Did I Miss?

[dlbleak]

missed my first deer ever.my son used my rifle last weekend to take a doe at 225 yards.he had the scope dialed up to 9.today,i'm ground hunting and have a doe come within 60 yards.i raise my gun and let her clear some brush.pull the trigger with what i think is an easy shot.when i walk over there is no blood,no hair,nothing. i walk back,sit down and look at the direction again.yep,its right where i thought i should be looking.then i look at the scope and see its on 9.the shot was slightly uphill. did i shoot over her or under her?

 

[Boomer]

Well with the scope dialed up to 9 there may have been a twig or something that deflected the bullet that you couldnt see with the scope on 9 power.


I would dial the scope down to 3 sit back down and look through the scope if all remains clear then I would start walking a circle from where she was when you shot and just get wider and wider with the circle until you feel certain you missed.




you may have pulled and not knowed it if this is your first miss it may be tougher for you to swallow..........Good Luck

 

[Hondafire]

What caliber are you shooting? You may have hit her and there is just no blood or hair. Sometimes if your bullet does not pass through this can happen. I had a friend of mine shoot a doe with his blackpowder, it left no blood and no hair but we found the deer about 75 yrds away and a good shot had been made on it.

 

[dennishoddy]

First of all, if you have a good variable power scope it should make no difference on the point of impact no matter what it was set on.
At the range, shoot it at the low power, and then at the mid range, and then at high power. It should hit at the same point. If it doesn't then you have a scope problem.
If shooting up hill or down hill, at steep angles at long range, you will find that gravity will effect the trajectory of the bullet. Its no difference than bow hunting from a tree and shooting down hill. Uphill or downhill it makes no difference, the bullet/arrow is less affected by gravity and will not drop as much, but at the range your talking about, it shouldn't make any difference at all. Here is what may have happened:

Here is a first hand experience from this season. I was shooting my muzzloader, with a 250 grain bullet. From a stand, a doe came within 35 yds, and I put her in the 3X9 scope, and followed her in the scope until she came into a small clearing where I could get a shot. Took the shot and she ran off with her tail in the air, and I saw her 300 yds away still going like the energizer bunney.
NO WAY! My mz is a tack driver. I got down found no hair, no blood.
Got back up in the stand and replayed the shot. About 3' in front of where my muzzle would have been pointed a green limb, no bigger than 1/8" was swinging in the breeze partially severed. It took no bigger limb than that to mis-direct the bullet.
I've shot tens of thousands of round of ammo with tracers in it, and its amazing what blades of grass, and other obstructions can make a bullet do.

 

[dlbleak]

i'm shooting a ruger '06 with a leopold vx-II.its always been a tack driver. i looked for blood for 30 minutes and crawled around and checked the brush for breakage. i lazer bore checked when i got home and it seems on. i could have pulled the shot,who knows. could have been fooled by such a simple shot....

 

[dennishoddy]

i'm shooting a ruger '06 with a leopold vx-II.its always been a tack driver. i looked for blood for 30 minutes and crawled around and checked the brush for breakage. i lazer bore checked when i got home and it seems on. i could have pulled the shot,who knows. could have been fooled by such a simple shot....

I've had two leopold scoped that fell apart internally.
Take it to the range, and shoot it at low, mid and hi power. If its on, then operator error....Sorry about missing your deer. As you can see, I've missed some myself to a mistake. Its deer hunting. I'd be really interested in how your range time comes out.

 

[ez bake]

At 60yds with a 30-06, you could have been shooting at an 80° up-hill incline and only been off by well less than an inch (if it was sighted in at 60yds).

If it was sighted in at 100yds, your 60yd shot would be less than .2 MOA low (assuming 168gr bullet at 2650fps) on flat ground.

The hill didn't affect it if you were sighted in at 100yds and the short-shot combined with the hill (assuming the hill was like 15-20°) wouldn't have equaled a full MOA.

That's all assuming that I know how to use this free ballistic computer from the interwebz

 

[JCW355]

You just blew it, if we would admit it most of us have done that at least once. I did and was shocked it happened too.

 

[sesh]

You just blew it, if we would admit it most of us have done that at least once. I did and was shocked it happened too.

I agree, here's my confession: Had similar situation this weekend, deer walks in @ about 50yds, I center up with my model 700 '06, pull the trigger and the deer just stands there, I'm thinking "WTH!" but luckily he just stood there so I chambered another let him step into an opening and layed him down. Lots of factors, nerves, brush just to name a few, I think mine may have been brush. Anyway, keep at it and keep practicing, if you're persistent it will all come together.

 

[JCW355]

I don't know if I hit something but do know that damn gun jammed on me so there wasn't a second shot. I had borrowed a pump 30-30 off of a friend years ago.