Closest rifle shot on game?

tddeangelo · Mar 3, 2014

I have quite a few whitetails with rifles that I shot the under 30 yards, some under 20, including my Pennsylvania buck from this past fall (17-18 yards).

My absolute closest firearm kill was a whitetail with a flintlock. The deer came out of a drive at a trot. I had the rifle on the deer, tracking with it as it kept getting closer. I decided there was no need to shoot farther than necessary, so I let it keep coming toward me. When it had to turn to the side to go AROUND the tree my stand was in, I remember thinking "I better shoot, it won't be able to get any closer!" The stand was 15' to the seat, I was standing on the foot platform, and barrel pointed straight down, the muzzle would have been about knee high on me, so probably around 14-15' from the ground. The deer would have stood, oh, 3' at the shoulder, so figure 11-12', straight down.

A buddy of mine shot one once from the ground using his long rifle flintlock. It was 4 yards from him. The patch from his ball was found in the hide!

Mighty Peace · Mar 3, 2014

A very large cow elk @ about 14 metres back in 2001/02. She come out closer than where the rest of the herd was crossing the cutline...almost right on top of me. I was going to make a move to get to where the herd was crossing, then seen movement very close to me.

Shot her broadside with factory Winchester Supreme 180gr Partition Golds. She was dead on her feet walking very slow, but I gave her another as I did not want her to make it the river valley edge that was about 20 metres away-that would of been ALOT of work then at -25 C.

I took a bull moose back in the early 2000's as well at about 10 steps. I seen the bull down the cutline in the start of a cutblock -shiny in the cool morning sun at close to 1000 metres away. I did 2 cow calls, as I hid on the edge of a cross cutline in the tall grass. I peaked up 2 times....first time to see the bull was coming my way, the second time and the bull looked as surprised as I did.....then BOOM!! It was a matter of maybe 5 minutes.

It was a great day as my hunting buddy shot his bull moose that late afternoon after passing up on some smaller bulls...only problem was we were now tagged out on the first day of a 12 day hunt (we were young/single guys then...lol)!! We had a lot of food and drink for the trip...Oh well, we had a lot of fun scouting, after, found the wolf dens but no wolves. And of all the years of wanting to wake up and have a bull moose just in front of the wall tent, we had a 60" PLUS about 2 days later at about 150 metres west in front of the tent on the middle of the cutline. That is a HUGE bull for our area in northern Alberta. We had some fun with this bull as we walked away from camp and cow called and a few soft bull grunts. This guy come CHARGING in - sounded like a D11 CAT dozer smashing thru big timber. As the story goes, we stayed for maybe 6-7 days to relax, then packed up camp, headed home and went elk hunting for the rest of our days off.

6mm Remington · Mar 3, 2014

My closest was on a nice fall black bear. It was about Nov 1st and we were having one of those Indian summer type of days. It was 40 plus degrees, sunny, and dry. My friend and I had walked a lot that day and never saw anything. It was too early to drive the 12-14 miles down the mountain to where we had our camp so we took a siesta on a nice open meadow for a couple hours. Finally it was around 4:00 PM so we started down the mountain. Still felt it was a bit early so we took a detour I knew which would take us out onto a dead end on a mountainside that had been logged.

We parked my Jeep and I grabbed my Ruger #1B in 30-06 and we walked about 1/4 of a mile up a skid trail to where we could glass the clear-cut. We had been sitting there for about 5 minutes looking when I looked over to where I had just been glassing, and all of a sudden out of no-where there appeared a nice looking black bear. We watched the bear to make sure it had no cubs for several minutes. It would feed and pull up grass, and then would just disappear. We figured it must have a den close buy and was making final preparations to hibernate. Finally after determining there were no cubs with it I got set to take the shot. It was about 250 yards and I was sitting down and had a nice rest on top of my pack which was sitting on a road berm.

This bear was so fat and her hair was so long that it looked like she only had a couple inches between the bottom of her belly and the ground. As there was some grass part ways up her side, I held just a bit high right behind her shoulder, about 4 inches down from the top of her back. Well I was sighted in to hit dead on at 250 so when I shot I hit right where I aimed which was nothing. All I hit was hair on top of her back. I did not know that and I did not realized that is what happened the moment I shot though. She took a couple steps and just disappeared. We figured there must be a hold in the hillside we cannot see and that is where she went.

My buddy ran back to the Jeep while I sat and watched. The bear never appeared again. When he got back we made an assault on possibly a wounded bear. I don't know which was worse, getting closer on a bear that might be wounded and probably not able to do very much if the bullet hit where I held, or one that was very much healthy and ready to go!! :grin:

We got close and my friend went above and sat down about 20 yards from where this bear disappeared. I walked an old cut line and went above where the bear had disappeared into the side of the mountain. I will mention that the side of the mountain was at about a 60 degree angle and was really steep. With the way the hole was angled into the hillside, I could not see anything from above or from the right as I was looking down the hill. I told my friend to cover me while I went down the hill about thirty yards and crossed back below the hole for the den. When I got over to the left far enough and was at the angle the hole was at I slowly approached the hold in the hillside. It was not very large, maybe 25-30 inches across. I had to try and keep my footing while I was crawling over downfall and everything else with my single-shot rifle and one in the chamber. I started slowly approaching and could finally get up to where I could see in the hole. It's getting towards the last 30 minutes of light by this time and I cannot see in the hole very far. I keep getting closer and closer and when I'm finally about 8 feet away from the hole, I can see black in black and the head of the bear as she is facing out from the hole. I watched for a few minutes to see if she was dead or not when she blinked!! :| :shock: I about%#@&# myself and yelled at my buddy that she was alive.

I made sure he was ready as I had one shot. My plan was to shoot and run. Not sure how that was supposed to work as it was so darn steep and the hillside was torn up and had downfall and timber laying everywhere. I was SO CLOSE that I could not use my scope and with the steep hillside, my head was about level with hole as I was standing upright!! I had to sight down the edge of the barrel. When it felt right, I squeezed the trigger and in one movement was getting the heck out of Dodge while I put another round in the chamber of my rifle. I made it just a short distance and turned to face the hole in the mountain again and slowly eased up to the hole. I could see the bear laying with her head on the ground. She was done. My bullet hit her just at the inside edge of her eyebrow and killed her instantly. My first shot had hit right where I had "held on hair" and did not touch her.

Now I don't know what was worse, thinking I was stalking in on a bear that was possibly wounded, or getting in one one that was perfectly healthy and could chew the snot out of me. It took me a couple hours for the adrenaline to dump from my system. I was so pumped up when this was all over. My buddy told me he didn't want to do that again. :grin:

Almost had powder burns on her head!!

David