Mystifying misses

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  • Buck2732
    Warrior
    • Feb 2012
    • 207

    Mystifying misses

    Hi the Hoard,

    My names Buck and today I had what can only described by the phrase "What the *@@! happened there".

    So I was out this AM beautiful early winters day bright sunshine frost on the ground slight breeze from the North. I am in a high seat overlooking an clearing in the woods the wind is in my face. I have been there a whole ten mins.

    When a fallow doe hove's in to view she is unsettled and is constantly moving in and out of cover. I have the pointer on her the whole time (No1 reticule). She is at a maximum of 25-30 yards the whole time. Eventually she stops with her back to me her neck straight up. I take a hold on the dead centre of her neck. 123 gr of SST is on its way at 2700fps then nothing, nada no flat deer nothing.

    She was not hanging around now. I worked the bolt losing the empty case ($1.50 over here), waiting for her to stop. Obviously she had read the script and she was away.

    I gave the wood some time to calm down and left the seat, going to her last know stationary position. I was hoping to find some sign of strike, nothing there. There was a lot of brush I had not seen through the scope though.

    The gamekeeper had heard the shot, at are pre-arranged time, drove to my location to collect the deer. Only to be told that I had missed. There followed 15mins of piss taking with me being the butt of it all.

    Well, that was my WTF moment today. I can't be the only member of this board to have had a moment like this.

    So come on share your hunting WTF moments.
    Last edited by Buck2732; 11-06-2016, 07:36 PM.
    Buck2732

    "You will know you are in a nuclear attack by the bright flash, loud explosion, widespread destruction, intense heat, strong winds and the rising of a mushroom cloud".

    "I have no idea what weapons will be used in the next world war... but I do know that world war 4 will be fought with sticks and stones". A Einstein.

    PER ARDUA
  • Bigs28
    Chieftain
    • Feb 2016
    • 1786

    #2
    I was invited in a black powder hunt. I did not own a black powder so i borrowed a friends. He told me it was zeroed at 100 yards. Great thanks pal. I'm sitting in my climber when the largest deer I've seen while hunting walks out. I range him, 107 yards. Perfect. I take a shot and after the smoke cleared i see the buck trot off barely phased into the woods. I get down about 45 minutes later walk out to the palmetto he was standing by and there was no sign of a hit. He was standing in a wet prarie and i followed his prints to the wood line with no blood or anything. Next day i go to the range shoot at 100 yards and didn't even hit paper. I now own my very own cva accura v2 and love everything about it.

    Comment

    • Drillboss
      Warrior
      • Jan 2015
      • 894

      #3
      Hey Buck,

      I'm not bragging and I'm certainly not judging, but I've only pulled the trigger on what I thought would be boilerhouse, heart/lung shots. While applying that practice, I've had some clean misses, but I've also killed a whitetail buck and a pronghorn antelope with neck shots that dropped them in their tracks (roughly 12 -15 inches from point of aim). Reminds me of my golf game with comments like "I'd rather be lucky than good" and "Missed that one in a good spot".

      I've got a buddy that just came back from a cow elk hunt where he shot one in the neck with a .30-06. They found some blood spots and followed that trail for a couple of hours. Never found the cow and assume she's back with the herd with a sore neck. Sounds like you may have just missed the spine and didn't hit any major arteries either.

      Comment

      • mdram
        Warrior
        • Sep 2016
        • 941

        #4
        everyone misses occasionally. practice more and get back out there.
        just some targets for printing
        https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...xQ?usp=sharing

        Comment

        • tpk
          Bloodstained
          • Sep 2014
          • 56

          #5
          Brush can be horrible on bullets. I had a deer that went down but got back up and required a follow-up shot to the neck. Upon inspection the first shot had hit point of aim but the wound was shallow enough that I could feel the bullet in the wound. It ended up that just the jacket of the bullet had hit and didn't have enough mass to penetrate.

          Comment

          • 1075 tech
            Warrior
            • Apr 2015
            • 681

            #6
            Opening day of last year's whitetail gun season: I'm in a 15' ladder stand when 5 doe walk out of the thick, directly under the stand and into the field. I have my 1981 Remington 788 .308. Bring it up on the last doe in the group and see only a blur of brown through the scope. Look down at the deer and again through the scope. Just a brown blur. I shoot. Deer just walks away. I pull the bolt back to load another round when the next three rounds stand up in the mag. So I'm standing there in the stand with mag in one hand, three rounds and TWO pieces of the mag spring in the other when a 4 point walks out. Looks up at me, snorts, and turns back into the thick.

            That evening, it's just getting dusk, I see a couple doe coming across the field. As I approach the field to get into a better position, I spook one and she runs. The other is on the other side of a large tree playing peek-a-boo with me. She finally takes a step out. I shoot. She drops. She is maybe 15 yards from me. I can't get directly to her because of the thick brush and have to walk around, maybe 50 yards. I get to the spot and she's gone. No blood, no fur, no nothing. It's nearly dark now. I'm trying to follow footprints out into the field when she jumps up and bolts across the field, jumps the guardrail and gets hit by a car.

            The whole day was WTF

            Comment

            • Kilco
              Chieftain
              • Jan 2016
              • 1201

              #7
              Similar thing happened to me years ago on a bull moose. I was shooting a custom r700 270 WSM build. 350 yard shot, I'd done twice that far so often that it was a walk in the park.

              Shot, nothing. He glanced my way then went back into the brush. No blood, no hair, pure embarrassment. Even had my wife and father with me, the two people I care the most of what they think of me.. I was quite pissed.

              We all miss sometimes, and most times we can't explain why.. it's why I wish I was able to film my shots..

              Comment

              • LRRPF52
                Super Moderator
                • Sep 2014
                • 8569

                #8
                Any bore obstructions in the tree that were overlooked with line of sight through the scope?
                NRA Basic, Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, RSO

                CCW, CQM, DM, Long Range Rifle Instructor

                6.5 Grendel Reloading Handbooks & chamber brushes can be found here:

                www.AR15buildbox.com

                Comment

                • customcutter
                  Warrior
                  • Dec 2014
                  • 452

                  #9
                  I had a "moment" about 5 years ago when spring Gobbler hunting. I had gotten out of the truck, quietly gathered all my gear, slipped a couple of hand loaded tungsten 12ga shells into the tube and as quietly as possible slipped one into the chamber. I then closed the door on the truck as quietly as possible, and headed across the 1/2 mile open pasture to the fence line on the other side. It was still about 2 hours before day break, but I had been hunting this flock and Gobbler for the past 3 years, so I wanted to see if I could get ahead of them on opening morning, hoping they would be where I thought they would be after an 8 hour drive. I got to my spot, cut a few branches and stuck them in the ground to fashion a blind, put out my decoys, and waited another :45 for the birds to start chirping. I waited another :5 min and did some light tree yelps and the Gobbler busted loose about 100 yds behind me, further than I expected and further south. I called 3 or 4 more times in the next half hour until I heard the hens flying down, then I did a fly down cackle. In the mean time the Gobblers had been gobbling at me every time I would call on the slate or box call, when I heard them fly down I got ready with my mouth call and started calling with it. They had flown down it the pasture next to the one I was set up in but on the south side and around the corner, but they were getting closer every time they gobbled. Finally after about :30 after flying down I saw the first hen coming past the corner post in the other pasture and working her way under the wire, so I knew the others would be following. I was 75 to 100 yds from the corner, and they gradually made there way under the fence into the pasture I was in and I had gone completely silent, they couldn't not see the decoys, there was a light breeze and they were moving perfectly under the edge of the large oak. There were 10 or 12 hens and 3 large Gobblers, I let them work up near me as I slowly lifted my 12ga semi-auto, I slipped the safety off, lined up the shot, pulled the trigger....and nothing. I eased the gun down, opened the chamber, checked that there was a round, put the gun back up, took the safety off, pulled the trigger....nothing again. I rolled the gun over slipped the bolt back and caught the round, and chambered another round, aligned the shot, slipped the safety off and pulled the trigger nothing again. No click, no bump, no bang.....I mean nothing. By now the turkeys have moved off past 50 yds, and I've already called them back once, they ain't coming back again they know something is up, so I let them go and hope that I can hunt them again later in the week.

                  What was the cause of my problems, I found out in all my efforts to be super quiet and not spook the birds, I had never pulled the action on the auto loader back far enough to cock the firing pin. Not when leaving the truck, and not when re-chambering a round. I had switched from a pump action the year before when it dropped the second round on the ground instead of flipping it up into the chamber.

                  As they say, some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you. We have to live and learn, or we are all going to die dumb.

                  Comment

                  • GSPHunter
                    Warrior
                    • Jun 2014
                    • 106

                    #10
                    Hey Buck, don't feel too bad. I once missed a woodchuck at about 300 yards due to the bullet blowing up after hitting a blade of grass. A few years ago, a friends son shot his first moose. As we were skinning it out, we couldn't find a bullet hole anywhere. We didn't find the hole until we were salvaging the neck meat. His bullet hit a small branch about 5 yards in front of the cow, and deflected to go through the neck.....took out both jugulars's! I couldn't believe his luck. Some days you get lucky, some not.

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