Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Your Longest Standing Free Hand Shot on Big Game?

Ok thanks. My farthest that I can remember was ~ 100 on running whitetail doe. Hit while she was in the air and folded her like a duck using my Winchester M94 .356. I have had other as far but that was my best.

Thanks for asking about Christmas. We didn't get to go to the in-laws since the roads were closed. That could be good or bad. Stayed home warm and cozy. I hope your holidays were good too.

Not big game, but woodchucks.

200+/- yards, offhand, 22-250 (50 grain Sierra Blitzkings), Rem 700 Varmint synthetic with 8x Lyman All.America PermaCenter with 1 moa dot. Have done it dozens of times (100-200 yards). OSOK.

Woodchuck hunting in central NY, you are in rolling hill country. It was common to walk up a hill, and see a woodchuck on the next hill as your eyes get to the crest of the hill you are climbing. You take a few steps further up hill to get a line-of-sight on the woodchuck on offhand position-so you minimize your exposure to the chuck.

My hunting buddy and I started doing this for the challenge. We COULD crawl up to the top of the hill, and take the shot from prone (off Harris bipods), but a 100-200 yard shot with an accurate 22-250 is a "gimme" (too easy). Our new adopted rule was: "200 yards or closer were offhand shots", when we carried 22-250 rifles (his was a 22-250 AI with 7" twist Kreiger, shooting 77 grainers). I began using my 222 Rem, and he used a 218 Bee Kimber 84 more as there were more 200 yard shots than 400 yarders.

I used to shoot smallbore varsity rifle and air rifle in college. I used to be pretty good in offhand, so I looked forward to those woodchuck shots.

Good practice.

250ish. Buck moving along pretty good. Not running.
First shot hit.
Not well.
Took a couple shots at his neck to get a finisher in.

This one brought back some good memories for me.
We we're at our Hunt Camp in PA years ago and I was hunting with a local Buddy for White Tails on a good size piece of Woods down the road that I never hunted before and as we we're coming out of the woods the Snow picked up almost blizzard like conditions, and Pete and I must have pushed a Buck out of the woods we we're in as we looked across the field some ways off and a nice Buck was moving across the field and away from US. Pete leveled his scoped 30-06 Rifle and missed and I shot with my opened sight .375 Win. Marlin Rifle,(200 gr. ammo), aiming high to allow for Bullet drop and it Turned the Deer and he Dropped. I told Pete to flank the Deer wide to the Left as I Ran up to see along with Pete moving quickly to my Left and the Buck was crawling as I spined him and a finishing shot ended it. We paced 350 yards back to where we shot and just couldn't believe how fast it happened and unfolded. Heck I'd rather be Lucky than Good. That Buck hangs in my office and it brings back good memories.

HS 58

Good morning HunterShooter, great story, awesome shot with open sights!

Do you have a picture of that buck to share?

Happy New Year Sir!

I have no clue what my longest offhand shot would be.
It would probably be 150- 200 yards.
I always carried a backpack, and would use it routinely, a dry snag, a Boulder etc to shoot from.
At one time , I was quite confident with my positional shooting , on paper. This roughly translated in hitting a pie plate @ 100 yards 8 out of 10 and would score a minimum of 80/ 100.
Field conditions are not nearly as ideal, and a stuffed backpack was a far better choice for me.
Happy New Year, folks

The longest shot I ever made on big game was off-hand. The target was a mule deer buck, the rifle a 35 Whelen, loaded with 250 Hornady's. I should not have taken the shot but I did. The buck was facing me, head up, and the shot broke when the crosshairs were about 6inches below the tip of the antlers. The bullet struck low, just inside the ribcage, and centered. The deer laid down but jumped up as I approached. The second shot, from 25 yards, was better placed and finished him. This was about 35 years ago and I was embarrassed about taking the shot. It was too far, and it would not have hurt me any to let that buck go. Nonetheless, it ended OK.
I have made some decent offhand shots on coyotes but have also logged some spectacular misses. One good hit was on a coyote running straight away, at about 200 yd. I was carrying my 308 Norma and scored a perfect bullseye. When I say perfect, there was no entrance wound. The 200 grain Sierra exited just under the chin and that was the only hole in the hide. Another coyote was taken at about the same distance but was running straight across. The shot took him right behind the angle of his jaw. It would have been better if that had been the only shot I took. The next coyote popped up at about 40 yards. I shot behind him, then in front, then finally hit on the third shot.
I have shot quite a bit of competition, of various sorts. In doing so, it is the misses I have made which have made me much more reluctant to try long or difficult shots on game. GD

This is going to sound a little crazy but 35 yards with my bow. In 1989 I did shoot a running buck with my Remington 760 at 150 yards but I was kneeling so that don't count. I was a bow hunter before I took up rifle hunting, I hunt with my rifle the same as in do with my bow. I find a good spot and just sit and wait, usually in a beach lawn chair or a foam pad with my gun on shooting sticks.

Hi Marty63, I miss bear hunting around Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, sure are some pretty big bears there. My longest shot with my bow was 76 yards.

The bow hunting equipment has changed dramatically since 1989, back in them days the bow hunting equipment did not hold a candle to what we are using today, that's for sure hey?

Happy New Year!

Hi KillerBee, its interesting how you miss hunting around riding mountain. I miss moose hunting between Elmworth and the B.C. border, and I also miss getting drawn for camp Wainwright deer hunt.
It looks like its getting close to happy hour around hear, time to make a drink and get ready for the Junior game.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year K/B,
I haven't mastered the pics on this sight yet as I had trouble trying to do it a while back and just haven't made the time to try.
The Buck from the story hangs in my office like I mentioned, and I don't have hunt pics from back then as it was pre Cell phone's convenience.
Sorry.

HS 58

Happy New Year to you too HS 58

Dont we all wish we carried a small camera back in the day right? I only started taking pictures later in my hunting trips, sure is nice to look back at the ones I took, only downside is seeing myself getting older and uglier the older I get lol.

A great service I use to post pictures is www.imgur.com It's free, you simply set up an account then you can upload you photos there and after it is uploaded you can share them by copying the link from their (message boards & forms) and paste the link in your message. Simple and great service especially for free.

As an example here is a picture of my Ice Fishing Partners, fishing the other day. The one in red is hauling the beer and the gal in black is carrying my Viagra and a defibrillator lol.

Have a great 1st day of 2023!

160 yards, moose, quartering on, out in an open meadow, surrounded by jungle second growth. 35 years or more ago. Effective shot, but a mistake....

Might have only caught one lung. He died 100-150 yards away, in a circle of 10' tall over-lapping branch-to-branch spruce , obviously around the perimeter of an old squirrel midden. That in turn was surrounded by a wall of matchstick deadfall fire-killed spruce 7-10 feet tall, depending where, exactly. Around that was 8-10 foot high birch second growth covering the hillside about 10 inches apart that we had to push through. I'd walked within feet of him during the day-long search several times. Stepping thru the screen of spruce, I literally stepped on his remains at the same time I saw them.

I found him 10 days later by following my nose. That's a shot situation I won't take anymore, obviously. Now it's neck shots if I can get it within 100 yards in that kind of cover. Longer range, or more open country, I'll take the boiler room, or better yet, spine/high shoulder.

If I knew then what I know now, I would not have taken the shot, and secondly, I would have found him, simply because that was the most inaccessible part on the hillside, where all good animals go to die. Bastards! I know that now.

160 long paces or close to it. A shot I had no business taking. Whitetail doe running from my left to my right full out. Ruger Redhawk .44 magnum. Iron sights.

Missed standing quartering towards me shot on her about 30 yards away to my left. Missed running full out directly in front of me maybe 20 yards. Perfect heart shot at distance. Even though i did a lot of shooting back then, it was pure luck. Should not have taken the shot. Young and stupid.

I killed a whitetail doe with a lucky shot that I should not have taken. I was with some companions who were hunting nearby. A doe came past them and the 12 year old beginner hunter fired four or five rapid shots at the doe. I thought I heard one or two hits. She came past me, way out and running just as fast as a deer possibly can. Not sure why i thought she was wounded, but I decided to "help" anyway. I swung way in front, kept swinging and touched off my .25-06. Down she went. At just over 350 long steps. One bullet in the diaphragm, just caught the lungs. No other wound.

350 yards lead cow with 270 Win 160 grain partitions dropped her where she stood

270 hey? Have heard a lot about their lethality and light recoil but never shot one.

Good Shooting ~

KB

measured after the shot 199 yards nice 5x5 mule deer buck with my 257 Weatherby mag. Ruger #1 ,1 shot flop bang , my son-in-law passed up this mule deer buck with David and me but was pissed at himself when he held the antlers .

Nope hade a 3x9 bushnell scope on that rifle.

A friend's dad has shot a dozen or so whitetail
at that range with a scoped 30/30 ( at least 2 that
ive watched) and everybody always says that I'm
a liar. They also believe that a 30/30 runs out of
gas after 100 yards and just drops I guess.
They probably never shot or held a 30/30