Tall Tale Time-Your Most incredible Shot...Ever

[Mike U.]

Punching paper, hunting, plinking. Whatever you were doing when the shot took place is game here.
Just got the inspiration for this on another thread which got me to thinking I'd really like to hear of other's best shots ever.

I'll start...

I had just put a red dot on my WASR 10/63 and got it dialed in. Remembered I had to check the work I'd done on the iron sights and took the red dot off and shot with the irons and verified all was good with them.
Well, I put the red dot back on realizing I'd probably have to re-tweak it so I put a bullseye target out on the 50 yard line and steeled myself for another round of shoot, tweak, shoot tweak.
I put the dot dead center of the target and fired. Put the rifle down after engaging the safety and looked through the binoculors. I didn't even hit paper. DAMN! Well, that was a bit much to swallow so I looked again a little harder this time. I could barely see it with the binocs but it turns out I hit the bull dead center. Took that tiny little X right out. Dead center. The little X did not even have a teeny little bit of it's ink left on the target. Turns out a .30 caliber bullet is just big enough to completely remove the X if placed perfectly dead center.
I'm still amazed that red dot was perfectly zeroed after being taken off and put back on. I thought for sure I'd have a little tweaking to do to get it back on target.

 

[thinkingman]

I may have posted this before...forgive me.....
I was at the range chronoing my 300WSM handloads and wanted to cool the barrel for a few minutes and needed to kill some time.
I had my Kimber TLE that I shoot in IPSC and decided to chrono some of my 45acp.
I figured that, to not shoot the bows on the chrono, I should sit at my bench (100yd) and aim at my rifle target.
I let off 3 shots, fairly quickly, aiming roughly at the 100yd target.
I then continued to shoot my rifle until the range went cold and target change.
I walked the 100yd to my rifle target and examined my groups before tearing it down and replacing, i noticed 2 bigbore holes at 12o'clock, center bull.
I start thinking which dulltool here was shooting my target?
Then I looked closer and the unmistakable shape of 45acp semiwadcutters became apparent!
I put a nice, tight group of 2 out of 3 shots at 100yds from a 1911.
I have the target still hanging on the wall of my garage.
Need to take a picture.

 

[shooter_john]

When I was about 17 I spooked a coyote as I clamored up into my tree stand which was situated in the middle of a large open pasture. He took off on a dead sprint across the pasture running from my right to left. So from the top rung of my ladder I leaned out over the stand got a bead on him and loosed my Ruger 7mm. He did a coulpe of flips and rolls and then came rest in a giant, foul smelling heap of wild dog. When I got to him I discovered that I had popped him right behind the ear and had subsequently knocked his hard drive out of his mouth. I was in shock that I made the shot.

 

[nikdfish]

In my 20's, an acquaintance at the range offered to let me shoot his 1911 style .38 super that had been modified to handle .38 special wadcutters. Fresh paper had just been set up on the 50 yard line, so that was my target. Camp Perry style slow fire, with him watching on a spotting scope. After 3 shots he had me come over & look too. 3 shot clover-leaf in the bottom right corner of the 10 ring ...

Nick

 

[j.chappell]

You are going to find a boat load of these pistol episodes. I had my first handgun paid for and waiting at the shop until my 21st BD came and I could do the paper work and get my waiting period out of the way.

A buddy I worked with had been in the military and loved the 1911. On the day I picked up my pistol we went to our local range to do some shooting.

After shooting at the pistol range we moved up to the rifle range. He placed a silhouette target at 100 yards and came back to the bench. I said what are you going to shoot at that with? He said our pistols. I just laughed.

He said to take out my pistol and get a good rest, place the full blade on top of the target and pull the trigger. I just laughed but did what he said. Now I wasn’t shooting a 1911 I was shooting a Glock 23.

We walked down after those three shots and I was amazed to see three holes in a neat 4" triangular group center mass of that target.

Very fun and entertaining, especially when there are spectators.

J.

 

[rgoers]

Chuck Luck

A couple years ago, my son was haying a field. I went to the farm intending to shoot some woodchucks. I brought along a couple pistols... my Walther P22, and a newly purchased Kel Tec P-3AT.

I figured I'd ride along for a few laps, and scope out a some spots first, so I hopped in the tractor with my kid. We didn't get one lap around the field when I saw a woodchuck pop his head up in the middle of the field that was just cut. I wasn't planning on shooting anything right away - just riding for a bit - so I had left my P22 in the car. All I had was the P-3AT in my pocket...

I had my son keep driving, as I walked down the ladder and stepped off the tractor. I aimed, and took a single shot. Suddenly, the chuck started running around in circles. I had hit the stupid thing. I counted rows, as I ran over to finish him off.

The hay mower cuts a 9' path and I counted 11 rows as I was running to the woodchuck. That would mean I picked off a woodchuck at almost 100 feet... with a Kel-Tec P-3AT!!! Keep in mind this pistol only has a 2.7" barrel. Impossible?

I'm sure I could NEVER make a shot like that again. The best part about making this shot was: I HAVE A WITNESS WHO ACTUALLY SAW ME DO IT! Otherwise, I might not even believe it myself.

 

[King Ghidora]

My first shot with any firearm was probably the most incredible. I was 7 years old shooting my dad's 16 ga. Remington. Dad was shooting clays again as he often did and he had asked me if I wanted to try a shot. I said sure.

I yelled pull and about half a second later I saw the clay fly right in front of the barrel so I pulled the trigger. I hit it too. My uncle started screaming so loud I was sure I had shot him. Dad was screaming too about me shooting so soon after the clay went up. It must have only made it about 10 yards before I nailed it. I thought I really had killed someone for a minute there. But finally I realize my uncle was screaming out of sheer amazement that a seven year old kid had knocked down a clay with his first shot ever.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Pronghorn Antelope
600 yards
One shot
Left eye


After having joked waaaayyy early that morning, on the drive over, that everyone had to shoot their antelope in the left eye.

 

[Kreyzhorse]

My best shot was 350 yards on an antelope in Wyoming....... Of course, it was in the dark and windy, and I was using a .22lr.

 

[freakintoguns]

my first time out shooting i took the necks off 10 long necks with a .22 form about 50 yards. no scope just rifle sights. dont know if this is good or not but my friends were sure impressed.

 

[rodfac]

How 'bout my worst? Gotta tell ya, my oldest son, now 35, was 12 at the time and a small bore competitor at 50'. We'd newly moved from the People's Republic of New Jersey to Kentucky and were in the process of building a new house on 20+ acres of land adjoining 300 more.

I'd given him my college graduation present, a Marlin 39 Mountie for Christmas and he was pretty good with it. One afternoon, we went of for a father and son hike down through the back '40', armed to the teeth of course. He had his Marlin and I had a recently acquired S&W Model 24, the 6" one and some good handloads.

We were both shooting at leaves at 100' and knotholes in the sycamore trees alone the creek and doing fine. That is until I forgot that most basic tenent of old west wisdom, "never bet a pistol against a rifle at 100 feet."

Yep...in jest of course, I offered to bet my Smith against his Marlin based on a single shot at the proverbial 100 ft; figuring that this would be good lesson for him...don't bet unless you KNOW you'll be successful. I badgered him a little, not much, and then to my amazement, he said yes. Yep, he won. So now what. Initially, he refused the Smith, at least at first, but I told him we ALWAYS paid our debts, and gave him the Smith.

It may not be his prized handgun, but it's right up there, believe me. He's 35 now, with two children of his own...and for years, every chance I'd get, I tried to get that revolver back. Nothing I did or said worked...till last Christmas!

He'd found an exact duplicate at a local gunshop for the unbelievable price of $325. After Christmas dinner we were out in the garage plotting on how to get away from the women folk for an afternoon of shooting, when I made another attempt at that long lost .44. In reply, he pulled out the new one, and said, "Merry Christmas Dad". I thanked him and offered to ttake the older one, in not quite as good condition and he said, "nope, you take that one, I'll just hold on to the original."

Merry Christmas to all, Rodfac

 

[indy245]

I will probably never duplicate this shot ever and I didn't have a witness. I head shot a Magpie at 200 yards from my deck with my .300 Win Mag, 150 gr. Federal cartridges. I set up my table as a bench rest. The shot left the bottom of the beak and blew off everything above that. I'm sure that people here could replicate that shot easily but for me that was one of my best.

Indy.

 

[limiter]

Was shooting with four of my friends when we decided on a contest. We taped five pennies on a target at 100 yds. We all got one shot with the same Savage 22-250. I went first and hit a penny. Everyone else missed claiming that my shot was with a cold barrel. So I grabbed the still warm gun and shot another penny. Everyone missed again. Just for kicks I shot one more time and hit a third penny. No one else shot. The gun belonged to one of the other guys.

 

[Demaiter]

I bought my first rifle when I was 18(Legal age in Canada... idk what is in the US) It was my A Bolt in .30-06 about a month before deer season. I had hunted for 2 previous years with a friends Bar... however never really had the time to shoot it before deer season, so anyhow this year was going to be different. I was sitting in a ground stand in a fence line and my friend was 2 fields over directly across from me with a fence line between us.

2 deer approached from behind me wanting to get in front of me, however I was blocking their path. They decided to high tail through the field between me and my friend to the bush in front of me. I waited until they crossed the line between me and my friend so the field of fire was clear. I through the gun up, realized I had it zoomed in too much, just cranked on the nob, got one of the deer in the scope, aimed and get the cross hairs moving at the same speed, I said to myself "I am on him" and fired. The first deer dropped. Now for the second. Again I was aiming and trying to get the gun moving at the same speed as the deer, however the deer was approaching the bush, I was going to fire and felt rushed but didn't I wasn't dead on yet, I was saying though that I better shoot soon or its going to get away, I found the bead and fired. It dropped too.

In this excitement I shot the fawn first and the doe 2nd as I found it in the scope first. The first shot took out the fawns spine above the chest and the second shot on the doe hit the lower part of the chest cavity just behind the shoulder.

Funny thing is - the next year the same thing happened, however I missed 3x this time it was a buck and a doe so I learned my lesson. No firing until I've got the bead and I say to myself, I am on him.

A tip though that I've been told and helped me was to just only concentrate on their forward speed and to not worry about their up and down movement.

 

[hogdogs]

If I could replicate the shots we commonly got as kids with BB guns I would be getting paid to burn ammo.
We would walk cut hay/wheat fields kicking grass clumps... Out would run a field mouse and we would pick 'em off on the run...
climb into a grain bin and kick around and stir up a mouse and shoot him on the run along the wall. Those were 2 regular shots. We would get bored with just killin' sparrows and pigeons and would call the shot. top or bottom beak first... 'tween the eyes or thru the eyes... DRT no flop... That sorta thing...
Brent

 

[amprecon]

I killed a black bird while it was flying from my right to my left out about 30 yards with my 10/22 and I just point shot at it. Luckiest shot in the world, wouldn't have believed it from anyone else, but I was there

 

[delzo]

We were camping/fishing on Padre Island and I told my brother to grab his Colt .357 and we'd walk across the sand dunes to the Laguna Madre side to search out a flounder hole. I had my model 19 Smith with me also, just in case of snakes or zombies. When a jack rabbit took off running, I unholstered and said "watch this head shot!" BOOM.

It flipped a couple of times and skidded to a stop, the top of its head missing.

(Bro thought I was THAT good!)

 

[Picher]

Many years ago, I was hunting crows and foxes while on snowshoes in February with my .22-250. I called some crows and one came gliding in across the narrow woods road I was standing in. It was almost 100 yards up and just beyond overhead going away when I fired. It went out of sight and I thought how stupid it was for me to shoot vertically, but it was in a safe direction, downriver on the wide Kennebec.

I started walking when I heard some dead branches breaking in some pine trees nearly 100 yards away. Sure enough, I made my way over to where I found the crow, with it's head shot clean off. I didn't tell anyone about that shot for a long time, but it wasn't much of an accident, except that I didn't intend to fire until the crosshair happened to be just about two inches ahead of the beak and my trigger finger naturally squeezed.

I've never tried another aerial target with a high-powered rifle before or since and don't recommend it to anyone.

Picher

 

[Mike U.]

I don't know about ya'll, but...

I love these stories! And the great thing about it is nearly everyone has one of those OMG! shots sometime in their shooting lives. I suspect a good deal of us have many of them.

I remember when my wife (now deceased) decided she wanted to try her hand at shooting. I told her the basics of aiming and all the safety stuff and she grabbed my Ruger MKII, aimed, popped one off and bullseyed the target. Very first shot ever. The target was a decent distance downrange too. Somewhere between 25-30 yards. She fired a few more staccato style and bull's eyed three of the next four. My brother and I looked at each other with jaws gaping. She was a natural.
I already had a great deal of respect for her because she was very intelligent, kind and ambitious. That respect went through the roof as she engaged the safety and put the pistol down and I realized what an incredibly lucky man I was.

 

[lockedcj7]

I swear to God, these are all true...

When I was a kid, I had a CO2 BB pistol. A buddy and I were betting each other what we could and couldn't hit with it. He dared me to shoot a minnow he had spotted on the surface about ten feet away from the bank. I raised the gun with one hand and fired. He swore I didn't hit it but I knew I did since I saw it sink to the bottom. I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants, waded out and retrieved it. The head was nearly severed.

On another occasion, we had cornered a squirrel in a lone oak tree. He shot at it several times with a pellet rifle and then it ran down the tree and went right by us. I drew and fired a CO2 pistol from the hip. (This one was the Crossman revolver that looked like a Colt Python) The squirrel stopped dead in its tracks.

Not too many years ago, I was duck hunting with a friend. A Merganser swung very wide and turned to make a pass over the decoys. He yelled, "take 'em!" and I swung and fired. It dropped like a rock. We measured it at 70 yds away and he still talks about that shot.

I had an Irish Setter when I was a kid. One day, we jumped a covey of quail on a walk. In the confusion of the covey rise, one of the birds flew right toward her. She jumped and caught it in her mouth. Like any good retriever, she brought it right to me. One of my cousins saw it all and he was speechless. He just smiled and shook his head.

On another note, I'd like to see a thread for the "easiest shot you've missed" but I don't have time to start it tonight.