Bauer

My longest shot with a Bow was 65 yards on a Mule Deer Buck and got a clean kill. I constantly practice up to 60 yards. Most of my kills with a Bow have been within 40 yards. I have not shot a rifle in over 30 years for hunting.

akbound

As long as we are talking about hunting here goes. On groundhogs with a Sako, medium weight sporter barrel chambered for .243 Winchester, shooting 85 grain Sierra HP Boattails. Several on the long side of 400 yds. With that load I knew any hit to the body or head would result in a quick and humane death. On a big game animal 340 (plus or minus a few) yards on a small Caribou bull. He was in open tundra with the nearest cover about 800 yards away. So I knew if the shot was less than perfect there would be time to finish him humanely. The shot was taken with a SS Ruger chambered for .338 Winchester Magnum, shooting Federal Premium 250 Nosler Partition. The angle was slightly quartering frontal. I held high on the chest and fired, (I was resting across a rock using my binos and hat as a rest for the forend hand). He slightly lowered his head just as I fired and I didn' t know it at the shot but the bullet entered on the side of his jaw exited the other side of the jaw then entered his chest in the right front transversed his body and exited just at the front of the hindquarter on the opposite side of his body. He fell, rolled over, got up, and took two or three steps as I had closed the range to about 250 yards. Took another rest and shot him through the chest, broadside, right to left, and that bullet exited as well. He rolled over again, kicked a couple of times, and expired. The first shot would have been fatal but I wasn' t absolutely certain of that until I closed the distance and started to dress him out. The partition exited on the first shot from the jaw about quarter sized and reentered the chest about that size. When it exited near the opposite hindquarter/flank it left a tennis ball size exit. The second partition went through broadside and exited about quarter sized. Either shot was fatal, but why risk allowing an animal to suffer needlessly when it is much easier to quickly finish the job.

Longest shot I have made on a known distance target.....1000 yards during military matches. But I would never consider shooting at live animals at much over 300 to 400 yards, (unless it was already wounded and moving away from me, or needing it for food in a life or death survival situation). There are far to many variables in the field to risk causing what would be in my opionion unethical suffering of a live animal that deserves to be dispatched humanely! If you are talking target shooting.....life or death survival.....or in war.....those are then acceptable exceptions. Otherwise in my humble opinion.....NOT!

BoltactionMan

Longest shot made was at 306 steps on a small whitetail buck.

KC

droptine

325 on a ground hog with my Savage Anshutz 22 magnum with a 4x leopold compact scope.
Buddy said I missed.
Said no, I say is tail twitchin.
Walked over,
Got him in the eye!

Rick Teal

To my great shame, I once had to make a shot at 150 yds.

I normally am able to hunt within 50 yds or so of any animal I want to shoot. This particular bear was crossing a beaver dam and I thought it was wounded by another hunter, so I took the shot to put it away. As it turns out it was wounded, and probably would have expired after a long run in swampy country - we may never have recovered it.

spd522

Wyoming Antelope @ 612 yds with 300 WM & 150 Nosler BT handload.
New Mexico Mule Deer @ 508 yds with 300 WM & 180 Fail Safe Factory load.
Missouri Whitetail @ 447 yds with 300 WM & 150 Nosler BT Handload.
Missouri Whitetail @ 306 yds with 300 WM & 178 Rem Ext-Range Factory load.

Missouri Wild Turkey @ 33 yds with Mathews UltraMax & Gold Tip w/ 100 Muzzy

LPD17

I just returned from South Africa and shot a zebra at 340 yards. My longest shot to date. I regulary hunt in Southwestern Pennsylvania and dont get opportunities for long distance shooting. The club I belong to only has a 200 yard range. Sighting in on that barely changes your 100 yard zero.

Nomercy

My longest SHOT is 1200yrds (that' s the full length of my range), I' ve got a 48" diameter gong style suspended steel target (hearing that thing ring is pretty much the only way you know you hit it at that far, without driving down there or having a spotting scope, which mine was stolen the same week I finished my range).

My longest successful shot on game is one and the same as my longest attempted shot, 541yrds on a coyote with a pure stock Ruger m77 .30-06 (lazer and parallax verified range). Shot won me $400, two buddies and I were hunting, set up in between two rows of large round bales, I told them I spotted one. We watched it for a half hour, and it never came in, so they sat back down and told me to shoot it if it came in range, otherwise they were playing cards, so I told them, hell, it' s in range now. ' Like hell it is' one of em said, so I told them I' d put a $100 on that I could hit it, they ranged it out, and said they' d even give me 2:1. So I took their money.

Best on a deer was 383yrds, and I don' t plan on taking another shot that far on a deer unless I absolutely have to. I' m confident that I could make it again, even much farther, but it' s more worthwhile to get in close. Same rifle.

cdr4thBn

Not wishing to question veracity or ethics on this topic, I will however say this. There is a point at which a shot on an animal becomes unethical due to factors way out of the shooters control. All of us practice in an effort to gain skill and confidence in our firearm(s). However physics and the laws of the gravity make shooting at a certain point unethical. Factors such as breath control, cross-currents, air density and a hundred other factors come into play.
Unless you can figure out a load that changes the laws of the physical universe I' d say we ought to be far more careful than some of us may be.
We spend countless hours reading ballistics charts to better understand trajectory and a bullets retained energy, knowing that it is bullet performance that counts. There comes a point, no matter how much gun you have or how skilled we are where retained energy and bullet performance is just not certain.
I say that some of the distances mentioned in these posts, if true, are shots that should never have been attempted. A simple respect for the animal we hunt should count for something.

spd522

Nomercy


1200 yard GONG? What a hoot! I would love to have a distance like that to hammer away at steel. I love shooting steel because of the noise and reaction but 1200 yards............ Too much fun!!!!!!