Thread: What is a "miss"

put a 180grn round nosed hornady fired out of my .308 yesterday into a 40lb sow,she was asleep in fern and my pooch led me right into spot,bullet entered above eye (all I could see was snout and half her head) destroyed neck bones completely,into chest just and can to rest under skin at her 2nd nipple weighing 102.5grns......did the job perfectly and any old deer side on isnt going to give me that much resistance
2nd pig about 55lb made mistake of giving me glimpse at 25 yards and he copped bullet too far back...but as it was an old school 150 grn silvertip it didnt matter as it did what they supposed to do and dumped nearly all its energy on way through...bit messy to be sure,dog grabbed wounded pig then stood back and bailed when it squeeled.....died before I had walked 25 yards over to it.....job done.we lost both flaps and about 2 cup fulls of meat of one rear leg and kidney area eye fillet/steak. first pig we can eat right up to bullet channel.
first 2 shots fired in anger from this rifle and the hornadies have got the big tick for a bush load...thanks C.H.

Sadly a lot out there think that a big boomer with a huge hunk of lead is the only way to go. And the second sad one is they intend to go for the big area somewhere between the front leg and the back leg.
I had it drilled into me from birth...''get close enough till yi can smell him and put one anywhere in the eye boy''.
I have been fortunate enough to have seen 100,s of animals fall over after missing them with the shot lol.

doinit....I can think of 3 occasions in my hunting lifetime Ive come across sleeping pigs....managing to shoot one in the head while it was asleep after getting within 10 yards of it made me feel rather chuffed with my dog...the 2nd one didnt get hit right as I didnt have time,it was going out of view in a hurry...thats the third time Ive taken a running shot in last 3 years and called it too far back straight away...didnt loose any of the animals as I tend to shoot high at same time so take out hips or spine.....now if Im using my .223 which Ive shot hundreds of wallabies with...running shots seem easy....I dont gut shoot on purpose,but sometimes it just happens when Im in a hurry.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

doinit....I can think of 3 occasions in my hunting lifetime Ive come across sleeping pigs....managing to shoot one in the head while it was asleep after getting within 10 yards of it made me feel rather chuffed with my dog...the 2nd one didnt get hit right as I didnt have time,it was going out of view in a hurry...thats the third time Ive taken a running shot in last 3 years and called it too far back straight away...didnt loose any of the animals as I tend to shoot high at same time so take out hips or spine.....now if Im using my .223 which Ive shot hundreds of wallabies with...running shots seem easy....I dont gut shoot on purpose,but sometimes it just happens when Im in a hurry.

Gidday there M-Duck
Ha'ha..I wasn't actually lookin at you bud when I said the above.
Running shots on Roos eh, ha I spent a few years on the Wallaby Board aways back, chompin through 3'000 rounds of ammo per case didn't take long at all and yeah, you lost count of gut shot roos lol. You were allowed 3 shots per kill or you were down the road,one got quite nifty pretty quick lol.

I know of 3 deer shot front on that have not been recovered and believe the same thing happened as stated in the OP (going front to rear without hitting any vitals. A mate shot a sika stag front on at 30m. He said it did a back flip and hit the ground stone dead, or so he thought.. He and his son went over to it, put their rifles down and got out the knives to process it and as he bent down toward it, it jumped up, ran off never to be seen again (they looked for it for 2 hours). I have had the same with a sika stag hit front on at less than 5m. Hit centre of the chest, it turned around, ran off and that was the last I saw of it despite looking for over 3 hours on two separate days.

One of my first deer had the same with the 243. Not more than 50yrds away and walking up a little rise. I've never been good enough at head shots so aimed centre of back so it would pass through things. Yeah well it didn't. dropped like a stone at the shot but as I started to get my shit together my mate said its up!! it started trotting to the left, panic stations, missed with the second shot, 3rd into the shoulder.
When cutting it up with my more experienced friend back home we worked out that the first shot missed basically everything.
Just missed the spine and that's why it dropped but the first shot went centre through everything missing heart lungs etc.
Inch or so to one side and thru the spine-all over. couple of inches other way clipped a lung or such.

@Flyblown - thanks for an excellent post

Yeah thanks really enjoyed that

Had it happen to me as well did what I thought was a really good shot and watched a nice fallow just walk off into the bush waited for a bit then spent a couple of hours looking for it with no luck then the next weekend

Once lined up on a sambar hind with a 7mm mag at about a range of about 60 metres....Fired two shots at the animal, it didn't flinch...It just walked away. I put a target up at the same distance and further and fired...nearly spot on for accuracy. I meant to go back and look / smell for that deer later on but never did. Some times these things happen.

I shot a whitetail hind on the island last week hit the thing in the chest good blood trail for 10 meters until it ran into high fern couldn't see anything under that , 2 of us searching but after 45 mins gave up

Today with @Cupcake and @Shootm, I watched a fallow hit in the chest with a 7/375 (168gn pill doing 3250) run like a clean miss... I called it as a miss but we went to have a look anyway. Found blood, tracked with dog for a good half hour before finding her nearly dead from blood loss. Shot was a bit low and managed to smash a big hole in the offside leg without hitting vitals. Lucky we had the dog and perseverance to follow up.

Originally Posted by Dorkus

Today with @Cupcake and @Shootm, I watched a fallow hit in the chest with a 7/375 (168gn pill doing 3250) run like a clean miss... I called it as a miss but we went to have a look anyway. Found blood, tracked with dog for a good half hour before finding her nearly dead from blood loss. Shot was a bit low and managed to smash a big hole in the offside leg without hitting vitals. Lucky we had the dog and perseverance to follow up.

those wee deer can take a good hit & keep running I shot a buck a couple of years ago in a swede paddock it took off at the shot like it had never been hit jumped 2 fences , covered around 350M before it gave a couple of big leaps in the air & dropped dead on inspection the shot was mint straight through the heart if the deer hadn't of been in an open paddock we likely never would have found it

Hmmm - I didn't make it clear in the OP, the first shot from my mates 308 was the one that hit high and traversed the length of the body, it dropped on my followup shot with the 6.5x47, which was a clean close to side on shot.