At the local rifle range yesterday, I was testing some loads in my 30-06 at 100 yards. I had shot about five or six times, and a fellow a couple of tables away had been going at it with a semi-auto .22 LR... When the world's stupidest groundhog decided to make an appearance at about the 95 yard line to "See what all the confounded commotion was abo---" BOOM!

Sierra Gameking 180 grain with 56 grains of IMR 4350 behind it...

And the guy beside me said "Shoot him again! He's still alive! I can see his tail twitching!"

Dan Newberry
green 788

Sounds to me like that sucker needed removed from the gene pool for sure.

Good shooting, R F

Must have never been shot at before. It was his luck day!!! Well we know your gun is sighted in now.

I like animals like that. They me a better hunter.

Not all the stupid ones are in VA, witnessed the same thing in Minnesota, friend of mine rearrainged one at the 100 yd line with a 7mm Mag. We had been shooting for about an hour when the dumb little sucker wandered out and came apart. Must be a character flaw.

A shooter who decided to "take out" a small mammal while at a shooting range on Long Island was arrested. It is not lawful to hunt with a rifle on Long Island, season was closed too.
OUCH!!

[ 06-27-2002, 04:07: Message edited by: Varmint Hunter ]

Our rifle range is remote, and unattended. It's a serve yourself facility. I think that New York shooter should have sworn he was aiming at the target, and let the burden of proof be on the authorities...

Dan Newberry
green 788

Never had seen a small game dare to show up at the range but have seen a bird (probably deaf) landing on the ground about 3 meters in front of the shooting bench during a firing session. Just goes to show the effect of wearing hearing protection.

I've heard plenty of stories about not so smart Kangaroos (definately not skippy)hopping accross military rifle ranges here in Australia.
My dad told me of a roo that thought he'd hop through the range when a platoon size group of Infantry were doing range session. Not real bright.

I watched a guy walk back from the 200 yard range on a road that separtated it from a 100 yd range. He did this while people were firing on the 100 yard range. He made it back to about 125 yard when a bullet got him in the leg. It was fortunate that the center fire bullet had gone thru the snow and hit him going sideways. It made a bruise on his leg.

I have had moose walking and feeding to the side of the range here.It didn't bother it at all i was shooting a 257 WBY after 20 shots it just wonderd off into the trees.
never got more then 40 yards from me.

I was testing loads one time at 200 yards and while waiting for the barrel to cool, I noticed 2 crows landing on the upper wooden support for the target frame. They sat there doing there thing until I took my first shot at the target. At the report they did have the smarts to fly off. The reason I didn't teach them a lesson in Darwinism was because the club I belong to has stiff rules against messing with the local wildlife. I do have to admit that it was a serious temptation to run the risk of losing my membership but maturity kicked in.

At the USMC Pendleton range in the very early l950s, a dear friend (recently deceased -- and how he loved to tell the story) was on his first night-firing exercise with about 75 other just-graduated jarheads earmarked to embark shortly for combat. The carbide range lights were turned down very low and everybody was using tracer ammo, a mixture of carbines and Garands. The master gunny in charge of the range was just about to give the firing command when someone in the ranks shouted: !"EYES RIGHT! EYES RIGHT! LIVE TARGET! LIVE TARGET! COMMENCE FULL AUTOMATIC FIRE!" In the 10 second interval it took everybody to adjust, the gunny screamed: "BELAY THAT!" about 5 times, but to no avail. Everyone more or less in unison began emptying their clips at a black-tail buck weighing all of 120 pounds, that had wandered onto the range and proceeded to walk in front of the berm. Bob remembered the tracers converging on the ambulatory target in a solid cone; he reckoned that something over 750 rounds were expended. About a dozen guys walked over to the deer afterwards; the gunny himself stomped on the dead critter, trying to put the burning hide out, and got a rasher of burst guts on his mirrow-finish boots for his trouble. Consumed by anger, he then directed two other Marines to put out the smouldering heap, which they attempted to do by picking up the carcass and beating it on the ground, like a dirty rug. Finally, in desperation, the sarge ordered the group to gather around in a circle and "...piss, you bastards, like you've never pissed before". Which they did, and were shortly enveloped in a spreading cloud of pestiferous steam.

The gunny used every form of threat, coercion and bribery to find the culprit, but to no avail. On the sea journey 10 days later, the perpetrator revealed himself and said he was going to write a letter to the sarge back in California and rub it in his nose. But wiser heads prevailed, one noting that this particular master sargeant had 26 years in the Corps, knew a lot of people in high places, and that his tenacles likely reached a very long way -- possibly even as far away as a place called Korea.

Tony,

I enjoyed your post very much. Thanks for taking the time to write it...

green 788

I also had my encounter with a Meercat one Saturday morning early while testing my 7x57 with some new 120 grainers I got for free . While the shooting was going on the sucker first came in to inspect what all the noise was that woke him up . The first shot went just past his head , as the scope was not set for these 120 grainers . What followed next I could not beleive , he ran on for about 10 meters and stood up looking at me as if to say good shootin fella . He did not have the time to even get a grin on his face when the second bulet hit him sqaure in the face. My "non hunting buddy" was not very happy with the mess I left on the range .

Regards
Rudie

I had a fox come to check me out once while I was sighting in a .22 magnum.

Bloody thing came in just as I had emptied the magazine.

Bloody Ruger rimfire magazines take a long time to load. Fiddly too. I never got to show him what I was doing, by the way.

A few years ago ,I was group shooting a new varmint rifle in 6.5x55 . I was begining to pack up after shooting about 15 five shot groups . When I noticed what looked like a yearling groundhog at about 85 yards . I guessed he wanted to see what the ruckus was about . I carefully took aim and let lose an 85 grain Sierra hunting hollowpoint . After recoil recovery I couldn't locate the "victim". Then I saw him about 5 yards to the right and down range . I couldn't believe I had missed ! After all I had just finished shooting some "good" groups . Must have been live target jitters . I took carefull aim again focusing on smooth trigger work . BLAM ! After recoil check showed clean hit . Then I walked down to remove the remins . There were TWO bodies. Talk about needing to be removed from the gene pool .

muck

I've never run across a dumb groundhog like that, but late one September (but before rifle season) I was shooting in a Garand match at Buffalo Creek, and in the middle of prone slowfire, a buck and about a half-dozen does wandered across the range. Made me wish I had put in for a tag in that area.

Out here in NM with the drought, prairie dogs are flourishing. In the pasture behind my casa there are thousands of the pests. The new born ones are coming out and you couldn't believe how many are around a single hole. All acting like SHOOT ME! SHOOT ME! I missed one the other day and killed another. I need another dog gun so one can cool off while the other is shot.

barny

A friend of mine was shooting at the local range when some realtion of the ground hog described above wandered out of the tall grass at the 100 yard line. He was shooting his 223 A.I. ( 50 grain 50 Nosler B.T.) when the ground hog got in line with his target he shot and got the ground hog and the chronograph reading of the bullet (3573 fps) He had two witnesses to the shot. Stupid ground hog for sure!

Another friend of mine was shooting at 12" steel plates at long range 850 yards by lazer with his 308 using the 175 grain Sierra MK. We were shooting prone with bipods. While we were laying there talking and letting the barrels cool, I happened to see a coyote comming up the tree line where the plates were set. My buddy loaded one and when the coyote stopped to check out the strange steel discs he killed him with one shot. Not that hard to do when you have the range and the wind dialed in.


Shoot Safe, Shoot Straight.....RiverRat

[ 07-05-2002, 17:36: Message edited by: RiverRat ]

No Dumb Dog stories to relate but somehow I cant help but read this thread and think about the morons who fall for the Forest rangers Mule deer decoy ploy "the night before opener". Talk about weak target reckognition! It must really suck to have to go to jail for poaching a decoy.. And they deserve it..

Second time shooting my 338 wm, at a 100 yard range behind my house, I set down and was getting everything ready, looked through the scope to center it on my target and there was a 4 point whitail buck in velvet (springtime) standing next to my target. Hard thing to pass up especially with that new gun, but eventually he walked off and I began to shoot. Also had a possum and pheasant wander into the shooting lane at different times while sighting in rifles. Possum caught me with no cartridges in the gun. (of course)

Mouskie - no way my range story can match yours! Mine was on Okinawa with a bunch of STA platoon Marine Snipers in 1982 I believe. A mongoose wandered onto the range and I didn't have the heart to tell the guys "no." Amazing what a few snipers on the same small target can do! Semper Fi, Guy

One pleasant afternoon at the range I heard a loud, excited voice yelling "Cease fire! Cease fire!"

I looked out over the range and a bald eagle was circling at low altitude.

Everyone present was mesmerized by our national symbol, and nary a voice of complaint was heard; all were happily patient until the great bird flew elsewhere.

The eagle apparently wasn't bothered by the muzzle blasts (prior to the cease fire), and we were quite happy to share range space for awhile.

People have seen young Rams on our local gun range. No one would dare shoot one though.

The club my hunting buddy belongs to, it is against the rules to shoot any critters. Pests or not. One day while shooting his 7mmRem.M a house cat walked across the range. He was all alone at the range, so he waited till the cat crossed and got to the edge of the high grass. Then he let him have it. I wish I could have been there.

Daryl

We actually had a coyote family living on our range for a while and nobody would shoot at them. They kept the vermin down and were actually quite picturesque.

Eventually they moved on, but for a while they would walk in plain view while everyone was shooting, apparently oblivious to the things going on around them.

Really added to the fun.