I think most kids can learn to do things like that. It's hidden in our DNA to be able to throw things to kill. We just don't let it out because we don't run around practicing like the Indian kids did with their bows and arrows when European people first came to this country. They were using extremely primitive stuff but it worked. And I certainly don't think I'm special or alone in having this ability. I know others can do such things in fact. I've seen so many wild talents in my life I know that pretty much everyone is capable of doing things they just don't know they can do. Like tossing up a pop can and shooting it 6 times in the air with a .22 (catch it at the apex and knock it higher in the air and shoot it at the apex again). I did that but my neighbor could do 8 almost every time. I go to 5 or 6 a very few times but I didn't practice every day like my neighbor did. I was shooting carpenter bees out of the air just last week and I was shooting from the hip with a .22 rifle with a scope on it. Who would have thought that was possible? I didn't. But it is. I knocked down at least 5 of them out of about 25 shots.

People can do things they don't know they can do. I had a really good shooter tell me the biggest obstacle in people being great shooters was getting past thinking they can't do certain things. That guy has several world records to his name. Just don't talk yourself out of being able to do stuff and you'll be surprised what you can do IMO. I've seen lots and lots of threads like this with lots and lots of people claiming fantastic shots. And I believe 99% of the people saying they did those things. Just think about it. Our caveman ancestors (or more correctly our pre-bronze age ancestors - we don't have to guess we just have to look at people like the Indians) relied on being able to kill things with crude tools in order to survive. It's not that hard to kill a rabbit with a rock if you know how to throw rocks well. That's just human nature. We all have talents that are left buried in our heads until the bad times really hit. Think about Sgt. York for example. Or Carlos Hathcock. Or that Australian soldier from Delta Company. Or Rob Furlong. Or Craig Harrison. Or Kreg Slack.
 
This is already on the net.

I was benched 22LR Prairie Dog shooting on a grass airport. The owner and my shooting buddy were watching.

I had already taken some real long dust kick-ups at a lone dog at the end of the runway.

About 15 minutes later he popped up standing tall.

I put the dog on the vertical hair and the bottom curve of the 12x scope.

He flipped upside down with legs kicking.

I went up there with the Nikon Laser, and the bench and Subaru measured 346 Yards. I computed a 19 foot high trajectory.
 
Nothing too special, but the first time I hit a 300m target in basic. Never fired a weapon prior to enlisting, and went from never fired a shot, to hitting 300m targets with irons in a couple of range days
 
NW Iowa at a Memorial Day Old West Shoot using an original 1881 Trapdoor with 500 gr LRN / 65 gr FFg service loads. Shooting at the 1000 yard steel buffalo silhouette, my first round broke the weld connecting one of the support chains to the buffalo, causing the silhouette to "flop" in a most realistic fashion.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Hokkmike
  • Locked
What is the best shot you have ever made?
2 3 4
Replies
82
Views
3K
Hokkmike
Hokkmike
M
  • Locked
Your Best Shot Ever
2
Replies
42
Views
1K
Redneck with a 40
R
M
  • Locked
Braggin time! whats the best shot youve ever taken
2
Replies
33
Views
1K
Parke1
P
J
  • Locked
What was best/luckiest shot you ever made?
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Replies
187
Views
10K
boredelmo
B
WestKentucky
  • Locked
Best ever for “junk” brands
2 3
Replies
58
Views
3K
KodeFore
K
Back
Top