Hi All! I thought I'd post my luckiest wild shot & see if anyone else has something compareable. A friend & I were walking- looking for targets. I had a Lee Enfield in .308 and he a scoped remington. We find a socker ball sized rock a GOOD 300 yards away- different color(white in green grass) so I could see it with my iron sights. He hits it first shot ( prone) . I am shooting a hot cast load ( never tried in this rifle before) and have NO idea where it shoots at this range. I simply ran the sights up to ( I think) 700 yards and let 'er fly.( sitting) SMACK! Nice hit. The rest of the shots were pretty close. They would have all stayed on a 2 x 2 sheet!( Me!, iron sights, sitting) That old rifle would shoot! Of course I won't tell of the 1000's of times I missed by a country mile.... Dale

The weekend before last me, my brother and my friend were shooting at beer cans about 200 yards away with a 308 and 223 (jacketed bullets). We were hitting them with regularity. Then we start shooting at them with our revolvers. On about the eleventh shot I knocked one down! We just couldn't believe it. I did not hit it, but it fell.

I've shot the 900 yard targets on our range with pistol quite a few times, but you kind of walk the rounds in, and aim at a pine tree on the mountain ridge somewhere above. Best "cold" shot i ever saw was an old friend wioth his Sharps. There was a raven sitting on the side of a cliff 700 yards away. He fiddled with his sights, and hit the bird on the first shot, off hand.

Three come to mind real quick, but I am a lazy typer so will just mention one.

Many years ago I was coyote calling, I had picked a little bunch of Grama grass to call from, the range cattle had made a trail into it, one way in and one way out, so I sat up at the end in a little depression a bull had pawed out.

Had my rifle in my lap pointing down the trail, I had just started to call and a coyote made the turn coming down the trail straight at me at a full run, at about six feet he swapped ends only like a coyote can and peeled out trying to get his little ass to safety, in the process he kicked dirt and dried cow shit all over me and in my eyes, so thru watery eyes I just lifted the rifle off my lap an inch or so and squeezed the trigger right as he made the turn to safety, I sat there for about five minutes trying to get my eyes to working again and cussing coyotes, stood up and finished dusting myself and my rifle off and headed back to the truck, as I cleared the entrance to the trail to my left laid a dead coyote with a bullet hole thru his head.

You guys remind me of one of my Dad's favorites. He was with his brothers and shot a sparrow off a barbed wire fence at around 100 yards with a 22 rimfire. He never told them he was shooting at a different sparrow. Ya gotta love um.

I remember a shot I saw him make about fifty years ago before it was illegal. We saw a hawk high in the air cicling, it was not much more than a speck. I got out the thirty-thirty and he shot it almost staight up. There's no telling range but it seemed to take forever for the red tail to hit the ground.

Thanks for the memories,

Mike

1. Canadian goose at about 300 plus yards flying along side the car on a straight-away highway at 80 mph. One shot out of the back seat with an '06 brought him down. Scope was placed on bird, and then above bird at what looked like to be 20 bird thicknesses. Bouncing car made for a bouncing aim.

2. A robin swaying back and forth on a tall and limber limb, on a treetop during a wind storm, with heavy sleet and snow and rain. The swaying arc appeared to be about 3 feet in length. About 250 yards to tree trunk; tree was typical at about 150 foot tall. Steady aim, 16X scope, right on bird half way between arc ends. Shot when the bird was at the end of an arc. Dead bird, mostly feathers. 22-250.

3. My brother Bill's first time shooting a BR gun. He was last in line of 5 brothers to shoot the beast. He was reluctant to do so because he is not a shooter in the least but came along for the ride. Bird was a RedWingBlackbird at a good 400 yards. I knew the distance by reasonable guestimation, and the windspeed was very constant at 5 mph at a right angle, the best condition possible for a brand new shooter. I sighted the scope by using a knot on a tree in the opposite direction. Reset the scope for his shot, for a right-on aim. I told him to just touch the trigger when the dot covered his head. He had several dry fire shots for practice before round was loaded. Corrections made in his holding the gun. Loaded gun. Bam! Bird just stayed there, not moving one iota. I took a look through the scope and saw absolutely no head on that bird. Nobody believed it, until the bird finally fell, about a true minute later. A good 60 seconds. 222 ackley with competition rounds.

4. A high tension wire parted to the ground, sparks a-flying, after a shot from a '06 at a crow on said wire at about 500 yards. A truly unfortunate shot, about 2 inches low. FMJ bullets.

5. A sorta' bobbing log in the Mississippi River, at 1000 yards easy. 45-70 trapdoor with early issue smokeless. Shot about 10 rounds at target. Up, down, left, and then right. Bullets appeared to never hit the target, but all around it. Barely could see the splashes. A week later an official man appeared at my dad's house, asking to see our 50 caliber guns. We had none. I was safely at boarding school. Right party, wrong question!

These bring back another one. Friend Aaron, on one of our river trips, shot the head off of a dove in the top of a tree at a hundred yards, with a 20 ga. smoothbore flinter, loaded with round ball. i'm not sure who was more surprised, Aaron, or the dove. We of course all called BS on the shot. Friend Hank had a sawed off civil War enfield, and he said he was going to get one, too. i told him if he could kill a dove with that, i would eat it hide, hair, guts and all. You never saw a man work harder for two straight days trying to shoot a dove. He finally ran out of musket caps, and was reduced to taking the tips from stick matches for primers. they worked surprisingly well, but still not dove medicine.

The best one last:

80 yards max. 180 grain WW, possibly the 311291, with 8 grains 700X in 308W. A row of cow birds along top cross member of utility pole. Picked bird closest to pole joint. Missed badly, hitting the heavy bolt holding the cross member (as far as I can tell). About 10 birds fell dead due to the hand grenade effect. About 5 or 6 more limped away. Who knows what really happened. Could not have been just boolit fragments, but speculation has it as a bunch of wooden arrows created by the mini-explosion.

My last exwife made it. Rifle was a Ruger 77V 22-250 with a Redfield 3200 target scope. Far on the other side of a clearcut an oil can was sitting upright in the middle of a haul road. Distance was ~400 yards. She leaned the rifle across the Jeep hood and fired. The can exploded, being full of rain water. We drove over there for a look, and her bullet had impacted in the exact dead center of the can.

My luckiest shot was lucky in that I didn't set the world afire. Gun was a 7mm TCU T/C Super 14. Load was an RCBS 145 gr cast bullet @ ~2000 fps. I found a nearly empty 16.5 oz propane bottle. Thought it would make a good target. Then I thought it would be cool to ignite the little bit of propane left in the bottle and released by a bullet hit. So I filled a beer bottle with charcoal starter and stuffed the neck with pine straw, making a Molotov cocktail. I placed the cocktail behind the propane bottle and ignited it. Then I backed off about 100 yards and shot the bottle.

It exploded with a very loud "Whooooooommmmm!!!" and a gigantic fireball engulfed the surrounding woods, reaching the tops of the pines behind the bottle. We spent the next hour fighting and finally putting out the woods fire.

1. Running Jackrabbit, @ around 50 yds; single-shot .22, centered it b/t the ears in the back of the head. Convinced my cousin I was a Rifleman!
2. Same .22, shot a flying coot, crossing at about 25 yds, from a pirogue. No one around to witness that one, darn it!
3. Best for last: Scouting around for sign on a (different)cousin's place near Junction, Tx. Spied a cottontail at about 25 yds. Called for him to "Come watch me kill this rabbit". By the time he arrived, I had selected a fist-sized rock. I let fly - one dead rabbit, hit center-of-mass. It is a joke b/t us now when discussing weapons of choice, "Why not just use a rock?"

1967, late fall, on my grandfather's farm, myself and a high school buddy were having fun shooting up a brick of 22lr in Marlin semi autos, we had about 25 rounds left when we spotted a hawk in an old cotton wood tree (75+ ft. tall) just over 1/4 mile away. I knew it was a 1/4 mile because odomaters on the cars and trucks said it was, we ran out of lr ammo and never hit the hawk but sure made him think there were bees around. My grandfather was watching, said all the ammo he had was an old box of 22 shorts, after about 20 rounds of loading and ejecting one round at a time, one of us hit that hawk, it never batted a wing on the way to the ground. There are still witnesses around that will attest to this one.

Another dove in a tree top. At about 300 yards the dove was just a silhouette in the top of a tall pine tree. Boy about 13, rifle a Remington Model 34 22 with Weaver B-4 scope using 22 shorts. One shot, dead dove. I also killed a flying pigeon at about 50 yards once with that rifle. I bought a lot of 22 shorts because I could get 3 boxes for my dollar in those days. A friend of mine also killed a chukar on the fly with his 22. We didn't know what it was until we got it home and looked it up. They had just been introduced in our part of the country at that time. Regards, Woody

Actually, I have 3 memorable shots to brag about! In the early '60's a friend and I would wonder the woods and pastures in search of targets for our .22's. I always used shorts in Dad's Remington Model 33 because they were more afforadable on my meager allowance. One day we spied a bird flying up in a large oak at about 200 yards and my bud said," betcha can't hit it". Since my honor was on the line, I offhandedly aimed above it and fired and the bird tumbled down. When we retrived it we found it to be a kingfisher.

Early one morning in about the same time period, my Dad who was leaving for work, came back in the house and told me crows were in the corn field. Boy, I could'nt wait to get to the field with my rifle, a full military M 98 Mauser in 8MM cal. When I entered the field at one end, I was spied, and the crows took to the air. Not to be outdone, I sighted on the closest one at about 100 yards and fired. I don't know if he or I were more surprised, when he folded in midair and fell to the ground with only a tiny bit of hide holding his head on!!

Only a couple of days later I was in the same field roaming with the same rifle and saw a hawk circling above me. I don't know how high he was, but I fired in his general direction. Most unlucky hawk! My 200 grain bullet had hit at the juncture of his left wing and breast. I got to thinking I was a pretty good shot at flying game with a rifle after these two instances. -JDL

Well it werent but last summer a bunch of us fellers was shootin our leverguns at 1/2 size silhuette targets and I rung steel on the ram with 44-40 ammunition in my 45 colt chambered 73 uberty winchester at a good 80 yards.

When I was a yonker grandad's brother was asked to check the sights on someones 22 rifle, him bein known for his marksmanship. It was dusk out and he just looked at the rifle like he was inspecting it then quickly drew down on a flying bat at about 25 yards and dropped him like a rock. He handed the rifle back to the feller and said that the sights seem to be ok to him without even flinching.

Hi West Creek Charlie! Wow! Talk about the Twilight Zone. I have a set of 1/2 sized sihouette targets and we shoot at them with our iron sighted leverfuns! I just have a .357 Winchester and a 30/30 Marlin. But both are accurate cast shooters. A lot of fun. I live 90 miles east of St Louis ( In the middle of the known Universe) at Xenia. You? Dale

Sparrow at about 70 yards.

My brother and law and I were hiking our way up a wash, and this sparrow landed at the top of a bluff. I threw my iron-sighted 10/22 up (my brother in law saying something like "sheeeit"), and I fired about as soon as the butt hit my shoulder. There was a puff of dust, and the bird started flapping its wings.

The sight picture had looked "good", but I would not bet you five dollars today I could hit a sparrow offhand one time out of five at that distance.

The bird only got inches into the air (my brother inlaw saying something like "ha!"), but that was enough to put it over the edge, and it dropped 40 feet straight down into the wash. We got to where the dead bird lay, and it was pretty well taken apart in the middle. The shot hit it right about where its navel might have been, and I would not have had to pull very hard to have half a bird in each hand.

H. C.

OK!
Luckiest shots by me.. My very first cottontail rabbit, 125 yds., one shot, Stevens Crackshot, .22 short ammo. Running grey squirrel .22 bolt action after being missed by a 16ga. & a .410.
Running pig 150yds. .444 Marlin. Friend had shot a pig which went down in a wash & I saw pig get up out of same wash. Nice..one shot, pig slides in to home. Two pigs down. Best shot was by my Dad tho on some pesky pigeons in our neighborhood. Three shots, three pigeons. He hit one just under the breastbone with the wad column.

Hey Hillyer

Naw I dunt live down thataway - I lives up nearer Chicago.
Been down yer way a few times though. Pard of mine lives off Hurricane Creek in Mullberry Grove. I do beleive thats in yer neck of the woods. Been to the Bond County Fair too in Greenville.

Back about 40 years ago I work with a bunch of guys who would go to wisconsin to hunt. several of them were born in the area in Spooner and had bought two farms they used just for hunting. I was invited up to go deer hunting with them. When we got up there the first night I heard all the local "old wives tales" about the proper caliber gun to use in that part of the world. The consenus was the .35 remington taw number one followed by the 30-30 and everything else was for shooting racoons that got in your garbage. Well when I brought out my Savage 99 in 250-3000 it took about 3 minutes for the laughing to stop. I was told in the brush the .25 bullet would go flying off towards Canada when it hit the first leaf. Several offered me the use of their second guns because they felt sorry for me. The first day of hunting we planned to have one party of the "old and lame" take stands and about 12 of us walk the deer to them. we were spread out about 40 or 50 feet apart walking through very heavy trees and some brush. It was aggreed if a deer got up in front of us we could shoot without endangering the rest of the walkers. after about a half hour a buck jumped up to my right and took off to the right then changed direction a ran in front of me at about 50 yards jumping through the brush. I drew a bead with the 99 on the heart area through in some lead and fired. The deer went down into the brush I said I think I got it. Two of the guys said if I got it with that "pea shooter" they would carry it out for me. When I walked up to the spot there was the deer dead as a doornail with a bullet hole about 1 inch behind the eye.
I started hearing all sorts of "even a blind sow finds an acorn every once in a while" stories. That night the fellows didn't make fun of my gun, and I never said that I was aiming for the heart.

Lucky shots - too many to recall but here are a few.

Age 14 - took the bb gun out the door to take a pop at the pigeon that was waking me up in the morning - it flew - I hit it in the jugular - while it was flying 20� above me - it went 15� and dropped like a rock. Oh, yea, did I say I�d forgotten to put on my glasses?

Age 16 - went to the AFROTC turkey shoot. (Again forgot my glasses.) Remmington 513T - peep sights - won a turkey (frozen). Amazed my folks - I hadn�t shot a real gun before, but had �practiced� a bunch with my dad�s 511 with no bullets.

Age 18 Took a shot at a woodchuck at 125 yards with my P17 (re-chambered to 308 Norma Mag). Again without my glasses - iron sights - flattened it to a 24 x 24� square.

College - went hunting with a friend on his farm - took the sawed-off 12ga single. Took a shot at about 60 or so yards at a fleeting jackrabbit. Don�t know why it died - never saw a mark on it - tanned it�s hide.

A few years ago - bought a K38 Masterpiece with 8� barrel. Loaded (for the first time in 20 or so years) some CAST (on topic now) wadcutters. Went to a friend�s place out in the woods. Setup a single can at 50 paces. Rolled it on the first shot (also the first I�d shot that pistol). As calmly as I could, I turned to Ray and said, �good enough, let�s go hunting.�

Last year - Had the 4.5" mortar out at the 100 yard range - shooting low angle (15 degree elevation). The 7.5 pound slug went out to 120 yards and hit a 3" sapling - it was like watching the cartoons - bent back and slung it to another - bent back the other way and slung it to a 12" tree trunk with a thud. There I was jumping up and down in excitement and NO ONE that came with me saw it!

Snap shot on a bolting buck with a mod. 94 at about 15 paces, put it right behind the ear.