Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Biggest BS story!

my good buddy, who I have known since elementary school, claims to have dropped a big buck at 450 yards with a stock M1 Carbine with hot reloads. maybe it is a good thing that the cops confiscated his carbine due to a domestic abuse complaint. I would hate to see the condition of his carbine firing a steady diet of hot reloads.

story #2: I had a customer come into my dads shop and bought a box of ammo. he came back later and asked for ammo "one size up" as the ammo he just bought did not fit. it turns out that he had a sporterized 6.5 mm Japanese rifle. I must have been about 12 at the time - quite a long time ago. 6.5 ammo wasn't readily available back then.

Here's a blast from the past:

Fellow I used to work with and I got to talking about hunting once and he told me, dead serious, about how he used his .30/30 to kill a 600 lb. "whitetail muley doe".

Those hybrids really get big!

Years ago when I worked part-time in a local gun shop we were constantly regaled with stories of 700 and sometimes 1000 yard shots on deer. Range finders were just beginning to appear at the time and we used the one on display in the shop to range the flagpole at the college across the highway. If memory serves correct it was around 350 yards. We would ask the story tellers to estimate the range and very seldom was it within 300 yards of being correct.

Elmer Keith stated He killed a running buck BEYOND 600 yds with his 44 mag pistol! Never could quite believe that one.

Having made a handful of luck shots in my days, thats what this is if it happened.

IIRC that buck was wounded.

But whats interesting, he had the knowledge of appx drop at that range and had shot enough to get slugs in the area.

Most folks, me included would have no idea of the drop of a 44 at 600ish steps/yards.

True dat�but you would certainly hope the bullet didn't burn up on re-entry�.

What about the 45 slugs from hundreds of yards away on re-entry... much less the 44 slugs.

I dont' recall having shot my 44s at anything much beyond 400 or so yards down at the river. But it was fun plinking and seeing which tree top you had to aim at to hit a sandbar etc....

Bullets have to land somewhere and every now and then an animal gets in the way.

Elmer says he had witnesses and I saw Bob Munden recreate the shot, on a not so running target�so yeah, its possible, but so is a matter/anti-matter reactor�.

Where we live during the week, there are few people that hunt, and few know the outdoors beyond the parking lot at the mall and the paved trails at the county park. So the majority of my tales are reverse tall stories.

Oh sure, I had a phone repairman once tell me he'd shot an elk so close that the bullet did not have time to expand. He cleaned it with his special custom Browning knife that he paid $300 for. I had a similar knife I'd paid $10 for at the last gun show.

However, the bulk are reverse tall tales. That is, you give an honest account of something mundane and folks think you're telling a whopper.

My son had a heck of a time getting the kids at school to believe he'd shot his first deer. It was a doe, shot at 10 yards with a 30-30. He showed them a picture. His friends thought it was photoshopped. A couple years later he shot a nice buck. No one would believe him. This past year, he killed a buck and had to show his friends a pic of himself with the Mosin Nagant at age 8 to get them to believe it was HIS rifle.

He finally found a friend whose father had taken him deer hunting, but he couldn't believe my son had actually shot the deer with a rifle, because Ohio only allowed shotguns. We hunt in Kentucky

He brought a turkey target to school to show his friends the tight grouping of his choke. His friends thought he was a bad shot, because there were so many holes and so few were in the bullseye. He tried to explain shotguns, and somebody told him he was lying.

And they will grow up to vote for gun control legislation.

Yeah, ignorance does seem to rule, unfortunately.

It's good that shaman's son is out there, doing his part to educate the "unwashed masses"...

They do vote and there seems to be a bunch of them...

DF

The most egregious story comes from a few years ago. Angus was next door, talking to the neighbor girl. All of a sudden, she got a sick look on her face and ran inside. Angus decided something was wrong and came back home.

He'd just started explaining when the doorbell rang. It was the girl's father. He was agitated. He wouldn't come in the house, he was angry and fearful because Angus had told his daughter that he had a .22. Before we go any further into the story, let me just mention that the neighbors are Jewish and I'm 3rd-gen German American. I'm not being hateful; it is relevant to the story.

"Yes," I replied. "He does. Technically, it is mine. He cannot legally own a firearm until he's 18."

I then got a raft of questions: Does he have access to the firearm? Does he have access to the ammo?

I cut the guy off and told him I was an NRA Life Member and kept the firearms according to NRA recommendations, and I'd be happy to give him a pamphlet on how to keep firearms with children in the house and -

"NO." he replied. "I just want your word that your son does not have access to guns."

I assured him we kept the guns safe and that we only shot them at the farm. He skulked off. We packed up and headed to the farm for the weekend.

Sunday, after our return, a very haggard and pale version of the neighbor returned to the front door.

"Yes?"

"Look, you gotta help me. My wife has been all over me. I haven't slept all weekend. I just need your assurance, man-to-man, that your son does not have unfettered access to firearms.

"Yes, that is true. If you like I can send along that pamphlet I mentioned. The NRA is a great source of info-"

"No, that will be enough." He said. "My wife is just very upset and worried."

"About what?"

"About all the guns." replied the neighbor. "She worried that-"

I'd had enough. "Look Dave," I said. "I'll tell you the problem here. The problem is that somebody thinks of us as GERMANS. And they have a real big stinking problem with the idea of GERMANS having GUNS. I get the picture, really clear. "

"NO! That's not it at all."

". . .and you can tell your wife that, as far as I am concerned, I am getting rather annoyed at the idea that someone would be so worried about a GERMAN having a gun. I would have thought we would have all grown past that by now."

I shut the door and we did not talk for the better part of a year.

Ran across some RBCD's up in the NF in VA one time. RBCDs = road-bound coffee drinkers.

Guy told me that now that it was snowing, he was sure to get his buck. I asked him why that was, and he said he could just drive the roads and see the deer standing out against the white mountainside, and hit 'em every time. So I said, is that so, and he said, yep, a few years back he'd shot one at 350 yards up on the mountain. So I asked what he was shooting.

Lever action 35 Remington with open sights.

Sam, I don't know didly about posting photos and really don't care about learning, however, send me your cell phone number and I'll text you a picture. Not a live one, but one on my wall.

Shaman, those are sad stories. It bothers me that your neighbors have somehow espoused a belief that guns are and were the danger, along with several other irrational and ignorant beliefs. And what is happening in our culture that fear or disbelief are the primary responses?

I knew a guy who liked to brag about the 700 yard running shot he made on a whitetail with his 25-06. From one end of the field all the way to the other. I drove out to see the field in question. It was 300 yards long at best!

Cookie bumps into them all the time. I'm out busting my ass and packing a rifle in the northern extreme of the state for the same interval, and do you think I can find one?





No!

Bumped into a guy that had just taken a buck through the neck at 600 with his 264 Win Mag. Held dead on.

Over the years from prominent ridges, I've actually seen about 100 rds fired at running bucks at 600+ yds. Not seen one connect yet.

Great fun thread. What strikes me is that I can't recall very many such tall tales during my 50 years of shooting. One does stand out though. Old Idaho potato farmer transplant to California once told me that the .22 Hornet was so powerful that it could shoot clear through a railroad track. I supposed he meant the web. I just nodded and went on to deliver the news papers hanging on my handlebars. Imagine taking out a railroad train with a .22 Hornet, maybe the Pentagon chose the wrong .22 cartridge.