Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A Close-in Deer Rifle

I have a pretty good set of qualifications on running game myself. I shot hundreds of running cottontails from in front of my beagles with .22 rifles from the 1970's to 2008.. As stated previously in this thread, I've also killed dozens of running deer and I've done a fair bit of wingshooting, both on a trap range and on waterfowl and upland birds. Over the years I used various scopes on running game and learned it was much easier to keep track of them at close range in thick cover when the game and any intervening cover were both in focus. Particularly in situations where the game is similar in color to surrounding cover or in a dark conifer forest with intervening boughs. I also learned it was much easier to hit game running away, whether straight away or at an angle like trap shooting than when crossing through intervening cover. This largely due to what I call for lack of a better description, "the picket fence effect" wherin over magnified, blurry, intervening cover can make it difficult to time a shot when there's a clear path for a bullet from muzzle to game. The effect is like trying to shoot through a picket fence without hitting a picket. I would bet money that a high percentage of the game killed close up with higher magnification have little or no intervening cover between shooter and game and/or is taken when going away from the shooter. Both of which make it much easier to connect. Regardless, less magnification is always an advantage at close range because it's easier to avoid hitting intervening obstacles and put shots on target when both your target and it's surroundings are in focus.

It all comes down to using whatever works well for you and is legal to use where you are hunting.

When I was stationed at Fort Riley, KS, some of the best deer hunting areas on post were between old Camp Forsyth, where the ROTC Summer Camp cadets were housed, and the Republican River. It was shotgun only because of the close proximity to the old wooden barracks buildings at Camp Forsyth and the civilians who lived across the river in Junction City. My Camp Forsyth deer gun was an old 16 gauge bolt action Mossberg that someone had modified by cutting the barrel back to 20", bending the bolt handle to reduce the rise height, and installing an old Weaver K2.5 in a Redfield mount. Being a smooth bore is wasn't the most accurate slug slinger, but it would keep 5 Foster type slugs within 8" at 75 yards and Brennekes within 5" at the same distance. There have always been some big whitetails on Fort Riley, but I never saw one close to the size of the 218" buck that Devyn Messenger shot with a crossbow last fall.

Exactly !

"I also learned it was much easier to hit game running away, whether straight away or at an angle like trap shooting than when crossing through intervening cover. This largely due to what I call for lack of a better description, "the picket fence effect" wherin over magnified, blurry, intervening cover can make it difficult to time a shot when there's a clear path from bullet to game."

You keep insisting that you know more than anybody else about shooting close-range game, including this quote. But as far as I can tell from your posts, you hunt only in New York, and maybe another neighboring state or two.

You might be interested to know that hunting winter jackrabbits in Montana mostly involves hunting sagebrush--because that's what they use for both food and cover. Depending on the year and location, it's generally knee-high, and sometimes waist-high. When they're in the sage "thickets" they're typically found in during the colder months, one of the best methods for hunting is after a fresh snow, when you can track them into a thicket, which can be anywhere from 20-100 yards wide.

You can then walk around the edge of the thicket, to see if their tracks leave. If they don't, then you go back to where their tracks enter, and follow 'em up, keeping your eyes open. Sometimes you'll find the jack "hiding" under a sagebrush--where they can be very hard to see because the white-tailed species (the kind we primarily have in Montana) turns white in the winter. Sometimes all you can see is their dark eyeball, and if so can get a very close-range shot.

But more often they jump and run, and they're not only running through 1-3 foot high sagebrush--some even between "thickets"--but they bound as much as 10 feet, meaning the target is not only moving fast, but up and down--unlike a cottontail. (And yes, we have plenty of cottontails in Montana too--and I've hunted plenty of them as well.) This can get pretty tricky.

Mule deer also bound up and down unless running flat-out, and in fact usually do when jumped in thick cover, like what is known as "peckerpole" lodgepole pine. The timing is interesting here too. I've found it easiest to hit them by timing when they hit the ground, rather than at the peak of their bound--the opposite of jackrabbits bounding through sagebrush, which are often only visible (and hittable) at the top of their bounds.

I figure there's a good probability I've killed as much running game with a rifle as anybody here and more than most. Lets just say that while my hunting/shooting experience may not be geographically wide comparatively, it runs pretty deep. In addition to the deer and cottontails already mentioned, there have been countless snowshoe hares, gray squirrels, foxes, woodchucks and a few coyotes killed while on the run with rifles over the years. I won't mention the winged game brought to bag while on the fly as most would call me a liar anyway. Of course none of those would require the level of skill of your mulies or jack rabbits but I think I know what works on the game we have here under the conditions we hunt it as well as anybody.

You have me very curious now: Have you hunted anywhere outside New York state?

What difference does it make, are whitetails somehow faster and harder to hit on the run at close range in cover there than here ?

I wasn't wondering about that--but about this statement: "I won't mention the winged game brought to bag while on the fly as most would call me a liar anyway."

I shot pigeons, starlings and sparrows on the wing when I was still in school. First with an air rifle around my grandparents barns and equipment buildings. I got to where I could hit them fairly regularly. Shooting was all I wanted to do back then. Every day after school, weekends and holidays, if it wasn't pouring rain and I wasn't sick, I was spending my spare time shooting. All of my money went on guns and ammo. I plumb wore out several air rifles launching wheelbarrows full of pellets before graduating to .22's.

I did that when young too, starting around age 7-8, and it's great practice.

But one year in Montana I killed 66 sharptailed grouse--legally, because my family and I were eating them almost as fast as they were killed, so never exceeded the daily or possession limit. In addition was hunting other upland birds--we have 9 legal species in Montana, from mourning doves to sage grouse.

Have also killed several hundred gamebirds (not starlings and sparrows) in ONE day in other countries, mostly doves and pigeons, but also including larger gamebirds from "perdiz" (a grouse-sized bird in South America) to 5-pound wild guinea fowl in Africa.

There's also been considerable waterfowling, both in Montana and other places, including Canada where limits are generally higher than in the U.S. Though have also participated in spring snow goose seasons in the Midwest, where the "limit" was even more generous. But know quite a few other hunters who've taken considerably more.

I don't know how many I killed in total but do remember one day when I piled up and counted 47 birds with my trusty pellet rifle. I still love air guns and have a fairly extensive collection of rifles and pistols from Crosman, Daisy, Benjamin, Sheridan, Walther and BSA. Pneumatics, spring piston and Co2. I still shoot them regularly at aeirial targets and can repeatedly hit hand thrown targets with both pistols and rifles. I've never shot hundreds of game birds in a season but when I kept beagles I did shoot hundreds of rabbits per season, both cottontails and snowshoes for many years. I've also been an avid squirrel hunter since I was a kid and killed several thousand over the years. I'm not as gung ho on them anymore but did kill 87 in Sept. alone last year. Used to shoot a lot of pheasants when I was younger but there aren't many of those around anymore. We don't have a season on doves here but I have found it easy to get permission to shoot pigeons and have killed many hundreds, maybe even thousands on several different farms over the years, starting with both my maternal and paternal grandparents farms and an uncles farm when I was a boy. The first good day we get here this spring I will start busting some woodchucks. I honestly can't say that I've never broken a game law and don't know many people who can. I know almost everybody will say they haven't or don't but that is bullshyt and I know that for a solid fact. I have seen it over and over and over again from hunters from all walks of life. Many who you'd never think would do it, church going christians, doctors, teachers, school administrators, cops , you name it, I've seen it. Either exceeding game limits, shooting before or after legal hunting hours, killing game out of season, Stealing/vandalizing stands and game cams, trespassing, using wives, kids or girlfriends tags {this one is huge}. I'm not saying you are a liar at all but it's a rare bird that's never violated a game law.

From a previous post, you don't seem to be all that far from the Northern Pa line. In your time growing up Ruffed Grouse should have been in your area in numbers. Yet you don't mention them in your wing shooting accomplishments.

Proverbs 29:11

Yes there were good numbers of grouse and woodcock back then and I hunted and killed many. Their numbers are but a shadow of what they once were today.

Since it has shifted to birds now, I got this great damascus shotgun and snuck up on this gopher…

Hunting under a center-pivot?

You ever tried hunting where there isn’t what you are hunting for?

Very interesting thread with some very nice rifles. Brought to mind the relatively primitive way I took my first deer — a doe — still the closest at which I’ve taken one, maybe 25 yards or so. Might have been 1970. Remember those “finned” slugs?

This was in Iowa, a shotgun-only state at that time but the interesting thing to me was a sight that was available then for shotgunners out for deer.

It was about ten inches long. Both ends were curled up to form both the rear notched sight and the front sight. The underneath had an adhesive that stuck to the receiver when you pressed it down. Once done, the serious-minded shooter went somewhere to sight this outfit in. The sight was basically a 100% strip of lead, or very close to it as it was very malleable. It was an interesting and functional little gizmo.

A paper plate placed 90 yards away and you went to work, tweaking either the rear portion or the front until you were throwing those bricks into the plate. Actually it was fairly functional.

Put it on the rump of the doe and she crashed barely another forty yards with her left femoral artery severed.

I just thought that it was a funny picture, what with the sprinkler head hanging down out of the sky.