When the shot goes wrong

[Polaris]

Now that it's time to scout hunting areas, work up loads, go over gear, practice shooting from field positions etc, I figured it's a good time to use the internets to learn from each others mistakes. Please share your bad experiences. Missed shots, long trails, equipment failures, etc so others can prevent said mishaps.

The one that comes to my mind involved archery hunting many years ago when I was 14. I'd seen all the pictures and hype of the new "bone splitting" broadheads in hunting catalogs back when you had to mail or phone in your order and thought they sounded absolutely great. I was using a 45# 2 wheel compound (no cams) with lightweight aluminum shafts and light chisel tipped broadhead. In hindsight, that was a bad combination.

Had a nice buck come in at 20 yards or so down a steep hill. My stand was another 10 feet above the ground. Mistake #2, I didn't compensate for the steep angle of entry. At this point my kill zone with this setup was only a few inches high. Mistake #3, I aimed too high and struck the heavy cartilage adjacent to the spine behind the shoulder. Arrow only penetrated about 4 " Despite a long and exhaustive effort to trail the deer, I ended up losing him in a large cornfield a mile away. Don't know if he lived or not. Nobody in the area ever found that deer.

 

[Guy Miner]

I knew when you said 45# and lightweight arrows, that you'd had a penetration problem... It happens.

Yeah, I missed a shot I should have made. Was after mule deer (again, go figure) with my .25-06 and had a pretty good load of 100 gr Barnes TSX over H4350 for an easy 3340 fps mv... 2007.

I saw a buck & doe together. Quite a ways away. Undulating terrain. Had to run down into a ravine, and up onto the next ridge. Closed to 400 yards. It was a ridgetop to ridgetop shot. I tried sitting. Was way to unsteady. Couldn't get the crosshairs to settle down. Breathing hard from the quarter mile run down into and up the ridge. Went prone. Things looked good. But the crosshairs were still dancing a bit... I knew my pulse was racing and I was still breathing pretty hard. Should have stopped and waited.

Nope, I got the crosshairs on the buck, more or less, and squeezed off the shot when it looked good. After all I'm one heck of a shot at 400 - 600 yards. I've won competitions and done real well in those I didn't win... Sure, a 400 yard shot is no big deal... Right...

It wasn't good. I hit close to him I'm sure. Under I think. He took off like he'd been scalded! Last I saw of that buck. He was a pretty good one too.

Wasn't the load. Wasn't the rifle. It was the hunter, the weak link in the chain. I shouldn't have taken that shot. Thankfully I missed completely instead of wounding him.

Guy

 

[Ridgerunner665]

I haven't shared this online before...but its the reason I no longer take shots on game past 600 yards...even though I know I can do it effectively, and have done it many times in the past.

803 yards, whitetail doe, 300 Win Mag loaded with 168 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips at what was supposed to be 3,150 fps muzzle velocity (a proven load in that rifle, all the way to 1,300 yards)...and it was, at 70 degrees....but it was only 19 degrees on this day.

She was quartering to me, I dialed it in...and let it fly...the shot went about 18" lower than it should have...I blew her left front leg off just above the knee...she took of on 3 legs into the swamp, headed for the island in the river...I tried for 4 days to find her before I had to go back to work...my buddy found her 2 weeks later while he was checking the fences...still alive, barely...coyotes had been a hold of her...it wasn't pretty...he finished her off.

What made me miss? My lack of knowledge, thats what...thats the day I learned about powder temp sensitivity, and it was a hard lesson for me...I've always taken pride in the fact that I'm a pretty fair shot...but I DO NOT enjoy making animals suffer like that, and I enjoyed it even less when I realized that my own lack of knowledge was the cause of it...

I chrono'd the load again the next day...in nearly the same temperature...it was barely 3,000 fps.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Rangefinders have largely corrected shooting errors that I have made in the past, along with not taking shots that are not 100% probable shots (i.e. over 400 yards for me).

 

[Thebear_78]

A couple years ago I went back to Michigan to hunt whitetails. I took my encore with a 30/06 barrel and nikon BDC scope. My dad had picked up 4 boxes of winchester 165gr PP ammo on sale so I didn't bother bringing any ammo down. The PP ammo shot very well and matched up well with the BDC reticle. I ran threw a box and a half shooting it out to 500 meters at some swinging steel and when opening day came I was very confident with the rifle and load.

Opening evening I shot a nice little buck at 290 yards right before dark, I watched him take off and stumble into a bit of brush about 40 yards from where it was shot. Since I watched him drop I didn't bother to track but walked straight to him. Perfectly hit behind the shoulder. It was dark when I dressed him so I never payed much attention to blood trail or damage.

The next morning I took a chip shot at a large doe about 90 yards away. After the shot she spun and dashed into some nearby brush. It was still early so I sat for another hour and a half before climbing down to get the doe. I couldn't believe the lack of any sign. I walked a circle pattern and followed trails thru the thick brush for two hours, unable to accept that I missed such a chip shot. Finally I accepted that I must have missed her.

The next night I shot another doe at 360 yards in a winter wheat field. At the shot I got the classic mule kick a stumble, fall, and dash to the woods. I got to the spot of the shot, nothing, no blood, no hair, just tracks in the dirt. At the edge of the woods there was still nothing, but a well worn trail where I thought the doe had run into the woods. Following that trail I found one small spot of blood about 25 yards from the spot of the shot, continuing down the trail I started finding more and more until I found the doe laying in a ditch. All said she probably covered less than 60-70 yards.

The bullet had hit perfectly where I intended, tight behind the shoulder 1/3 up the body, the exit slightly higher and forward of the shoulder. Classic lung shot. The bullet entered and exited about the size of a pencil eraser. When I got back to the barn I checked the buck I had shot, same. No expansion, penciled right thru.

I went back to where I had "missed" the doe the day earlier and searched for a few more hours to no luck. As I was getting ready to head out I noticed something white In the grass about 125 yards in the opposite direction of where I was looking. It was the doe I had shot. Hit just like I remembered at the shot. No expansion, pencil in pencil out. It wasn't until the bloat had caused lift off showing the white belly that she could be seen.

I would have never thought something as plain jane as 165gr power point would fail, let alone three in a row.

This is the second animal I have shot that I didn't recover. I hope there to never be a third. It also reminded me to believe in my shooting and keep searching for a wounded animal.

 

[Elkman]

My failures have all been chip shots at close range. I once shot a mule deer doe in the head, I can still see her running off with her jaw swinging from side to side. I never found her, nor a trace of her. I shot a cow elk at 100 yards, standing broadside with a muzzleloader. The bulet failed to break her shoulder, after 6 miles in the Idaho mountains, I believe that she probably fully recovered. She bled a little in the deep snow, but just walked and fed with the herd. I covered 6000 feet of elevation, that day. From the top of the South Fork of the Payette, to the bottom, then back up. Another deer with a bow, the shot went high, and failed to hit "anything" vital. She was in the back yard, and returned there after a few days, but much more cautious. A steep downward angle rifle shot in Hells Canyon got me a cup of blood after tracking for miles "up" and along a side hill. She would stop and feed for awhile then stand and watch for me. We were there for several days and watched for the ravens but they never showed in the area. If you hunt long enough you will have a failure, it's a given. Using more rifle than you need helps, but is not guareented, all of the above rifle shots were done with a 300 mag at under 200 yards.

 

[PJGunner]

I've been hunting for about 65 years, most deer of one type or another. California Blacktails and Mule deer for the most part with a few elk trips thrown in every once in a while. I've only lost two deer in all that time, one in Nevada and one here in Arizona. Both deer were shot with the 7x57. The first was with a custom made up in some little British gun shop to look very much like a Rigby that I got into cheap. Guess the guy was afraid of the 93 Mauser action. The only ammo in town was a couple of boxes of 175 gr. Federal round nose so that's what I had to go with. About 8AM I got a solid hit on a nice size easting deer with that neat little rifle and was thinking liver in the pan for sure. Spotted a bit of a blood trail that petered out rather quickly so looked for a while longer. Decided to head for home and get my wife who can track with the best of them. We looked for that deer until the sun went down and never found it. I went to the same spot the next day and found that deer, or what was left after the coyotes and birds had left. It had gone well over 200 yards before expiring. I sold that rifle as I was disgusted at the performance. I should have blamed the ammo. Years later I got a deal on a Winchester M70 Featherweight in 7x57 and just couldn't turn it down. I still had part of a box of that ammo that failed me as part of my cartridge collection so I went to my LGS and bought a couple of boxes to run over the Chrony along with some of the original ammo. The original only did a bit over 2000 FPS. So did the fresh ammo. :shock: Advertised velocity is 2400 FPS and change. I pulled sample bulletd from the old and new ammo and the jackets were very stout. I have to think that the deer was lost due to too low velocity (no Chrony's back in 1973) and a way too tough bullet. I might as well have been shooting a full metal jacket on that deer.
The second deer has to be my fault. Rifle was the M70 FWT stoked with the early 140 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips to a speed of 2800 FPS. This was about 12 to 13 years ago FWIW. Got an uphill shot at a nice forked horn and made a good shot as I saw the blood at the hit. THe deer was with a small herd which ran uphill while the buck took off downhill into a gully. In my hurry to get to the top of a ridge to look down into the gully my right foot went one way and the fat rear end went the other way. No more menicus in my right knee. I've walked with a limp ever since and serious bookdock hunting is now out of the question.
The above almost makes me think using a 7x57 is a jinx cartridge for me. The part that angers me more than anything else is I was hunting with my ex-son in law and his son. They were more concerned on getting me to a doctor than finding my deer. :x I could have sat on that hillside while they found it as I didn't hurt all that much as long as I wasn't standing or trying to walk.
Paul B.

 

[truck driver]

We had had a light snow, just enough to make the ground white and I was hunting an abandoned farm which all the tillable land had been sold off for houses. I was standing near an old pond bank when I saw a doe stand up from her bed. I raised the rifle and shot she was about 50yds. she jumped and ran at the shot like she wasn't hit. I was so surprised that I for got to reload for a follow up and was gone when I realized she wasn't hit. So I started looking for signs of why I missed and found a twig about the size of a drinking straw that the bullet had struck, a 165gr Hornady Inner lock. After 15minutes I decided to track her in the snow and hope for another shot. That's when I found blood just a little here and there and at times a lot. I knew she was hit fairly good so I kept tracking as the snow was melting the snow and I was loosing my trail.I found her 400yds away under a multiple rose thicket where she had laid down and died. That was the closest I ever came to loosing a deer. The bullet had tumbled after hitting the limb and struck at the point of aim and struck a rib on the off side and traveled the whole length of here body coming to rest on the same side it had entered. I have never seen a wound cavity that extensive and not stop an animal. Just shows how determined to survive some animals are.