"inapropriate" hunting weapons

[warbirdlover]

I guess I must be inapprpriate because I don't shoot my compound bow "all year long" In fact, I may go as long as 2 months in the middle of winter without shooting it at all. The rest of the year I might only shoot a couple times a week so every deer and turkey I kill must also be inappropriate............

DougU, I think he is talking more about people who bring it out a month before season and shoot it once or twice before they go out thinking it is a crossbow.

I do know a guy who sights his weapons on one day a week before season and that is it. He is in his 60s and spent a lot more time with them when he was younger. Once he shot a single shot with his muzzle loader at 125 yds, it was on target and he put it aside satisfied. He has hunted at least twice as long as I have been alive and no reports of him wounding anything that got away, so I can't judge. I know others who don't shoot well enough to be able to zero their shotguns at 45 yards with $50 worth of sabotted slugs.

No offense. I've just gutted alot of deer and found alot of broadheads in them... I shouldn't have made that all year. I should have said "shot enough to guarantee making a killing shot at the range the shot is taken".

I know one guy would pull his bow out the day before the season started, shoot a couple arrows and he was ready. One time he stumbled and tripped (not really) and shot a deer at 60 yards. Then he bragged about doing it when in fact he couldn't hit a paper plate at 10 yards consistently. That was my point.

[TXAZ]

Ground hog vs. .50 BMG round

[Deja vu]

Ground hog vs. .50 BMG round

unless you plan to eat them that is a good way to learn to shoot a 50cal. Combined with good a range finder.

[Creek Henry]

The dumbest thing I've read in a hunting magazine was a guy that took an elk at 200 yards with a 243. The writer even stated that he thought it was a bad idea before he pulled the trigger.

[RaySendero]

The USS Iowa was the ultimate "varmit" gun!

[Art Eatman]

Creek Henry, I certainly wouldn't choose my .243 for an elk gun. However, with a patient and basically-lazy elk at only 200 yards? The neck shot would be a gimme.

[Gunplummer]

You mean .303 Savage, right?

[Saltydog235]

I killed a sow a couple of years ago duck hunting with a load of Heavyshot to the neck from about 10-12 feet. Those shells aren't cheap so I dispatched the two piglets with her with a boat paddle. Heck of a thing hitting the landing with no ducks (real warm and slow that morning) but with three pigs on the bow and one shot fired.

[Wyoredman]

Creek, I shot my elk this year with a .243, and she was at 200 yards!

Worked fine! The SKS on the antelope was the stangest gun I have seen used on game, but after some thought I don't think it was inapropriate.

I once used a .44 Mag S&W 629 on antelope. That might have been inapropriate because i couldn't hit anything! I'm not a good long distance pistol shot!

[samsmix]

Actually, I didn't specify Savage or British, but I'd use either .303 on black bear.

In truth, most antelope hunts are as much a road hunt as anything. You can try to spot and stalk, but as often as not you bump into them just over a rise in the two track road, and they are standing at less than 200yards, or running broadside at 50yards, and for that a .30-30 or SKS will do just fine.

[Art Eatman]

I guess sometimes a hot load from an '06 might be deemed "inappropriate":

http://thefiringline.com/forums/atta...1&d=1135262262

[rickyrick]

Looks like an alien spawn was born from that coyote, LOL.

[Scorch]

Inappropriate? Hmmm.
Colt Combat Commander in 45 ACP on a mulie? 5' is perfect range.
22LR on geese? Head shots only.
The red mist from a 22-250 on ground squirrels used to make my ex queasy.
Hmmm.
375 H&H on jackrabbits? Looks like science class.
30-30 in wild boar? No? How about right smack in the forehead from 15' away? Messy.
7X57 on bobcats? Really makes their eyes bug out if you hit them in the ear.
I think maybe the 8mm Rem Mag on a feral cat was inappropriate, but I'm not sure, couldn't find enough to check.

[sserdlihc]

I have friends who live in Florida that take deer with 22-250 and 17 Remington.

[samsmix]

The .22-250 will fell even a big MT Mulie with one well placed shot, as long as you use make good ammo choices, and pass on bad shot angles. The .17Rem....I know it gets done, I even know a local who has killed several does, a mountain lion, a few bobcats, and many coyotes with one, but I can't quite get myself past the fact that my childhood pellet gun was a .17.

[TX Hunter]

I reviewed your list, and 30 30 is great on Wild Boar, we have alot of them here, and many are killed with that cartridge, usually from a model 94 Winchester, or a Marlin.

[Jo6pak]

I find it amusing that threads like these always devolve into, "I killed a charging rhino with a .17HMR" type of stories. OK, I've seen my great uncle dispatch 400 pound pigs with a single shot from his .22 revolver, but he could walk up behind them and put a bullet directly into the brainstem. But this is more clsely related to turning off a light switch than it is to hunting.

It's not about what has been done, it's about using the correct tool for the job. I can use a butterknife to tighten a loose screw or a crescent wrench to hammer a nail, but is it the proper tool for the job?

Yes, in the stone age, bison were killed with sharpened sticks. But in the stone age no one cared if the animal was killed humanely, they only cared about the meat on the spit. WE, on the other hand, can go to a supermarket and buy our protein, thus we must be held to an ethical standard when hunting. That standard is to use the best possible way to kill an animal quickly and humanely.
If you need many caveats in defending ones choice for caliber/gun combinations, (ie. "If the range is kept short", "If the shots are precisely placed", etc.). Then maybe you should rethinkk your choices.

There will be many opinions on this subject, but it always comes back to using the proper tool for the job.

[FairWarning]

I wouldn't dream of using any handgun less than .357 Mag for whitetail.

And I stopped using 12 GA for squirrels around college age because it was a bit too much and really too easy. Same goes for semi-auto shotguns in general with a possible exception for birds, but even then I wouldn't use it. More of a challenge to harvest squirrel with .22 LR or a single barrel 20 GA.

I wouldn't bother with something as beastly as .375 H&H for anything in North America short of Kodiak.

[Creek Henry]

Creek Henry, I certainly wouldn't choose my .243 for an elk gun. However, with a patient and basically-lazy elk at only 200 yards? The neck shot would be a gimme.

I believe the author in question was using 55 grainer or there abouts though... I hope you were using 95gr!

Actually, the most horrid thing I've heard of was from my cousin-in-law who is mental whose discresions include but are not limited to: has shot powerlines with a 30-06, killed deer with 12 rounds from a 22lr rifle, killed a deer with 7 rounds of 12ga birdshot, and I was watched him twist the head almost off of a wounded jackrabbit. The dude scares me so I don't even varmint hunt with him anymore.

[samsmix]

Creek Henry,
Your cousin-in-law is an A........I guess I'm not supposed to use that word on TFL. Thank you for refusing to hunt with him. When he gets tired of finding new hunting partners, he'll hopefully quit hunting.

Joe6pak,
Would I hunt whitetails with a 9mm? Well....no. I was guiding a friend who shot a small buck with an '06. I brought my Browning HP to dispatch any wounded critters. I wanted to concentrate on helping him, not filling my own tag. As we approached his dead buck, a doe and fawn got up in front of him, and ran crossways in front of me at about 25 FEET, I put a 124gr hollowpoint into her front shoulder and lungs. She went down, and had we been at rifle distances I have no doubt we'd have found her dead. As she was so close, I walked over and shot her again in the head.

I have also used the .44spl/200gr Gold Dot @ 800fps from my Super Blackhawk to take both whitetails and mulies. They died. Fast.

[Irish B]

When I was 11 I used to try and go after coyotes with my pellet gun. Luckily I never got close enough to hit one. I feel that was an inappropriate weapon for the task I was trying to accomplish.

[rickyrick]

When I was a kid, I discovered that the box propped up with a stick with a long string attached never works, even after 746 attempts. Various lasso's and the like are inefficient also.

[Colorado Redneck]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY0w1c-gf18

This is one long shot, and made with a 243. For all of us naysayers, this is proof that elk can be taken over 200 yards with a 243. There are other videos on youtube by this same outfit. I have a small bit of suspicion that another shooter made the shot, but then again, what do I know? I ran the ballistics on JBM and the remaining energy at that distance is just under 1200 ft. lbs. of energy, the bareassed minimum according to experts, for taking elk.

[samsmix]

You know, I was thinking more of an incidental "it was the gun I had" type thing when I started this thread, not a confession booth for people who purposely chose a poor tool for the job.

[Hansam]

A couple years ago I took a running buck from about 75yds with a Chinese AK chambered in .223Rem. 6 pointer weighing just under 160lbs dressed. Neck shot - it flipped over in mid leap and died where it landed. Entry wound the size of a .223 bullet - exit wound the size of my hand.

A couple years before that I took a smaller buck - 4 pointer weighing about 100lbs dressed - with a custom 1911. 5" barrel, 230gr JHP - shot taken at 20yds. Head shot - the deer died where it stood.

Last year one of my neighbors took an 8 point buck with a .38sp revolver - 6.5" barrel. Weighed in at about 140lbs dressed - 15 yd shot he said - one bullet to the vitals and the buck ran 25yds then died.

All of these deer were whitetails.