Hey! I resemble that remark!

sassafrastea over at KentuckyHunting.net writes as follows:

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The last two nights, JUST before dark (around 5:45), I have heard rifle shots close to home. Both times there were 3 shots fired in close succession, three shots in less than half a minute. Also heard the same gunfire opening day (Sat morning at the crack of dawn). The other days (between opening day and the night before last) I had the windows closed, so didn’t hear anything.

I am not a hunter but we have friends who hunt the farm, and they were out here yesterday afternoon hunting. I went to see if they got a deer, but they didn’t. There were four of them out there hunting. They heard the shots, too, but it wasn’t any of them shooting, in fact, not one of them took a shot. Tonight, none of our friends were out here hunting, so I know it wasn’t them shooting tonight.

I am just wondering…why would anyone take 3 shots like that? Is it possible to do that with a *legal* rifle (reloading it that quickly)? Or would it have to be a semi-automatic?

It makes me nervous to know someone is out there shooting that close to home, and I don’t know who it is.

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To which I respond:

Hey! I resemble that remark! (rimshot). But seriously folks . . .

I got into this with a mad Scotsman over on the old .shooters.com board years ago. His point was that any hunter requiring more than one shot to down an animal needed to be jailed and sterilized. At the time, I had a string of one-shot kills on deer stretching back over many years, but it still did not make sense to me.

I much preferred the philosophy of professional hunter JJHack over on the 24hourcampfire. Years ago, JJ was expounding on hunting in South Africa over on the old Coleman site (alloutdoors.com). He said an important key to being a good hunter was not only making a good shot, but also being prepared for successive shots to put the animal down as quickly as possible.

Back to the mad Scotsman. This guy was all over me regarding the fact that I’d “admitted” to hunting with a Remington 742. It’s a Semi-auto capable of 5 shots without working a bolt. It is one of my favorite deer rifles, especially at close range. No, I don’t spray and pray, but I always shoot and then get my crosshairs back on the deer as quickly as I can to see if I can make a follow-up shot. 30-06 usually puts a whitetail down with the first round, but I have no qualms about a follow-up shot.

Lately, I’ve been having trouble getting a one-shot kill out of a 30-30. I don’t want to diss on the venerable 30-30, but I’ve had 4 deer come to harm in three seasons with my Marlin 336, and they’ve all just stood there and begged for a second shot or walked away like nothing has happened. In those cases, I end up having to pump a second or third shot into them to get them to lay down. It’s spooky. This season, I finally vowed to put the 30-30 to other uses and fall back on a Savage 99 in 308 that has a bit more whallop.

Whether I’m hunting with a bolt, a lever, or a semi, the last thing I want to catch myself doing is succumbing to “golfers syndrome”– getting so caught up with the shot, that you sit there and watch the game run away. If one shot to the heart/lung area does it, fine. However, I am one hunter that trys and puts as many as possible into the deer. If I can get a second or even a third shot into the animal before it goes down, I still call it a success. Even if it does go down, the next round is in and the crosshairs are on the deer until I am sure it is not getting up.

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