Classic mistake

[243Songdaug]

Saturday morning me and a shooting buddy decided to spend the day in the veldt, deciding not to practice for the upcoming SA Hunters Nationals.

Not in the mood for training but still very much in the mood to do some shooting we visited a friends farm upon witch we've previously build ourselves a "long range" playing field. Distances varies 246m right out to just shy of 1000m – the range lying in a valley between two hills.

We spend half the day shooting the gongs out to 500 meters and were quit chuffed with ourselves being able to hit the six different gongs without fail. The ballistic charts we were using were obviously working!

Upon leaving the range we drove right into one of the largest warthogs I've ever seen and remembering that the owner asked us to kill any pigs on sight we scrambled to get the guns out and loaded!!!

My buddy not having shot any large warthogs before were so excited that he just could not keep it in, all the time encouraging me to shoot, SHOOT!!!!, and in the process I missed a easy shot at a 200 pound pig!!!

At first I were mad at myself for missing the shot but then when I went through the motions I remembered that my scope was set on the 350m meter setting and not 500m as I thought!!!

The pig was just shy of 500m - my bullet kicked up dust about 15m short of the pig!!!

Lesson learned: Make shore of the turret settings, do not trust your gut feeling!

I'm planning another trip out this weekend – just maybe I'll run into that wart again!

Songdaug
Kathu, Northern Cape
South Africa

 

[WyoElk2Hunt]

Good story sounds like buck (HOG) fever got you.

 

[marcbrewer]

Great story!

mmm mmm tasty tasty piggie!

 

[loosesniper2000]

Well, I'm glad I'm not alone in this category. Thanks for letting me know there's someone else who made the same mistakes...lol

 

[300rum]

I did the same mistake a while back, and this happened ALL THE TIME, if you not get the reflex to reset your scope back to zero after each shot/distance.
If you think i will do it when i need it, on hunting rush you will do the same mistake.
you have to train your brain to reset the turret after each shot, and after a while it became as a reflex without thinking.

Do not worry, you will get another opportunities. JUST BE READY...

 

[rem300ultra]

Great story. I would have liked to have seen the action happening.

 

[rscott5028]

Great job Van de Merwe. ;-)

Been there done that myself.

 

[HARPERC]

Substitute the best Pronghorn I've ever seen in the field, on a hard to acquire tag, and you've got my sad story. It did only take him him a couple of seconds to reach the distance the rifle was actually sighted for, unfortunately he didn't stop there. I'd love to blame it on youth and inexperience, but it wasn't that long ago, and it wasn't the first time I'd made such a mistake. LOL.

 

[NONYA]

Thats why I stick to mildots,2 much time required to dial for most of my hunting situations gun)

 

[dig]

Most of us have made that mistake, in the heat of battle it happens. I now always reset my nobs to zero (200 yards) and have a piece of tape I stick on the cap to visually remind me they are reset. When adjusting I stick the tape on the stock. I also like the covered adjustments on the Leupold's for this reason, use the mil-dot most of the time but dial for longer shots with enough time.