unluckiest coyote

[pistolchamp]

I was out with a friend this morning, popping a few crows with my Ruger #1 in 218 Bee. We shot 4 crows and they caught on to our game and left.

As we were driving out my buddy told me to stop the truck he saw a coyote. Okay I stopped and couldn't see that darn dog, he said look farther out... holy cow that coyote is in the next county.

Using his whiz-bang lazer rangerfinder we determined him to be 414 yards away. You gotta be kidding, I've shot lots of stuff at 300 yards with this rifle, but, 400 is way past its ability. He told me to take a shot and he would spot it for me.

Having NO idea what to do or where to hold I added about 2 feet of Kentucky holdover and kinda/sorta casually let one fly. Jim yells "you got him"... I swear it can't be and assume the dog just ducked and got away.

We walk out there and the darn coyote was dead as a wedge... no kidding. A solid hit right about where the heart should be and no exit wound.

I use a 46 grain Calhoun zinc plated double hollow point over 17.0 grains of AA-1680 for about 2,950 at the muzzle. I would never believe this shot if I hadn't done it myself... the unluckiest coyote on the planet... and I've got a witness.

[Catfish]

Champ,
Did you stop on the way home and buy a Lottery ticket?
I shot alot of those Calhoon bullet in .17 cal. and love them, but haven`t tried them in my .22-250 yet. Mostly because I have really taken it to the field.

[Andy L]

Ive heard good and bad things about Calhoon zinc bullets. I was hot to get a 19 Calhoon, just because. Then I talked with a couple folks that have had them and been around them alot. Seems that zinc coating gets in the rifling and is next to impossible to get out.

One guy had worked on a few that just quit shooting. I guess the guys thought they had just shot the bbl out. Kind of unlikely with such a low powder charge. Come to find out, it was just badly fouled. Looks clean when you run a patch thru but no solvent will touch it. He said it took 30 hours with some sort of electronic cleaning rod ( I had never heard of it ), taking the rod out and cleaning it every 8 hrs or so.

Like I said, this is second hand info, but came from one of the most reliable sources in all things gun on the net. Possibly anywhere. Im not going to mention his name, but most know and respect him.

As for the coyote shot, that is a good shot. Im going to play devils advocate a little though. You admitted to never shooting that rifle that far. What if you had blown a jaw off or hit a leg or gut shot? Were you prepared to go track him down and finish what you started? Or were you just going to high five each other and be proud you drew blood? Just curoius. Pretty irresponsible in my book to take shots you dont think you can make and take a chance of leaving a wounded animal out there.

JMHO.

Andy

[L. Cooper]

I'm sorry to rain on the parade, but I agree with Andy about not shooting at animals we can't reasonably expect to kill cleanly.

There is a thread about PETA going elsewhere. Nothing helps PETA more than wounding an animal and have it wander the countryside. No one can suggest that such suffering is acceptable, and nothing hunters can do will hurt themselves more than giving PETA and other anti-hunters such evidence.

For the sake of the game animals, and for the sake of our own hunting heritage, we must take only those shots we can make.

[fabsroman]

To elaborate on Andy and Cooper's posts, you need to put yourself in the animal's position. If you knew you were going to die, would you want a clean death or a wound that would take hours and hours and severe pain and suffering before you died?

Sometimes, mistakes do happen and animals get wounded. We all make mistakes, and I can admit to a good amount (e.g., stopping my gun swing on birds, judging the wind wrong), but I try to limit them and I practice a lot, especially with the shotgun.

We all make mistakes, and even though this story turned out well with a stone dead coyote, the mistake on this one was pulling the trigger. You got everything else right, and now you know where that gun shoots at 400 yards, so the next one might not be a mistake to pull the trigger, but maybe it is a mistake to use that cartridge at that range.

Was there any way to get to within 300 yards, so that you would be taking a shot you were comfortable with?