Ethical hunting kills with iron sights - Page 3

Picher · March 24, 2019, 12:27 PM

The only game animal I ever shot with iron sights was a deer that I shot with a 20 gauge pump with just a bead. It was running full tilt across my path and I hit it through the shoulder/lungs with a Brenneke slug at about 40 yards, through an opening in the alders. It dropped instantly and died quickly. All my hunting rifles have scopes on them and most don't have iron sight backup. If it's too nasty to hunt with a scoped rifle, it's too nasty for me.

eastbank · March 25, 2019, 08:28 AM

in nasty weather I use plain open sights, rain-snow. I have hunted in those conditions with a scope and missed animal due to fogging(breath) on out side of the scope lens, snow on the lens while trying to sneek up on deer in heavy brush with caps open. I feel good about shots taken on deer to a hundred yards with open sights.

Nodak1858 · March 26, 2019, 11:16 PM

I use one of my Garands for whitetails. Longest shot was around 150 yards. Other shots have been 50 to 100 yards. Deer at 100 yards are a decent size target to have.

Jack O'Conner · April 22, 2019, 04:32 PM

I always hunted small game with iron sights until my eyes changed at about age 27. All my hunting rifles wear scopes these days.

Jack

RaySendero · April 22, 2019, 07:16 PM

I usually use a scope. BUT

22LR - Have shot squirrels from 20 to 40 yards
Sight was a V-notch.

303B - Have killed deer from 4 to 90 yards, a coyote at 85 and hogs at 20 to 60.
The deer at 4 was still and some of the hogs at 20 were running. Got these with the ghost ring.
Rest were with the small aperture lob.
All were in good daylight.

Wyosmith · September 21, 2019, 12:55 AM

IMG_20190918_192827625 by Steve Zihn, on Flickr

Got another one with iron sights on my Winchester M95 in 270.
40 yards.

hooligan1 · September 21, 2019, 12:20 PM

It was a Rem 700, 3006.
Spike buck at 125 yds.

Husqvarna · November 25, 2019, 02:01 PM

A few roedeer at up to 100m (irons sighted in at 80m with s higher poi than poa.)

Smoothbore shotgun with slugs, just a bead 75ish meters, big boar

A bullmoose 200m+ but that was a gamble, it was already wounded

natman · November 25, 2019, 06:45 PM

A squirrel at about 20 yards. A pig with a 30-30 Marlin 336 at about 50 yards. That's about it, I preferred a peep over open sights back when I hunted without a scope.

Nowadays, I can't do the focus change from front sight to target anymore, so I hunt mostly with a scope. The exception is turkey hunting. I can't focus on the front sight, but I have fiber optic sights on my turkey shotgun and I can still put the red blur between the two green blurs well enough to hit a stationary target at 40 yards with a shotgun.

Doyle · November 25, 2019, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Nowadays, I can't do the focus change from front sight to target anymore

Yea. Getting old isn't fun.

natman · November 26, 2019, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doyle

Yea. Getting old isn't fun.

Yes, but I have yet to find a viable alternative.

Picher · November 28, 2019, 06:36 AM

I've shot so many critters with iron sights, I don't know where to begin, except at the beginning.

I wore out three BB guns before I was 14 and shot lots of red squirrels, frogs, and I hate to admit, tweeties. When I "graduated" firearms, my first rifle was a Stevens semi-auto and it shot rabbits, woodchucks, rats in "dumps" (they're all "sanitary landfills"... no rats and no shooting allowed. I finally scoped it and shot it at a range. That darned rifle didn't group better than 3" at fifty yards, but it killed lots of critters with iron sights at 15 to 20 yards in the woods. After targeting, I lost all faith in the rifle and traded it.

Later in my teen years, I managed to get a new Marlin 39A Mountie and put a receiver sight on it. That rifle would honestly hit a quarter with every shot at 50 yards. It was short but not especially light, so it held steadily and killed a lot of red squirrels high in the trees at camp and got more than it's share of rabbits elsewhere.

That Marlin was the last rifle that I've had that didn't wear a scope.

GarandTd · November 28, 2019, 11:36 AM

I'm a decent shot, but I know there are many marksmen that are much better than me with training, better equipment, and shooting venues that allow them to advance their skills.

However.....

Shooting at a stationary 4 foot white circle at 600 yards in the prone position from a mat or deck is not going to compare to shooting a deer, possibly in motion, in 3 foot prairie grasses while standing unsupported from hundreds of yards away..

I'm not trying to discredit the target shooting prowess of anyone, including competitors and those in the military, and I'm not looking to be impressed. I am simply asking for real world experiences, good and bad, relevant to the the thread.

Ethical hunting kills with iron sights

natman · November 29, 2019, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GarandTd

I'm a decent shot, but I know there are many marksmen that are much better than me with training, better equipment, and shooting venues that allow them to advance their skills.

However.....

Shooting at a stationary 4 foot white circle at 600 yards in the prone position from a mat or deck is not going to compare to shooting a deer, possibly in motion, in 3 foot prairie grasses while standing unsupported from hundreds of yards away..

I'm not trying to discredit the target shooting prowess of anyone, including competitors and those in the military, and I'm not looking to be impressed. I am simply asking for real world experiences, good and bad, relevant to the the thread.

Ethical hunting kills with iron sights

Target shooters are capable of amazing shots, but the biggest differences are that they shoot at known distances and get sighting shots, neither of which apply to hunting. Also, deer rarely have nice high contrast circles of the proper diameter on their fur.

dahermit · November 29, 2019, 11:03 AM

To sum up the human element to an ethical hunting question is likely, "If I do it, it is not ethical...only other hunters do things that are unethical.

jimbob86 · December 11, 2019, 02:20 AM

I have made a a lot of incredibly long shots with a .22 rifle as a kid ..... a crow in the middle of a 1/4 section beanfield comes to mind .... a bird on the other side of a canyon, too far to see- just saw where he landed, held over a ridiculous amount and tapped the trigger twice- a puff of dust and he's floppin' around..... Were they ethical shots? ....probably not..... was it "skill" probably not that either- I just shot at lots of things ..... a blind squirrel bumps into a nut once in while.

Later on, I shot a lot of prairie dogs at silly ranges with an open sighted 22..... Game animals? I killed a doe with a flintlock at about 30 yards ...... a button buck with a 30/30 about the same distance... a yearling doe from about 20 yards with a Bubba'd Commission rifle... hit and lost a buck that year with the same gun from about 100 yards........ and of course a lot of turkeys and pheasants with a shotgun.... longest was 50. .... My regular deer rifle has a scope on it ..... so I don't really shoot at deer that much with irons ...... I have several old milsurps that I shoot targets with ..... have never taken any of them hunting, mostly because they reek of cosmoline......

Scorch · December 11, 2019, 02:37 AM

I started hunting at 15 with a Winchester 94, so everything I shot at for 4 years was with that rifle. My next step was a Spanish Mauser in 7X57, and I hunted plenty with that for the next few years. I shot deer and hogs out to about 150-ish yds, coyotes and jack rabbits out to 200-ish yds. The limiting factor with a 94 and a 1916 Spanish Mauser are the sights and how important it is to place your shot well, you can't see where your shot is going to hit past 150 yds because the sights cover the whole animal. At that point you are just aiming at the whole animal, and you can hit it just about anywhere. When I got a scoped rifle things changed, but iron sights pretty much limits most shooters to 100-150 yds.

JUSTinTYME · December 16, 2019, 06:06 AM

i shot a large doe this year with my Winchester 94 and iron sights. She was about 70 yards and I made a high neck shot. She dropped where she was standing.

Cheapshooter · December 17, 2019, 05:45 PM

My first buck 35 years ago. M1 Garand @ 125 yds. Square in the chest. I thought I had missed. Went to check after it ran, and found no blood. Walked back tonmy stand which was to the side of where it ran. After a half hour I thought I would go to the trail it was on, and see if there was a blood trail later. As I got to the woods line about 50 yards from my stand I saw it laying under a big Cedar that was blockng my view. From where I shot it had ran only 75-100 yards, and dtopped. Took out the heart, and pieces of both lungs.

7.62 man · December 17, 2019, 05:54 PM

The only game that I have shot with a gun that has irons on it was a squirrel. It was about 50yds away. I had been practicing with this gun & knew exactly where to aim & knocked the squirrel right out of the tree, but that was back when I was young. All my large game guns now have scopes on them. It's not that I feel more ethical using scopes, it's because I know how bad my eyes are & want a little better chance of hitting what I'm shooting at.

jimbob86 · December 17, 2019, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Its not a matter of iron sights limiting the range, its a matter of the range limiting the shot, and iron sights being used because they are perfectly adequate for those ranges, and are used because iron sights offer some advantages a scope does not.

44, What Advantages are these, and what scope and rig are you thinking is so hampered? ..... There are answers that have been offered to problems encountered in the past.... yet it seems no one reads anymore ....

tahunua001 · January 9, 2020, 04:55 PM

longest was exactly 100 yards on a blackbear with a type 44 Arisaka carbine. was extremely lucky that I got it, because the bullet broke in half on impact with a rib, luckily both halves hit something vital and he only made it about 20 yards before dropping.

other than shotgun hits on turkey that is also my only iron sight kill.

Picher · January 20, 2020, 11:50 AM

One day, I was hunting varmints with both a rifle and .22 Ruger Auto handgun. Hunting alone, I spied a large rusty can in a hayfield, 100 yards away and downhill from my position. I put my rifle down and, standing, but leaning against a tree, I fired once with the handgun and heard a "plop". Hmm...cans don't "plop" when you hit them, I said to myself. Walking down to the "target" I found a plump woodchuck with a fresh bullet hole through the head. Coulda knocked me over with a feather! Where are all the witnesses when you pull off a shot like that???

Tommyb78 · January 20, 2020, 01:35 PM

Shot my first deer with a model 99 savage in .300 savage. Iron sights at 160ish yards. Dropped that doe in its tracks. It was my grandpas gun and one of the first rifles I’d ever shot. Had a lot of practice with it and was
Fairly proficient with it. Sits in my safe today. 20 years later. I take it out once or twice every deer season when I’m feeling nostalgic. Would still feel comfortable taking that shot to this day.

Hawg · January 20, 2020, 08:02 PM

I'm 63 years old and can't get out and hunt anymore but the last deer I killed was on the last day I hunted. I made a 65 yard behind the ear head shot with a scratch built muzzle loader with a round ball. The rifle has a full buckhorn rear sight. When I was young I despised scopes and put off using one as long as I could. It wasn't until I started hunting soybean fields that I accepted them as legitimate sights. I still refuse to scope a lever action and as long as the shots are 100 yards more or less I'm still confidant in my ability to make a clean kill.

March 26, 2019, 11:16 PM	#53
Nodak1858 Senior Member Join Date: September 7, 2009 Location: N. Dakota Posts: 435	I use one of my Garands for whitetails. Longest shot was around 150 yards. Other shots have been 50 to 100 yards. Deer at 100 yards are a decent size target to have. __________________ We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

April 22, 2019, 04:32 PM	#54
Jack O'Conner Senior Member Join Date: July 11, 2005 Location: Manatee County, Florida Posts: 1,976	I always hunted small game with iron sights until my eyes changed at about age 27. All my hunting rifles wear scopes these days. Jack __________________ Fire up the grill! Deer hunting IS NOT catch and release.

April 22, 2019, 07:16 PM	#55
RaySendero Senior Member Join Date: August 23, 2010 Location: US South Posts: 857	I usually use a scope. BUT 22LR - Have shot squirrels from 20 to 40 yards Sight was a V-notch. 303B - Have killed deer from 4 to 90 yards, a coyote at 85 and hogs at 20 to 60. The deer at 4 was still and some of the hogs at 20 were running. Got these with the ghost ring. Rest were with the small aperture lob. All were in good daylight. __________________ *Ray*

September 21, 2019, 12:20 PM	#57
hooligan1 Senior Member Join Date: July 18, 2010 Location: Independence Missouri Posts: 4,585	It was a Rem 700, 3006. Spike buck at 125 yds. __________________ Keep your Axe sharp and your powder dry.

November 25, 2019, 06:45 PM	#59
natman Senior Member Join Date: June 24, 2008 Posts: 2,606	A squirrel at about 20 yards. A pig with a 30-30 Marlin 336 at about 50 yards. That's about it, I preferred a peep over open sights back when I hunted without a scope. Nowadays, I can't do the focus change from front sight to target anymore, so I hunt mostly with a scope. The exception is turkey hunting. I can't focus on the front sight, but I have fiber optic sights on my turkey shotgun and I can still put the red blur between the two green blurs well enough to hit a stationary target at 40 yards with a shotgun. __________________ Time Travelers' Wisdom: Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow. If At Last You Do Succeed, Never Try Again.

March 24, 2019, 12:27 PM	#51
Picher Senior Member Join Date: December 14, 2004 Location: Maine Posts: 3,694	The only game animal I ever shot with iron sights was a deer that I shot with a 20 gauge pump with just a bead. It was running full tilt across my path and I hit it through the shoulder/lungs with a Brenneke slug at about 40 yards, through an opening in the alders. It dropped instantly and died quickly. All my hunting rifles have scopes on them and most don't have iron sight backup. If it's too nasty to hunt with a scoped rifle, it's too nasty for me.

March 25, 2019, 08:28 AM	#52
eastbank Senior Member Join Date: February 7, 2008 Location: pa. Posts: 2,450	in nasty weather I use plain open sights, rain-snow. I have hunted in those conditions with a scope and missed animal due to fogging(breath) on out side of the scope lens, snow on the lens while trying to sneek up on deer in heavy brush with caps open. I feel good about shots taken on deer to a hundred yards with open sights.

September 21, 2019, 12:55 AM	#56
Wyosmith Senior Member Join Date: December 29, 2010 Location: Shoshoni Wyoming Posts: 2,713	IMG_20190918_192827625 by Steve Zihn, on Flickr Got another one with iron sights on my Winchester M95 in 270. 40 yards.

November 25, 2019, 02:01 PM	#58
Husqvarna Senior Member Join Date: May 7, 2012 Location: Sweden Posts: 1,000	A few roedeer at up to 100m (irons sighted in at 80m with s higher poi than poa.) Smoothbore shotgun with slugs, just a bead 75ish meters, big boar A bullmoose 200m+ but that was a gamble, it was already wounded

November 28, 2019, 06:36 AM	#62
Picher Senior Member Join Date: December 14, 2004 Location: Maine Posts: 3,694	I've shot so many critters with iron sights, I don't know where to begin, except at the beginning. I wore out three BB guns before I was 14 and shot lots of red squirrels, frogs, and I hate to admit, tweeties. When I "graduated" firearms, my first rifle was a Stevens semi-auto and it shot rabbits, woodchucks, rats in "dumps" (they're all "sanitary landfills"... no rats and no shooting allowed. I finally scoped it and shot it at a range. That darned rifle didn't group better than 3" at fifty yards, but it killed lots of critters with iron sights at 15 to 20 yards in the woods. After targeting, I lost all faith in the rifle and traded it. Later in my teen years, I managed to get a new Marlin 39A Mountie and put a receiver sight on it. That rifle would honestly hit a quarter with every shot at 50 yards. It was short but not especially light, so it held steadily and killed a lot of red squirrels high in the trees at camp and got more than it's share of rabbits elsewhere. That Marlin was the last rifle that I've had that didn't wear a scope.

November 28, 2019, 11:36 AM	#63
GarandTd Senior Member Join Date: June 15, 2016 Location: Rural PA Posts: 1,639	I'm a decent shot, but I know there are many marksmen that are much better than me with training, better equipment, and shooting venues that allow them to advance their skills. However..... Shooting at a stationary 4 foot white circle at 600 yards in the prone position from a mat or deck is not going to compare to shooting a deer, possibly in motion, in 3 foot prairie grasses while standing unsupported from hundreds of yards away.. I'm not trying to discredit the target shooting prowess of anyone, including competitors and those in the military, and I'm not looking to be impressed. I am simply asking for real world experiences, good and bad, relevant to the the thread. Ethical hunting kills with iron sights __________________ 22lr, 20 gauge, 8mm Mauser, 35 Remington, 30-06, 5.56x45/223, 9mm, 380acp

November 29, 2019, 11:03 AM	#65
dahermit Senior Member Join Date: October 28, 2006 Location: South Central Michigan...near Posts: 6,501	To sum up the human element to an ethical hunting question is likely, "*If I do it,* it is not ethical...only other hunters do things that are *unethical*.

December 11, 2019, 02:20 AM	#66
jimbob86 Junior member Join Date: October 4, 2007 Location: All the way to NEBRASKA Posts: 8,722	I have made a a lot of incredibly long shots with a .22 rifle as a kid ..... a crow in the middle of a 1/4 section beanfield comes to mind .... a bird on the other side of a canyon, too far to see- just saw where he landed, held over a ridiculous amount and tapped the trigger twice- a puff of dust and he's floppin' around..... Were they ethical shots? ....probably not..... was it "skill" probably not that either- I just shot at lots of things ..... a blind squirrel bumps into a nut once in while. Later on, I shot a lot of prairie dogs at silly ranges with an open sighted 22..... Game animals? I killed a doe with a flintlock at about 30 yards ...... a button buck with a 30/30 about the same distance... a yearling doe from about 20 yards with a Bubba'd Commission rifle... hit and lost a buck that year with the same gun from about 100 yards........ and of course a lot of turkeys and pheasants with a shotgun.... longest was 50. .... My regular deer rifle has a scope on it ..... so I don't really shoot at deer that much with irons ...... I have several old milsurps that I shoot targets with ..... have never taken any of them hunting, mostly because they reek of cosmoline......

December 11, 2019, 02:37 AM	#67
Scorch Senior Member Join Date: February 13, 2006 Location: Washington state Posts: 15,248	I started hunting at 15 with a Winchester 94, so everything I shot at for 4 years was with that rifle. My next step was a Spanish Mauser in 7X57, and I hunted plenty with that for the next few years. I shot deer and hogs out to about 150-ish yds, coyotes and jack rabbits out to 200-ish yds. The limiting factor with a 94 and a 1916 Spanish Mauser are the sights and how important it is to place your shot well, you can't see where your shot is going to hit past 150 yds because the sights cover the whole animal. At that point you are just aiming at the whole animal, and you can hit it just about anywhere. When I got a scoped rifle things changed, but iron sights pretty much limits most shooters to 100-150 yds. __________________ Never try to educate someone who resists knowledge at all costs. But what do I know? Summit Arms Services

December 16, 2019, 06:06 AM	#68
JUSTinTYME Member Join Date: April 25, 2014 Location: PA Posts: 77	i shot a large doe this year with my Winchester 94 and iron sights. She was about 70 yards and I made a high neck shot. She dropped where she was standing. __________________ 12B Last edited by JUSTinTYME; December 16, 2019 at 06:16 AM.

December 17, 2019, 05:45 PM	#69
Cheapshooter Senior Member Join Date: December 2, 2007 Location: Missouri Posts: 8,306	My first buck 35 years ago. M1 Garand @ 125 yds. Square in the chest. I thought I had missed. Went to check after it ran, and found no blood. Walked back tonmy stand which was to the side of where it ran. After a half hour I thought I would go to the trail it was on, and see if there was a blood trail later. As I got to the woods line about 50 yards from my stand I saw it laying under a big Cedar that was blockng my view. From where I shot it had ran only 75-100 yards, and dtopped. Took out the heart, and pieces of both lungs. __________________ Cheapshooter's rules of gun ownership #1: NEVER SELL OR TRADE ANYTHING!

December 17, 2019, 05:54 PM	#70
7.62 man Senior Member Join Date: April 30, 2009 Location: Cyber-world USA Posts: 258	The only game that I have shot with a gun that has irons on it was a squirrel. It was about 50yds away. I had been practicing with this gun & knew exactly where to aim & knocked the squirrel right out of the tree, but that was back when I was young. All my large game guns now have scopes on them. It's not that I feel more ethical using scopes, it's because I know how bad my eyes are & want a little better chance of hitting what I'm shooting at.

January 9, 2020, 04:55 PM	#72
tahunua001 Senior Member Join Date: July 21, 2011 Location: Idaho Posts: 7,839	longest was exactly 100 yards on a blackbear with a type 44 Arisaka carbine. was extremely lucky that I got it, because the bullet broke in half on impact with a rib, luckily both halves hit something vital and he only made it about 20 yards before dropping. other than shotgun hits on turkey that is also my only iron sight kill. __________________ ignore my complete lack of capitalization. I still have no problem correcting your grammar. I never said half the stuff people said I did-Albert Einstein You can't believe everything you read on the internet-Benjamin Franklin

January 20, 2020, 11:50 AM	#73
Picher Senior Member Join Date: December 14, 2004 Location: Maine Posts: 3,694	One day, I was hunting varmints with both a rifle and .22 Ruger Auto handgun. Hunting alone, I spied a large rusty can in a hayfield, 100 yards away and downhill from my position. I put my rifle down and, standing, but leaning against a tree, I fired once with the handgun and heard a "plop". Hmm...cans don't "plop" when you hit them, I said to myself. Walking down to the "target" I found a plump woodchuck with a fresh bullet hole through the head. Coulda knocked me over with a feather! Where are all the witnesses when you pull off a shot like that???

January 20, 2020, 01:35 PM	#74
Tommyb78 Member Join Date: January 1, 2015 Posts: 23	Shot my first deer with a model 99 savage in .300 savage. Iron sights at 160ish yards. Dropped that doe in its tracks. It was my grandpas gun and one of the first rifles I’d ever shot. Had a lot of practice with it and was Fairly proficient with it. Sits in my safe today. 20 years later. I take it out once or twice every deer season when I’m feeling nostalgic. Would still feel comfortable taking that shot to this day.

January 20, 2020, 08:02 PM	#75
Hawg Senior Member Join Date: September 8, 2007 Location: Mississippi Posts: 16,188	I'm 63 years old and can't get out and hunt anymore but the last deer I killed was on the last day I hunted. I made a 65 yard behind the ear head shot with a scratch built muzzle loader with a round ball. The rifle has a full buckhorn rear sight. When I was young I despised scopes and put off using one as long as I could. It wasn't until I started hunting soybean fields that I accepted them as legitimate sights. I still refuse to scope a lever action and as long as the shots are 100 yards more or less I'm still confidant in my ability to make a clean kill.