Let’s talk about why I like to hunt in the woods. All kinds of reasons, but this is a big one
The lack of need to lead game running at close range.

We’ll imagine an elk can run 40 MPH (It can’t, but we will say it can, just to be conservative in what follows.)
Moving at 40 MPH, an elk moves 211,200 feet per hour, or 3,520 feet per minute, which equals 58.66 feet per second.

A bullet moving at 2,600 fps takes 2 seconds to travel a mile IF it doesn’t have any velocity loss. We all know it does have velocity loss, but darned little over the first 50 yards. Let’s say the average velocity out to 50 yards is 2,400 fps. At 2,400 fps, it will take it 2.20 seconds to go a mile. A mile is 1,760 yards. At that speed it the bullet will travel 50 yards in .0.1466 seconds.

As the elk will move 58.66 feet in a second it will move only .08995 feet until the bullet reaches it at 50 yards. .08995 of a foot is ..085996 of 1 inch….or less than an inch. Or , no lead required.

But, of course most hunters need some lead. Why?

Because of their reflex time (.3 to .4 of a second), and the time it takes them to mount the gun, and their aiming time, and more reflex time (another .3 to .4 of a second) from the time their brain says “NOW” and the cartridge actually fires.
The various reflex times involved eat up .8 second, during which the elk travels as much as 46.93 feet IF he can run 40 MPH, and is already running at that speed when we first see him. But of course he isn’t. He has reflex time too, and has to get up to speed from a dead stop or a walk, or whatever he was doing when we first saw him and he first saw us. As his time to do all that is at least as long as our reflex time, it cancels out our reflex time.

So what does that leave us with? During whatever time we take to mount our gun, and our aiming time, the elk is traveling. People who dawdle and take 3 or 4 seconds to mount the gun and aim are FAR too slow. In 4 seconds an elk traveling 40 MPH can move 234.64 feet!!! But of course an elk can’t run at 40 MPH, and very seldom runs in the woods at 10 MPH , which is still fast enough for him to move 58.66 feet in 4 seconds.

So it is OUR performance which determines how much if any lead is required. The quicker we can mount the gun and get our sight picture, the less lead we’ll require. And if we don’t require any sight picture at all, we can get to be downright FAST. That’s only possible when we have practiced enough and have a stock which fits us well enough that the gun automatically comes up on aim like a well fitted shotgun does on an exploding from the ground Quail , Chukar, or Hungarian Partridge.

Even that still leaves the elk some time to travel of course. We will never get our gun gun-mounting time he down to 0.00 seconds. But we should easily be able to do it in 0.5 second after a while . And that means he can still move 7.33 feet while we mount the gun. BUT, if we swing onto him in that half second, the momentum of the swing will be enough to nullify even that 7.33 feet. And we’ll be able to hit right where we aim without any lead.

Don’t think so? I’ve done it often, and at first I had trouble learning to NOT lead!! When you get to where your shot fires as the gun comes up onto your shoulder, you will need no lead either.

So that’s why I prefer to hunt in the woods where ranges are short, or to stalk to short range when in the open. Makes killing the game easy, and keeps me sharp for bird and rabbit seasons when I switch to my shotgun.

If I read your post right, you are saying you don't find any need to lead game in the woods either. I was just explaining mathematically why it is true.

I thought that was needed because so many gun-rags try to tell folks how to calculate a lead which those writers say is always required. You and I and thousands of other hunters know it isn't needed out to at least 50 yards if you learn to use your gun quickly. But the young'uns reading these forums might not know that, and believe they can kill game well without much practice if they memorize those gun magazine formulas. They need to know that the game writer's approach is not how most successful game-takers do it in the woods.

In fact if the hunter finds he is hitting the animal too far back at those ranges, I isn't trying to take more lead that is the natural cure for that. Increasing the speed the gun is brought up and fired will do the trick quite nicely.

BTW, it works on rabbits as well as elk for me. When I hunted rabbits in the sage brush around Vale, Oregon, they often held until I was within 1-to-3 feet of them. Then they'd explode almost under my feet and I'd instinctively nail them with my old Remington Model 17 20 gauge medium choke pump before they had gone more than another three feet.

There, I had to learn to slow down and let them get farther away, to have any "eating meat" left.

And the close-in game shooting that kind of hunting keeps my hand in for both rifles and shotguns. That's why I like hunting in the woods.

Yep put the cross hairs on the boiler room tough her off and its meat in the freezer.

I killed a lot of running game in the woods rabbits to bears.

After I learned how it isn't hard after all.

To many stand hunters never learn to kill running game and think that it is impossible or that one can't not do it on a regular basics.

quote:

Then they'd explode almost under my feet and I'd instinctively nail them with my old Remington Model 17 20 gauge medium choke pump before they had gone more than another three feet.

I started my wing shooting with a full choked model 12 killed every thing on the 2nd shot.


Until I let them get out a ways.

Then I discovered open chokes kill well out there as well as close.

I kept a record of ruffled grouse kills several hundred of them avg distance was 21 yards closest 5 feet(took its head off) farthest 65 paces. The closet and farthest rare exceptions.

When people ask me how to kill grouse on the wing I say what trees and shoot if it is safe to do so.

Ac. I didn't go through all your math, but this part doesn't seem right:

".8995 of a foot is .0085966 of 1 inch, or less than an inch."

On my calculator 0.8995 of a foot is 10.794 inches.

Based on your assumptions of elk and bullet speed, the elk will travel 10.794 inches in the interval from the bullet exiting the muzzle to the bullet arriving at the target 50 yards away.

Not arguing with your premise, just this one point!

You are right, I typed the decimal point in the wrong place, I should be .08xxxx

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
at first I had trouble learning to NOT lead!! When you get to where your shot fires as the gun comes up onto your shoulder, you will need no lead either.

Both my best and worst shots were on fast moving deer inside 30 yards. The worst was at a mere 20 yards, and I lead him by a foot. The best was when I pulled up on the next opening in front of the deer, and pulled the trigger as it appeared.

friar

Been hunting whitetail deer since 1961. Killed a three point buck that year with grandpa's 45-90 running. ( unlucky buck) since then missed boatloads of them..finally started putting it all together pulling the crosshairs past the nose of a flat-out buck and following through..last four shots all killed. Elk are bigger and slower..shouldn't be a problem..

Fallow deer in NZ - the problem is that they jump on Pogo sticks.

I have taken them on the run quick going away shot. Tried a running shot at a white tail doe in Stewart Island at 20 meters or less - timed the run and fired - into a fern stump with deer behind it. Not sure if I hit the deer or not. Saw the deer keep running & then a crash about 50 meters away. Such dense thick bush that one could walk right past the deer and miss it.

I once shot a wallaby at full tilt - scared by a dog. Must have been over 70 meters. Again I timed the jump and fired with a lead & follow through. Splat! DRT.

Always a great feeling to nail them on the run. I never remember the shots I missed though!

Just to get the numbers right, an elk going 40 mph will move 3 2/3 feet while a bullet is traveling 50 yards at 2400 fps. (150/2400 = .0625 seconds x 58.66 = 3.667 feet moved while bullet travels 50 yards at 2400 fps)

In fact, most bullets are faster than that for the first 50 yards and ALL elk are probably slower from a standing start. I'd say you could cut it in half and be closer to the actual movement. Still 2 feet is a big miss and likely a lost animal if you don't lead 'em.

I have been watching this one from the sideline since it started.

The only aspect about the discussion that gives me pause, is that for those among us that have the experience, running shots on game, while doable, requires a level of experience that many of todays hunters simply do not possess.

Do not know if there is any correlation, but I feel that the difference in todays hunters and those of us with 40 years or more hunting experience, especially concerning the aspect of shooting running game with a rifle, hinges a good bit on the amount of time we spent in the field wing shooting.

I never was any good at math of any kind, and I really have a hard time believing anyone's mind works fast enough to figure out an unknown, the speed of the animal, and correlate that with the estimated or supposed speed of a projectile leaving the muzzle of a rifle barrel over unknown yardage to a moving target.

With todays hunters, add in the idea that many people over the past couple of decades or so have really pushed the concept that shooting at running game should be looked upon as a Last Choice option.

I have killed running game, whether it was luck or skill is beyond my ability to understand. Also, in many places today with regulations being what they are, the chances of killing an illegal animal by taking a shot in a situation where accurate identification of the target might not be all that good is something that has to be considered seriously before squeezing that trigger.

I will have to agree with the Crazy Horse Consulting.

IF you didn;t shoot at running game hunting in the Adirondacks or in alot of the northeast you would eat much venison

That is true, along with a few other places around the country.

But not everyone hunts under such conditions enough to develop the skill required to be consistently successful under such conditions.

quote:

But not everyone hunts under such conditions enough to develop the skill required to be consistently successful under such conditions

Yes it take practice and experience one doesn't get it hunting from a stand or blind.

quote:

Yes it take practice and experience one doesn't get it hunting from a stand or blind.

Also, one does not get it if they hunt in areas where there is not that much brush. How effective a brush hunter do you think someone used to hunting Pronghorns in Wyoming would be?

Some folks do not have the opportunity or the ability to hunt dark timber or thick woods on a regular basis.

I have hunted with folks that were really good offhand shots, and others that weren't. After all the discussion was started by AC, and the enjoyment he gets out of hunting in the woods. Does that mean other hunters can not enjoy hunting in other conditions?

Some hunters have no choice but to hunt from a blind/stand, or simply not hunt.

I hunted all those way each is enjoyable.

Just as some out west hunter haven't hunted brush a lot of woods hunter have never shot their rifles past 100 yards.

I invite them to shoot on my 600 yard range and they look at me in amazement.

I am taking some teen agers from church out this Saturday for some rifle practice.

I plan on bring one of my super accurate varmint rifles and let them shoot some 300 yard targets off a bi-pod.

Should open their eyes a bit.