Ladies and Gentlemen,

Go to this website Visser Safaris and watch the intro. There are 4 "shots" on game. What do you think of their shot placement?

[I am not being critical - just having a little fun.]

Regards,

Terry

Funny shot placement on the eland.

The eland is 350 yards away and he's aiming high with his 9.3x62 CZ 550 LUX with 286 gr, S&B soft points, taking into account bullet drop at thet distance.

Not much.

Dave

Hey, what is this crack about the 9.3x62?

I just bought one, and kind of like it. Now whether I can kill anything with it is yet to be determined!

FWIW, and maybe not much, I think all those shoulder shots are too high.

That elephant must have been 400 yards away for that amount of holdover.

I'm with you.

I doubt the PH wrote the java script for the website, and if you book with that safari company, I doubt that the computer programmer who wrote the website will be the PH. In other words, it does not really matter where the computer programmer would aim. The client gets to aim for himself in any event (at least on most safaris...).

Gentlemen,

I think you all missed the point here.

This is what happens when you just point yout rifle at the animals prior to taking your shot - the rifle wobbles around, and they mean that their hunters are so good their rifles never wobble that much.

Hell, when I first point my rifle at the animals it covers the whole hillside. I just have to make sure I flinch when the muzzle is moving in the right direction.

I'm a big advocate of flinch shooting. It works good with practice.

Flinching? Do I have to open my eyes when I shoot to do that?

Hey can someone define what you mean by 'flinch shooting'. Do you mean pressing the trigger a milisecond before the crosshairs wobble across the shoulder, or are you just kidding?

While hunting, as against while shooting off a sand bag on a bench rest table, I cannot keep my rifle steady.

Right now I am testing 22 ammo in several target rifles, and shooting off the bench at 50 meters, using a 35 power scope.

I can get the crosshairs steady, without going out of, the aiming circle, which is 0.1 of an inch in diameter. In fact, the target has numbers printed on it about 6 or 7 point size, and I can read them clearly.

Shooting at game animals while hunting, is a different ball game altogether.

Sometimes, as the case in shooting a leopard for instance, one does have a pretty steady rest, knows the distance, and one can place his shot with certainty.

That is why it amazes me when I see people either miss a leoprad, or worse wound it.

Most times, though, while hunting, one has to take a relatively harried shot. This can be off the shooting sticks, the PH shoulder's, a tree, a rock or just off hand snap shooting.

In these instances, one can never have a completely steady rest. Especially if one takes into consideration that one has been running after the animal.

Here is where the controlled flinch comes into its own.

The rifle wobbles all over the place, and one has to be sure he pulls the trigger at just the right moment.

I can write a book about all the funny things that happen just before one takes his shot.

Here is a couple of examples

We were driving along in the afternoon in Zimbabwe, and we saw two kudu bulls walking about 3/4 or a mile away.

We stopped the truck, and ran at an agle to meet them. We had to climb a hill of about 300 feet high. As we got to the top, we could see them walking across a valley from us, as they have changed direction, and turned to the right.

All we could see was a glimpse of them, and no chance of a shot at all.

We ran down into the valley, and then up the other hillside. We found their tracks, and followed at a trot.

We then saw them walking in teh bush about 300 yards away. Roy put the shooting stick down, and said "There they are! Shoot anyone of them"

I got the rifle on the shooting sticks, and saw a passing glimpse of one of the bulls rear end disappear into the bush, my rifle continued on its way sighseeing the whole hillside, and despite all my efforts to change its directions, by teh time I got it back to where teh kudu were, they have already gone!

This all took no more than a few seconds, but I got a good tung lashing for not shooting that kudu.

Roy "Well, you missed your chance. Why didn't you shoot?"
Me "I could not get teh bloody thing in scope, my rifle was wobbling all over the hillside. You know, running for a couple of miles, mostly uphill, is not conducive to accurate quick shooting"

On another occasion, we saw a large impala ram, which Roy almost knows by name, as it was wounded the year before by another hunter!

We ran after it, and as it stopped to look back at us, I fired a shot at it so fast with my 270 Ackley, and broke its neck!

Roy was so surprised, that he said "what happened then?"

I think he was shocked I actually hit the impala.

That was a perfect controlled flinch.

Sometimes, one gets a bit carried away with this sort of thing.

We saw some impala feeding at Lake Kariba, and managed to get to about 200 yards from them, and hide behind a termite hill.

I had a 338 Lazzeroni, with a muzzle brake. I rest the rifle on teh side of the termite hill, and waited for the impala to get clear.

I had a clear view of him, so I asked Roy if I could shoot whenever I am ready.

He said "Yes", at which point I pulled the trigger.

The impala dropped, Roy was screaming "MY EARS, MY EARS!"

Apparently he did not have enough time to block his ears!

What kinda reticle is that? Looks funky...

Sorry, I didn't see any holdover on anything. However, I did see that the eland had a left hand twist to it's body and seeing where the right shoulder was I would have put the cross-hairs more on the left shoulder to insure a proper lung hit.

O'K, a head-shot zebra isn't cool.

As an outfitter, I've seen all these problems, ..........everyone's a great shot off the bench, but in the field ......often disaster! Luckily, we usually have some large oulders around for a rest, and I train my guides to always keep an eye out for "bench rests" when planning any stalk.

But I'm a firm believer in silhouette shooting as field practice .........you have to shoot standing, and therefore learn to "area shoot" as you can't be super precise, and it's the best way to really learn your trigger squeeze and what a heavy trigger pull can do to your sight picture. I use Butler Creek scope covers, and inside the objective cap when open and standing up, is a sticker with the holdovers for various distances, ... easily seen! ~Arctic~