GUNS Magazine The Reasons Hunters Miss

Wayne shot an elk with this old Savage carbine. No adjustments, settings or field limits to distract.

April, 1929. The Chowgarh tigers — by their sign an old tigress with a grown cub — had killed at least four dozen people. Ranging over 1,500 square miles of mountainous forest in northern India, they had tested the skills and resolve of hunter Jim Corbett. Then, unexpectedly near a remote village, he got his chance. Directed by reports from a local herdsman, he eased into thick cover. Suddenly a bovine leg was thrust up from the bush. Growls followed.

“On hands and knees, and pushing the rifle before me, I crawled through the bracken … then climbed [a tall] rock.” The two beasts, roughly the same size, were 20 steps away, on the carcass. Corbett concluded the light-hued cat was older. “At my shot she reared up and fell backwards.” The other cat vanished “before I could press the second trigger.” Corbett’s elation was short-lived. He had killed the cub, an error that in the next 12 months would cost the district 15 lives.

Not a missed shot, this bungled opportunity delivered the same result. The first step to killing an animal is to be sure you’re aiming at it.There are other requisites. Most have to do with basic marksmanship: a solid position, joining the rifle’s natural point of aim with the target, controlling your breathing and trigger press.

Bullet behavior after a hit counts for more than rifle accuracy at the ranges most game is shot. But neither the bullet nor the rifle matter until you use the sight.

I’ve handled the .275 Rigby bolt rifle Corbett used. It’s lightweight, well-balanced. Its rudimentary sights — a small bead settling in a shallow notch — obscure little of the target. They’re paired thoughtfully with the stock’s comb for effortless aim. When I cheeked that rifle, the sights aligned where I looked.

Here scope mechanics are a distraction. Align eye, sight and shoulder crease when it’s visible. Press.

“On hands and knees, and pushing the rifle before me, I crawled through the bracken … then climbed [a tall] rock.” The two beasts, roughly the same size, were 20 steps away, on the carcass. Corbett concluded the light-hued cat was older. “At my shot she reared up and fell backwards.” The other cat vanished “before I could press the second trigger.” Corbett’s elation was short-lived. He had killed the cub, an error that in the next 12 months would cost the district 15 lives.

Not a missed shot, this bungled opportunity delivered the same result. The first step to killing an animal is to be sure you’re aiming at it.There are other requisites. Most have to do with basic marksmanship: a solid position, joining the rifle’s natural point of aim with the target, controlling your breathing and trigger press.

Bullet behavior after a hit counts for more than rifle accuracy at the ranges most game is shot. But neither the bullet nor the rifle matter until you use the sight.

I’ve handled the .275 Rigby bolt rifle Corbett used. It’s lightweight, well-balanced. Its rudimentary sights — a small bead settling in a shallow notch — obscure little of the target. They’re paired thoughtfully with the stock’s comb for effortless aim. When I cheeked that rifle, the sights aligned where I looked.

Such precision warms the soul, but it’s unnecessary for hunting — it requires optics, time and a solid rest.

The most popular hunting sights now are jarringly different — they’re all scopes! Excepting big-bore “dangerous game” rifles, most bolt-actions wear no sights, because they’re destined for glass. “Iron” sights are relics, dear to hunters enamored of their history, the close-range challenge they impose on hunts and the light weight, clean profile and quick handling of rifles so equipped.

Magnification is the most touted advantage of scopes. Arguably more important: the joining of reticle and target in one optical plane, and the bright, sharp images scopes bring to the eye in light too dim for accurate aim with open sights.

The benefits of early scopes were offset by fogging, off-center reticles, unreliable W/E adjustments and a fragility that doomed the optics in bouts with rocks, trees, even bumps in Willys Jeeps. These ills have been remedied, and scopes blessed with features we never dreamed of when Remington’s new 700 sold for $114 and a $49 Weaver K4 was a luxury.

Lenses don’t cause bullets to stray. But, as scopes have become more sophisticated, I’ve noticed more shooters looking into them instead of maintaining focus on the target and looking through the glass. The animal is not inside the optic!

Adjustments, whose settings require thought and whose operation breaks focus, can doom a shot. Adjustability now appears on features that seldom need adjusting. Because a scope’s eyepiece focuses the reticle, it needs no attention until age alters your eyesight. “Quick-throw levers” suggest changing scope power should happen as frequently as shifting gears on a motorcycle but I’ve seen hunters muff chances at game because they were fiddling with magnification. Depending on their design, throw levers can also snag gun cases and scabbards.

On hunting rifles, scope levels seem to me equally superfluous.

While aiming is a simple act, it presumes a bullet follows the sight-line to the target. A pre-requisite: Understanding the relationship of the sight-line and bullet arc. Not long ago at a range, I heard a couple of shooters agree that to raise point of impact, they must move a rifle’s rear sight down. After gently advising the opposite, I wandered off.

Visions of long-range hits can prompt long zeros that make you miss. The most practical zero range is the farthest that doesn’t require aiming low for closer shots. A 200-yard zero keeps bullets from popular loads within three vertical inches of point of aim to 250 or a bit beyond. Most game is killed closer. Zeroed for a long poke, you’ll overshoot up close unless you consciously adjust.

Unlike gravity, wind is not a constant force. If you zero in still conditions, you’ll miss if you hold center at long range in a brisk full-value wind (at right angles to the bullet’s path). Over-estimating drift is also a peril. For most popular hunting loads, 200-yard drift from the 10-mph full-value wind cited in drift charts won’t exceed 3 ½”.

But like gravity, wind bends bullet arcs more steeply at a distance. At any range, doubling wind speed doubles the drift. I find this rule of thumb useful for pointed big game bullets at 2,600 to 3,100 fps — for 10-mph wind, figure an inch of drift at 100 yards, 2″ at 200. Triple 200-yard drift at 300; double 300-yard drift at 400. Changing wind angle from 90 degrees reduces drift. Only in a gale will wind from 1, 5, 7 and 11 o’clock matter.

Hitting is easiest when you aim center. Calculating hold-over or shading for wind is a distraction. So is apprehension. “Think of hitting the target, not avoiding a miss.” The college basketball player who sank 90 consecutive free throws in regulation play surely took that advice to heart.Then there’s the miss that wasn’t.

On the 11th of April, 1930, on the track of the Chowgahr tigress, Corbett rounded a large rock in a dry riverbed, its sand silencing his step. Turning, he got his first look at the tigress that had killed at least 64 people. It was looking at him from 8 feet.

The rifle might have come quickly to cheek, he recalled, had he not earlier picked up a couple of rare bird eggs. In his left hand, they would be crushed against the rifle if he’d lifted it. His pause at that thought may have saved him. Over long seconds, he inched the rifle, one-handed, in an arc that brought it across his chest to align with the tiger’s. The bullet furrowed the tiger’s heart, flattening on its spine.Taking care with every shot helps you hit the important ones.

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