Greatest shot ever witnessed or made!

I’m really digging the shared stories coming out of these recent threads, so to continue on that theme, what is the greatest shot you’ve ever seen or made, or both?

My dad and a nephew were plinking off the cabin porch some years ago, and as much as I wanted to join in with their little competition, I was only up to do some fishing and left the toys at home. They were shooting at white target paper taped to a carboard box and they were expanding holes so fast it was really hard to see who was hitting where. Being the warm day it was, there were some flies buzzing around and if one landed on the target, it became a race to see who would hit the fly first! Well, between the two of them, they were hitting about 30%. The flies weren’t resting long and often flew off just as the trigger was breaking. Fast forward to each shooter having 3 fly kills. They were tied. My dad looked over at my nephew and said, “Killing them is too easy for us. The champ will be crowned when somebody leaves a leg or a wing stuck to target, like you just nicked ’em. The very next shot, my nephew left a wing and two legs stuck to the target!

I’ve had some spectacular moments myself, but I still chalk them up to a good plan that combined with lucky execution. But one standout was again, with granddad’s 740 Woodsmaster 308. Last day of the season, one last desperate push to fill a tag. It was just dad and I that year and neither of us had even seen a deer the previous 8 days. A severe summer storm nearly leveled every tree in the swamp, and it was a terrible, terrible mess, but we decided to team up and push the swamp together anyway. Hopefully, we’d jump something hiding out in the deadfalls. As the first sign of losing daylight came, I jumped a doe out of her hiding place and in one jump, she was out of sight. Dad hollered, “She’s running for the ridge!” So, knowing where the runway that scaled along that ridge was, I watched against the snow-covered background for her direction of escape. She turned left at the base of the hill, and I searched ahead for a clear shoot window along the runway. I set my crosshairs on the expected placement of her vitals and as her head entered my scope, I squeezed the trigger. The barrel lifted and I lost track of her, but within seconds dad yelled, “I think you got her! I didn’t see her go down, but she didn’t clear the top of the ridge.” After 10 more minutes of dodging springs while climbing over this and ducking under that, I made it to the ridge and found my doe nestled neatly inside a knoll alongside the runway, which hid her from our sight when she went down. The gray of the cloudy sky was turning dark blue, so we quickly took care of business and headed home.

I had made a plan. I had little confidence in my timing of the shot because I’d missed “good plans” before, but this dog would have his day this time. It was a clean shot to the lungs, and while my eyes beamed in the amazement of success, it was dad’s big smile and firm pat on the back that made the moment a most special ride home.

It was ~ 7 years ago.
Deer hunting with my Dad. He was 77 years old. Body racked with cancer, in his lungs, bones etc. He knew it was going to be his last year deer hunting as he had gone downhill fast in the previous 6 months. He could walk a few steps at a time, then had to rest. He had tried to get a deer for the entire season, but no luck. It was the last day of the season. We set out early to get Dad to his ground blind. No luck for the dawn/early hours. I was set up in a tree a few hundred yards or so away from Dad. I had no luck either. Made my way over to Dad to check on him, all was well but he was tired of sitting. We made a plan for me to hike down to the river and walk the low area leading to a ridge that led back to his blind. There was over 18 inches of snow, so it was slow slogging for me. As I got to the river, I could see a lot of fresh tracks. I worked my way through the river bottom, out into the field and up the ridge back to Dad. As I ascended the ridge I could see some deer between me and Dad. He could see them too. We both knew better than to start shooting as we could not see each other. I kept pushing up the ridge and heard the shot.
It may have not been the greatest shot, but it was memorable. The deer ran into a clearing, Dad clipped the top of it’s heart at 150 yards – standing shot.
RIP, Dad.

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I’ve been witness to one of the craziest bow shots of all time. And personally experienced one of the strangest shooting incidents.

Circa about 1994 some high school friends and I were doing late season bow drives in Pilot Mound MN. The drive consists of actually driving the deer from one property across Hwy 30 then onto another property. The shooters were lined up along the hwy and the deer start coming. I was standing about 30 yards from where the deer were going to hop the fence, right in front of one of our shooters. Well, the small buck stopped broadside right in front of the fence. Our guy let one fly and buried the tip of a muzzy broadhead dead center between the two strands of the barbed wire. Arrow stopped dead on impact. Not a hair was harmed on the deer. It was maybe a 10 yard shot.

The second strange event happened with a muzzleloader about 4 years ago. I was with my young son, and the deer came out into a field at dusk. I steadied for the 50 yard shot and pulled the trigger. One of the deer dropped in it’s tracks. I calmly reloaded and carefully approached knowing that sometimes they can get up and run. As we got closer to the deer I could see it was not dead. So I proceeded to put a round in the back of it’s head. After the shot I was curious where the first shot hit. I couldn’t find the point of impact. It was cold and I didn’t want to mess around too much and wanted to get my son out of the cold and back home. Upon arrival home, my neighbor stopped over and we did a full on necropsy on the deer and couldn’t find another hole anywhere on the deer except in the rear of the skull. There were also no other signs of an abrasion to the skull..thinking perhaps I grazed his head and knocked him out with the first shot. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is the that one of the other deer standing next to it kicked at the sound of the shot and knocked him out. Or as they turned to run they bonked heads. Either way I doubt I’ll ever experience either of these events ever again.

A buddy and I used to hang out allot shooting guns. Usually in September-October we’d go on a walk almost every Sunday at Dad’s. Hunting squirrels and grouse with .22’s with iron sights. Usually get a couple of each on each trip. Along the way we’d make bets on shooting small targets. ” Bet you $5 you can’t hit that stick hanging up there….. We started leaving a soup can hanging from a branch here and there so we have some designated targets. Well one week He was killing me. He made every shot and I was gonna owe him like $30. I told him to find me a double or nothing shot. So we were near a field and there was one of those little yellow butterflies you see in the summer, especially near water puddles. Well it was floating across the field about a hundred years away. It landed on a thistle flower. Laughing he says, “Take it or leave it. Double or nothing on the butterfly”. Standing up, no rest, and iron sights, I got ready. Well right before I pulled the trigger, it started to fly. About 5 seconds of flight and I “powdered” it. Granted, I couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn before that, but we still talk about that shot today.

Hunting in St. Louis County on Opening Day after the 1991 Halloween blizzard. My buddy decided to carry his Ruger Redhawk .44 magnum (open sights) rather than flounder through the snow with his prize pre-64 Winchester Model 70. Pushed a buck to him, it was running down the trail we’d made going in that morning. From 60 yard he put a bullet right behind the shoulder, the dder dropped and slid up against a tree. Worst part was dragging it out.

First year deer hunting, don’t even remember how old I was, older teen years, private farmland, several of us driving some tall grass/dry swamp area and they had me on one outside edge to a plowed corn field, 12ga rifled barrel, cheap scope, 2.5″ slug. A yearling pops up 20-30yda ahead and every other guy is slinging lead at it, I’m not, dad yells shoot shoot! I let couple fly lazily, it was already off a ways in the field running as fast as a critter can when it’s getting shot at, of course it is quartering away over to my side where the woods are back behind us, I take a deep breath and put the sights around 3 deer ahead of it, 1.5 above it and pull the trigger, couple seconds later the deer takes a header into the dirt and gets right back up and off into the woods. Everyone keeps walking, I’m like nah, I hit that lil fella. They laugh, I go check it out. Small blood dotted hairball marked the spot and I follow the sprinting hoove marks and there lies my deer not 15′ into the trees. Went in behind it’s right shoulder, thru it’s heart and blew out it’s left shoulder. My dad paced it first, I paced it second, and another from our group came back around and did it again for good measure.

164yds.

Haven’t pointed a gun at another deer since.

Many years ago in northern Minnesota my buddy and I passed a group of Grouse on a gravel road. There was one huge male strutting, puffed feathers and fan tail, with what I am guessing females all around him. Looked like a mini turkey. We stopped about 70 or 80 yards away and I ran out with my .22 It wasn’t until I went to shoot that I realized I was facing a setting sun and while I could see the birds I could not see my sights. I don’t recall how many shots I took but I walked them into the strutting bird by watching the bullet impacts. It was pretty cool.
I ran down to the bird and the others were running away however I had shot all the rounds I hurriedly loaded going after the big one and had no more rounds in my pocket. Im pretty sure that is one of the two Grouse I have mounted. Its size was that magnificent.
Another great (lucky) shot was a Grouse that landed in a tree waaaaay out in a clear cut high up in a lone pine. Between 100-200 yards. Dropped it with one shot from my .22 My jaw dropped as fast as the bird.

Just prior to an intramural football game at Bemidji State, a buddy took me out to show me where he hung his bow stand. We brought a football with and we’re tossing it back and forth as we walked down a logging road. A grouse walked out onto the logging road about 40 yards away and buddy throws the football at it hits it right in the hands and kills it.

900 yd shoot-off at the World’s in Bloemfontein South Africa 1999. One sighting shot and 3 for record. Iron sights and sling…7.62/308 w/155gr projectile. Wind peaked at 13-1/2 minutes full-value from 3 o’clock on the rear sight, then dropped off to 4MOA. The wind built real steadily and then held at full velocity for long enough to fire 4 shots. Unlimited time for the shots to be fired and the rangemaster handed each shooter 4 rounds of the host country’s ammo.

3 of us on the line had fired a score of 150-11X (20″ 10-Ring and 10″ X-Ring) for the prior 15 shots. The Nat’l champ from South Africa fired a score of 150-13X and won the match outright.

They gave the command to fire and the wind was building. Both shooters to my right started firing, but I waited for the flags to show full velocity. My sight was set 13-1/2 MOA to the right (121.5″ of deflection). Once the flags showed peak velocity and the mirage was racing across the target face, I executed the most perfect dead-center X that I could muster. Only….my target never went down. With that much wind blowing, a person could at least see the dust from the impact. We called for a mark and I asked my scorekeeper who was watching through a spotting scope: “Did you see anything at all…?”. He did not.

I grabbed my front sight to insure it was tight and I twisted the rear sight. All was tight. I grabbed my magnifying glass to check my elevation and windage settings…all were perfect. What in the hell went wrong?? My ONE sighting shot was spent and the next shot was for record….

The only thing that I could think of was to take my sight back to the windage setting from when we finished the 15 shot match. It was 12 MOA right wind and it was the only logical thing to try, even though I was 100% certain the wind had sped up since then (according to my wind meter).

I took 1-1/2 MOA of right wind off the sight, checked the flags and broke a solid X. The target came out of the pits with an EIGHT out the left. I put that 1-1/2 MOA back on the sight, checked the flags and fired another good X. This time the target came up with a tall X at 12 o’clock. I closed the bolt as I came off of my spotting scope and looked at the flags. They were dropping. BUT, we were in the center of the 150 target range and I knew it would take a while for that condition to hit my firing point. I got on the sights and broke what I thought was a solid 10. I had to do it fast and there was no time for perfection. My last shot must have gone high through the 6″ spotting disk…a 12 o’clock TEN!

The shooter to my right was a former US champ. He fired three EIGHTS in a row for his record shots and a score of 24-0X. The shooter on the far right was the reigning New Zealand Nat’l champ. He fired a score of 28-0X. Not sure how, but my 28-1X won the shootoff (for 2nd overall) out of 650 shooters.

To this day, nobody knows if my sighting shot was a squib round or if the projectile just blew up on the way to the target. It sure felt like it had proper recoil…nothing unusual. But, it wasn’t until the flight back to Miami that I began to think it all over in detail. I was handed 4 rounds of ammo. What if my sighting shot had been one of my record shots…?

Not the greatest, but a great moment to show off.

I had just taken a break to let my barrel cool down and let more furry dogs come back out. The rancher droll bop and parked his truck right next to me. He was glass and up by hillside and said there’s five prairie dogs out by a mound. Then he proceeded to tell me that they were too far away. 480 m and I was chuckling as I loaded up the next five rounds. He about peed him self as I showing him. What a true five shot group should look like. He was in such disbelief that we had to walk up there so he could see them in person.

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Amazing that it still had enough poop to blow the stuffings out of them at that distance.

We’ve all had that one ornery squirrel, fighting and squawking at any and everything that moves, push us to the limit while sitting in a bow stand.

21yds with a target point.

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duh queen wrote:

We’ve all had that one ornery squirrel, fighting and squawking at any and everything that moves, push us to the limit while sitting in a bow stand.

21yds with a target point.

Very nice!

grpubl7 wrote:

Amazing that it still had enough poop to blow the stuffings out of them at that distance.

22-250 launches 55gr at just under 4000fps. My longest is a little over 900 meters and they still get launched

Have had a few memorable shots bird hunting. 4 teal in one shot. Also have a video of 3 geese dropping in one shot. However, if you look closely, you can tell my buddy behind me out of camera frame had shot at the exact same time and hit one of the geese.

There’s been a few long distance shots on geese that have amazed the group. One stands out that I wish we would have ranged. We all figured it was all of 80 yards.

Not my greatest shot ever but one of the more memorable ones happened last year grouse hunting. I bought my first really nice, brand new shotgun in a Citori 20 ga. Only other shotguns I ever owned were my 870 I bought new and then my Franchi I bought used.

I thought it’d be cool if the first ever shot out of the new citori killed a bird so I resisted the urge and waited patiently to shoot it. Went to walk one of my favorite trails after work one night… get out of the truck, put the dog on the ground, grab the shiny new gun and start walking. We weren’t but 50 yards from the truck when all of a sudden my dog flushes a grouse from the right side of the trail. It was crossing right to left and very quickly, and I will add that this was early in the season with lots of foliage. I shouldered the gun and took a shot when the bird had already cleared the trail to the left and was about to be out of sight.

I wasn’t sure if I knocked it down or not so I anxiously waited while my golden went to look for it. A couple seconds later she comes out of the brush holding a beautiful gray phase grouse.

Here is a pic – notice I hadn’t even taken the Browning sticker off yet. First shot with the new gun knocked a bird down. Kind of a cool story to go along with that gun.

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When I was a kid I used to shoot starlings off the wires with an air rifle. Shots weren’t 500 yards, more like 50, but still pretty impressive with a bb gun. Grandma put the kaibosh on that when she caught the oldtimers making bets on what I could shoot at a certain distance.

Greatest shot i ever made was a half court hook shot with no time left on the clock. C team, 8th grade.

Nov. 21, 1981. Gophers last game in Memorial Stadium against Wisconsin. It had snowed during the week before the game. A buddy and I smuggled in a case of beer in the arms and sleeves of vintage flight suits.
At half time Bucky the Badger was going around the field getting the Sconis riled up. When he got to our corner of the endzone I let a snowball fly from 28 rows up. Missed long by 15 feet. Quickly reloaded and beaned him and knocked him down. The crowd went crazy. The pelting of Bucky that ensued resulted in the PA announcer telling the crowd to stop throwing snowballs.
One of my prouder moments as a student at the U.

Many years ago my younger brother was messing around with the BB gun in the back yard. Mom made strongly worded threats against us shooting birds. While Mom was grocery shopping my brother started popping shots at birds on the phone wire. Just as Mom pulled in to the driveway he hit a red wing blackbird in the head. It clenched its feet and swung upside down on the phone wire. Mom got out and saw the bird, little brother was in a lot of trouble.

Back in about ’74 or ’75 I witnessed my mother take the head off of a crow at around 120-50 yards with an old worn out single shot 22 short bolt action rifle.
The two best shots I have ever made? first one was on a buck on a full tilt run, he was headed downhill in a pasture about 150 yards out.
I was timing when his head would come up and start back down in his run, just as head came down I pulled up on him, centered the sights about three feet above his antlers and let the round fly.
He tumbled head over heels falling dead in his tracks, when we got to him we couldnt see a wound anywhere in his neck or back.
I thought great, I shot him square up the pooper, no wound there, when we started loading him in the truck blood started pouring out of a hole in the back of his skull.
My Winchester model 94 in 375 caliber found its mark almost dead center in the back of his skull.

Second best shot if not thee best shot I have ever made, I love playing pool even though I am not very good at.
late one night in a bar half pizzed up my kid brother and I took on a couple of college kids who were dang good at it and they wanted to play for money.
It was a call the shot game with a hundred bucks on it, my turn came and I called the last four shots, two balls in a corner pocket, the third in a side pocket and a two rail corner pocket.
I was blown away with my streak and the eight ball was left and it wasnt anywhere where a good shot could be made.
Very bravely I called a five rail shot with the eight ball dropping in a side pocket.

I didnt take time to think about it, I just dove into the shot with all my might powering the pool stick.
first three rails the cue ball covered the table quickly, losing momentum it clipped the fourth rail, careened off of the fifth and just kissed the eight ball knocking it into the side pocket.
About sixty people witnessed that shot and back then bars were famous for fifty cent pitchers of beer, I blew the 100 bucks buying pitchers and a few mixed drinks that night.

Iowaboy1 wrote:

Back in about ’74 or ’75 I witnessed my mother take the head off of a crow at around 120-50 yards with an old worn out single shot 22 short bolt action rifle.
The two best shots I have ever made? first one was on a buck on a full tilt run, he was headed downhill in a pasture about 150 yards out.
I was timing when his head would come up and start back down in his run, just as head came down I pulled up on him, centered the sights about three feet above his antlers and let the round fly.
He tumbled head over heels falling dead in his tracks, when we got to him we couldnt see a wound anywhere in his neck or back.
I thought great, I shot him square up the pooper, no wound there, when we started loading him in the truck blood started pouring out of a hole in the back of his skull.
My Winchester model 94 in 375 caliber found its mark almost dead center in the back of his skull.

Second best shot if not thee best shot I have ever made, I love playing pool even though I am not very good at.
late one night in a bar half pizzed up my kid brother and I took on a couple of college kids who were dang good at it and they wanted to play for money.
It was a call the shot game with a hundred bucks on it, my turn came and I called the last four shots, two balls in a corner pocket, the third in a side pocket and a two rail corner pocket.
I was blown away with my streak and the eight ball was left and it wasnt anywhere where a good shot could be made.
Very bravely I called a five rail shot with the eight ball dropping in a side pocket.

I didnt take time to think about it, I just dove into the shot with all my might powering the pool stick.
first three rails the cue ball covered the table quickly, losing momentum it clipped the fourth rail, careened off of the fifth and just kissed the eight ball knocking it into the side pocket.
About sixty people witnessed that shot and back then bars were famous for fifty cent pitchers of beer, I blew the 100 bucks buying pitchers and a few mixed drinks that night.

i expected to read you took out sasquatch at 400 yards by having the bullet ricochet of 2 rocks then the only 2 trees in iowa!!!!!