Horrible Moment In A Brilliant Night's Shooting. Has This Happened To You?

[Yokel Matt 918]

No matter how hard you try you can't prevent things going wrong although in this example if everything is how it's described I'm pretty sure the thing was dead anyway.

 

What I can't understand though is if you feel this strongly about wounding why you are taking shots at 60+ meters with a sub 12ft lb Airgun zeroed at 30m? Surely it was only a matter of time!

[random 659]

Indeed, nature is neither cruel nor kind, it simply is that, nature, I dislike intensely shooting kits, however I know damn well that if I dont keep the population down on one farm in particular, he will find someone who will, I take a small amount of comfort knowing that they are not wasted, making good food for my ferrets and hawk, but I much prefer to shoot them when they are half grown, not least because I can eat them then we cant help being anthropomorphic sometimes, especially where cute and cuddly creatures are concerned, but so long as no suffering is caused and they are not wasted, my conscience is clear.

More or less my view on it,we naturally feel sympathy,empathy and compassion as part of being human,but we shouldn't feel guilty about killing,its part of nature,the circle of life,our intelligence is both a gift and a curse sometimes!

[charlie caller 3,654]

No matter how hard you try you can't prevent things going wrong although in this example if everything is how it's described I'm pretty sure the thing was dead anyway.

 

What I can't understand though is if you feel this strongly about wounding why you are taking shots at 60+ meters with a sub 12ft lb Airgun zeroed at 30m? Surely it was only a matter of time!

I take your point Matt, and personally although I consider myself a pretty decent shot, I would not attempt a shot at 60 yards with a sub 12 air rifle, I have never met Simon (the op) but it is my understanding that he is a quite extraordinary good shot with his spring rifles, and has devoted many many hours practice to attain the standard he has reached, an air rifle hovering around the legal limit certainly has the energy to kill cleanly at 60 yards and probably much further, as I seem to recall it requires only around 2ftlbs energy to kill a rabbit cleanly with a shot to the head,so I think for most of us (myself included) 60 yard shots on rabbits are a little ambitious, but for someone of Simon's abilities, not a problem, and as he demonstrates in his original post, several rabbits had all fallen stone dead at some pretty impressive ranges.

[Deker 3,478]

 

No matter how hard you try you can't prevent things going wrong although in this example if everything is how it's described I'm pretty sure the thing was dead anyway.

 

What I can't understand though is if you feel this strongly about wounding why you are taking shots at 60+ meters with a sub 12ft lb Airgun zeroed at 30m? Surely it was only a matter of time!

I take your point Matt, and personally although I consider myself a pretty decent shot, I would not attempt a shot at 60 yards with a sub 12 air rifle, I have never met Simon (the op) but it is my understanding that he is a quite extraordinary good shot with his spring rifles, and has devoted many many hours practice to attain the standard he has reached, an air rifle hovering around the legal limit certainly has the energy to kill cleanly at 60 yards and probably much further, as I seem to recall it requires only around 2ftlbs energy to kill a rabbit cleanly with a shot to the head,so I think for most of us (myself included) 60 yard shots on rabbits are a little ambitious, but for someone of Simon's abilities, not a problem, and as he demonstrates in his original post, several rabbits had all fallen stone dead at some pretty impressive ranges.

 

 

 

I hear what you say but there is a big but, lots of things start getting complicated at 60 metres with 12ft lb and the energy is steadily reducing. In this particular instance he made the shots at 59 and 63 metres apparently, 63 metres is very nearly 69 yards. Commonly, people on this and many other forums would be vilified for even attempting such shots, and with some good reason I would say, however good you are.

 

Both my .22lr are zeroed at 50 yards, and it makes peoples comments about shooting foxes at -100 yards MAX with a HMR somewhat ridiculous when comparing energy and accuracy and terminal ballistics!

 

Edited May 7, 2015 by Deker

[charlie caller 3,654]

Good points raised Deker, and for those reasons as I said, I would not attempt a shot on a live target @ 60 yards with a 12ftlbs air rifle, by the same token I would not attempt to drop pigeons @ 100 yards with my 12 bore, and I am a pretty decent shot with a shotgun, however an internet search will show George Digweed doing just that there will always be people capable or otherwise, who wish to push the envelope, and let us remember as we have all said, more or less, that the rabbit was dead, shot through the side of the head with a .22 slug, the issue in the original post was not one of wounding, that never entered the equation, and by all accounts the shot was perfectly in the kill zone, the rabbit was dead, of that I have no doubt, but as we all know, strange things happen sometimes, nature of the beast I suppose.

[Deker 3,478]

Good points raised Deker, and for those reasons as I said, I would not attempt a shot on a live target @ 60 yards with a 12ftlbs air rifle, by the same token I would not attempt to drop pigeons @ 100 yards with my 12 bore, and I am a pretty decent shot with a shotgun, however an internet search will show George Digweed doing just that there will always be people capable or otherwise, who wish to push the envelope, and let us remember as we have all said, more or less, that the rabbit was dead, shot through the side of the head with a .22 slug, the issue in the original post was not one of wounding, that never entered the equation, and by all accounts the shot was perfectly in the kill zone, the rabbit was dead, of that I have no doubt, but as we all know, strange things happen sometimes, nature of the beast I suppose.

 

Apparently the rabbit that led to this thread was 23 yards, others mentioned were at 63m (or 69 yards), which by any standard is a ******* long way for anyone in the field with a 12ft lb.

 

George Digweed is exceptional, but he still misses sometimes, and he is shooting at Clays.

 

If you want to push the boundaries try paper.

 

I have used my HMR at 600 yards at Bisley, but I wouldn't be trying it on a fox at that distance.

 

ATB!

Edited May 7, 2015 by Deker

[charlie caller 3,654]

Digweed was actually on field sports channel tv shooting wood pigeons @ 100 yards, yes he missed the odd one, but not many, and most appeared to drop stone dead, damned impressive by anyones standards.

[Deker 3,478]

Digweed was actually on field sports channel tv shooting wood pigeons @ 100 yards, yes he missed the odd one, but not many, and most appeared to drop stone dead, damned impressive by anyones standards.

 

His crazy distance shots are at clays.

 

If he shoots pigeons at 100yards and misses or pricks them, then he leaves himself wide open for criticism!

 

[charlie caller 3,654]

I agree mate, I was pretty surprised to see it myself.

[Rez 4,961]

This post still going...........

[Skot Ruthless Teale 1,701]

I used to get this with squirrels all the time tough little feckers they are. You can see the pellet hole and blood gushing out of their brain and they are all tensed up and pulling their neck back and you know it should be dead but for some reason it isnt. Then you take another shot and its still doing the same thing.. you know the rifle is 'full power' 11+ ftlb and a distance of 30 yards is a reasonable range and you have deffo hit the killzone, as you can see by the wound and blood. Not much else you can do really. Doesnt happen much but when it does it really makes you doubt yourself and your kit, and can make you feel weird

[Mister Gain 1,764]

Apologies for dragging this thread up, but Ted of Ted's Holdover has put up a video on youtube trying to establish a scientific explanation to the post headshot twitching. As it is something all of us will witness I thought you might be interested in the video.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1INVWP-HnI

[slipper 116]

What a bunch of poofters its a rabbit shot in the suede ffs

[j j m 6,561]

it happened to me,but life has to go on mate