thinking the media is way off on the details here.....

because this doesn't pass the "smell test". Anywho, hunter mistakes a human for a deer. Tragic, inexcusable, but not typical especially when you get into the details (as laid out by the story):

Guy shot a woman at 200 yards with a high powered pistol. Nobody.....not one fucking hunter AKA "nobody" would take a 200 yard pistol shot at a deer. Never happened before in the history of deer hunting, ever. Not from the most powerful handgun known to man, shooting off a sandbag for maximum accuracy.
Not one pistol round made will carry enough energy at 200 yards to humanely kill a deer - full stop.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/24/hunter-shoots-kills-woman-after-mistaking-her-for-deer.html

Thompson/Center Contender handguns can be chambered all the way up to .45-70 and are routinely used for hunting, even at 200 yards.

Not saying that's what this joker was using or that the media is correct, but your statement isn't factual.

yes, the .45-70 is a great deer round - shot out of a rifle! Please give me an example of a hunter killing a deer at 200 yards with a .45-70 round fired from a pistol.

Not .45-70, but .309 JDJ at 240 yards. From a pistol.



You may know a lot about hunting with bows and such, but I've forgotten more about guns than you'll ever know.

Well I guess it's possible. But is it ethical, smart or safe unless you are extremely experienced and have practiced this shot many times? I'm thinking not.
Thus the average Joe shouldn't even be attempting it, especially after legal shooting hours. 200 yards with a handgun is flat-out insane!

So shootEr isn't just a clever name?



Looks like that deer is just maxin' and relaxin'. Also, water your plants more.

This isn't hunting. This is shooting in a farming community.
The field behind Rosemary Billquist's home is mowed for the first 1000 feet from the road.
You can look up 2998 Armenian Road, Sherman New York, on Google Maps.
It's about a mile and 1/4 from Interstate 86.

I live in a similar community in Oklahoma.
Lots of Deer around people's homes. They don't shoot them.

People take trips to wilderness areas, and hike in, to shoot Bucks, Elk and Bears.
That's hunting.

No doubt you do know a lot about guns - I have no interest in them as far as hunting goes. But would you take a 200 yard shoot on a deer with a handgun?
Would you recommend anyone taking that shot? A lot can go wrong in 200 yards!

no, that's geography. The reality is many area east of the mississippi (my own state of Georgia is a good example) are undergoing massive "urban sprawl" and there are few "wilderness" areas around. Thus like it or not the deer are indeed around people's homes. You ever see Forbin's "yard deer" threads and pictures? That's the new normal for deer behavior in New Jersey, New York, etc.etc. all the way down I-95 and I-20 into Atlanta. They adapt to living in close proximity to humans.
Literally nowhere I hunt (with a bow) is not within earshot of a major highway. Often I am within earshot of kids playing, folks grilling burgers, soldiers doing training, etc. Nobody takes trips to "wilderness areas" when the deer are right in your backyard.

That said not identifying your target and shooting after legal shooting hours is just wrong, full stop. No...possible...way you can mistake a human for a deer under any circumstances unless you have gone full retard. For one, you don't just "shoot at" a deer - you pick a spot on the deer (center mass of the upper torso AKA the "boiler room" AKA the hear/lung area) for a fast kill. You can't do that without noticing the deer is a human. I hope they throw the book at this fucking clown!

With a Contender and some practice, I might if conditions permitted. There are guys who shoot those pistols at 200 yards and even farther.

I was just pointing out that your pronouncements in the first post were bullshit.

IIRC, my father in law has deer hunted with a 7mm pistol more than a few times. Though he normally uses a 30-30 rifle.

Something like this just happened in Maine this hunting season. Guy shot a woman, said he thought she was a deer. Have we stopped to consider that maybe women are dressing like deer, and therefore deserve it?

yes, handgun hunting isn't unusual. But taking 200 yard shots with a handgun is extremely unusual, which was my point. Sure you can target shoot at 200 yards with a handgun under ideal conditions. 200 yards on a mature deer? Easier said than done. In poor lighting it's downright dangerous - I can't believe no charges were filed. Every game warden or cop I know where I hunt would have you cuffed & stuffed on the spot for fucking shooting somebody while committing a blatant hunting regulation.

On the other hand, at 200 yards a deer probably can't see, hear or smell you and thus its likely to be motionless probably while eating.

admittedly I'm not up on deer hunting regulations but what regulation did this guy specifically commit?

Dressing like a deer? You never know I suppose. I think the ultimate "asking to eat a bullet" has to be the "HEADS UP DECOY". Google it, there is such a line of decoys. Obviously designed for archery hunting since not many people bow hunt when or where gun season is going on, but just on general safety reasoning alone I don't think this the smart play.

shooting well after legal hunting hours. In New York it's sunrise to sunset. In most states it's 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset. Either way 45 minutes after sunset is a no-go. Just hunting this late might be a small fine or hunting restriction - in conjunction with shooting somebody your ass should be arrested on-the-spot. This was totally avoidable.

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200 yards doesn't seem all that long a shot for high caliber scoped pistols.

I don't know what it is now but here it was an hour before sunrise to an hour after sunset IIRC.

Okay, I'm off to bed! I'm getting up at 03:45 to jump-start my brain with coffee so I can be in my spot in the woods by 06:40 myself for a full day of hunting!

In theory or at the range. Under hunting conditions you better have your shit together - this hunter sadly did not. Adrenalin must have clouded his judgement or something. Or maybe he's just an idiot!

The talk about being dressed as a deer reminds me of something that happened about 20 years ago around here. Game warden put out a life sized fake deer out in a field within sight of a country road. He was using it to catch night hunters (spotlighters) who could also be fined for shooting from a road (against the law).

After a while he noticed the fake deer starting to move. Slowly but steadily. The game warden went to investigate and found a drunk guy had seen the fake deer in the field and had hoisted the front legs over his shoulders and was trying to make off with it.

Everyone agreed he was damn lucky no one shot him.

Here's the grand total of what I know about bows: I tried bow hunting thrice. I killed one deer. I felt like it's a horribly inhumane and cruel way to kill an animal. It's not worth the four week head start on deer season.

Yeah, well maybe you should stick to bows I guess.

Complete nonsense.

200 yards is only six hundred feet.

A bullet has more than enough power to kill at 600 feet. Especially if it's a powerful round. You hit the right spot and down it goes.

What I don't understand is how at 600 feet you mistake a human for a deer? Or why you're even taking the shot at 600 feet with a handgun. I was under the impression that one of the things of handgun hunting is to get as close as possible to your target.

Yeah, even assuming the knucklehead in the story was using a Contender, you'd think he'd have a scope on it which should've shown that it was a person and not a deer.

gun hunters wound plenty of deer and fail to recover them too. If you shoot a deer though both lungs with a bow (the equivalent of a home run in baseball) it's dead within 30 seconds. That's the "double lung pass through". You want a complete pass through so you have two blood trails, and the arrow doesn't clog up the wound path, preventing a steady blood flow. A deer can haul-ass and be 200 yards away in that 30 seconds until it piles up dead.
Crossbows are holy-shit effective! They often drop deer like a sack of cement since thy are extremely accurate and you can risk a heart shot without watching out for that shoulder blade or ball socket of the leg. Complete pass through shots at any angle (even quartering-to shots) are the norm with a crossbow. I'm getting one for next season - I'm riding out this season with my recurve.

Nope. It's quite alive and in horrific pain. It just doesn't have the ability to breath, and thus run. Its heart will continue to beat and fill the lungs with blood until the animal bleeds out in several minutes. Eventually, after a few minutes, its blood pressure will drop enough and the animal will lose consciousness. If you shoot an arrow through both of a human's lungs it's still going to take 4-5 minutes for them to actually die. That's why I aim for the heart with a firearm. Theoretically, if I do my part and destroy the heart, the blood deprived brain will start to shut down and render the animal unconscious in about 30 seconds. It's still going to take several minutes for the animal to die, but if I did my part, it'll be unconscious.

Wounded (even mortally) is not down.
Down is not unconscious.
Unconscious is not dead.

I haven't hunted since I was a kid, though I have no objection to it if done in a safe, humane, and legal way.

Taking deer at 200 yards with a handgun can be all three if the right handgun is used.

Smith & Wesson makes a 460XVR revolver that shoots a .45 caliber bullet at a muzzle velocity of around 2200 feet per second. That's .45-70 level ballistics. They advertise it as having a flat enough trajectory that no hold over is required out to 200 yards. I imagine that would do the job well.

Look up the silhouette shooting sport. Long range target shooting with rifle-caliber pistols like the Thompson Contender, and there are several other makes as well as custom guns.
Any word on what this bozo was using?