This should be fun, and hopefuly get the PETA freaks mad to!!

We've been talking about tracking animals we've shot, now what is the best DRT story you have. Maybe one you didn't think should have been DRT, or maybe one that should have been but wasn't??

Mine? Well, mine was the first year I hunted with a handgun. I was using a 460 Smith and Wesson Hunter with a 12" barrel shooting scam bullets (200 grain XTP's) and hit the buck at 107 yards. He stood almost straight up vertically on his back feet, then fell over dead.

Not one scrap of meat was wasted! The shot went between two ribs on his left side, and didn't even have time to expand much at all before it exited on the right side between two ribs. No boken bones at all!

Wish every shot turned out like that one!!!

My wife deer hunts with me,and is a fine shot with her 6.5 Sweedish Mauser.Put a half dollar on a does shoulder and she will hit it at 150 yds, add horns and it gets iffy.We were in her stand when her biggest buck to date came out at 120 yds.Total addrelin overload! I talked her thru the shot,quietly saying slow ,down pick a spot, relax, squeeze the trigger follow thru. At the shot the deers legs folded under him and he hit the ground hard.She pops her head up and can't see him and thinks she missed,I tell her to reload and get back on the scope and look a bit lower,her smile lit up the whole stand.

I was about 25 years old and had stayed out all night on a Fri. night and failed to arise for a Saturday a.m. hunt. Feeling really rough, I decided to ride over to the hunting club that was leasing part of our land to eat lunch, vomit and go home and die. However, the gang convinced me to go with on a dog drive--just needed one more stander. I agreed if they would put me on worst stand. They put me out, i take short nap, hear dogs turn loose and get hot on a deer. I see buck run thru woods @ 200 yards and am relieved that I won't have to hear a loud boom. All of sudden, here he comes--has turned hard and is full bore running right at my hungover arse. At five yards I fire my 12 gauge w/ 00 buckshot into his FACE. Buck rears up on hind legs is staggering toward me and I unload on him again. He lands next to me--lower jaw dangling and him kicking the hell out of me. Tough, tough day, and one I will never forget....

Kingfisher, that is hilarious!!! That'll learn ya not to "drink and shoot"!

It learned me not to drink and hunt next day, for sure. (Well...)

Just a few years back, after a fruitless goose hunt with friends in the morning, decided to finish an as yet unsuccessful deer season with one more try on the very last day for deer in my area.
With my Mossberg 12ga loaded with Winchester Partition Gold 385gr Sabot slugs and resting rock steady across a very wide tree limb, picked out the lead critter in a group of about 6 or 7 that had managed to get to the middle of the field before I spotted them.
Knowing the field was 200 yds across I did the math and squeezed off a round. When I looked over the scope my prize was DRT.
I'm 6'10" tall and my stride is just about a yard. I walked off 141 paces to my deer. My farthest kill to date.
As a side note on slug performance, deer shot closer, 30, 75 yds, the aforementioned bullets usually pass thru and the animal will run off up to about 100yds. Apparently at this distance the slug had slowed enough to expand more and dump all it's energy in the animal.
This hunt took place in mid January in eastern Pa and my large "doe" turned out to be a buck that had dropped his headgear.

Jeff

4 years ago I was hunting on family property out of a ground blind along the perimeter fence. I saw about a half dozen doe near 100 yards down the fence line, browsing their way towards the fence(and safety), I took aim at the largest doe with my 10" contender in .41 mag, and totally botched the shot. I blinked, I flinched, I did every wrong thing I could squeeze into the duration of a trigger pull. Half the group trotted back into the brush they had came from. The large doe, my intended target, hopped onto the neighbors property but not out of sight. The two youngest deer, yearlings, stayed on our property and continued to browse. For the next 45 minutes I watched these 3 deer skip and eat and play with each other, drifting steadily closer to my blind. All the while the large doe stayed on the neighbors side of the fence. When the deer got so close that I wanted to shout in frustration, the big doe jumped back on our property, right in front of my blind. I touched off a second round and she was DRT. 13 steps from the back of my blind to where she hit the ground. Certainly my closest kill with a handgun. If not tied with my closest with a rifle.

All of my DRT have been head shots. I shot a hog about 6 years ago from 30 feet away that was looking right at me. I dropped the hammer on the raging bull 480 and it dropped as fast as the hammer fell. Didn't even kick dirt or move. Did the same thing with a very big doe with the 6.5 JDJ at 120 yards. Head shot and dropped without a quiver. My hog I shot this past march was on the edge of a watering hole(damn stinky water too)and I shot it behind the ear. It flipped backwards and floated out into the watering hole. I waded out in waste deep water. It took 3 washings to get the smell out! My daughter shot her biggest buck with her 30-30 5 years ago. When she dropped the hammer that sucker all but did a back flip. I have never seen a deer react to being shot like that one did. It hit the ground dead.And the shot was with my handloads at the distance was 212 yards. Who says a 30-30 is a brush gun. LOL!

Africa-475# lion. Chased all day in 95* heat. Ran each time was seen until last time. Then full blown charge. Was in small trees so he had to weave back and forth to get me. At 23 yds. his shoulder was exposed and a put a special made 400 gr. SP by Northern Precision from my .416 Taylor Encore in his shoulder. PH had 2 rifle guys behind me since he didn't trust me. Lion dropped FAST. The look on the rifle guy's faces was priceless. After we cleaned our underwear we had a good laugh.

Best DRT i ever witnessed wasn't even when i was hunting it was the first time i watched my dad butcher one of our cows. I stood awestruck when the old man put the barrel of the rifle up against her head and sent a little tiny .22lr bullet home, she dropped like someone cut her legs clean off. I'll never forget that image for as long as i live.

Mine was my first handgun kill with my 25-06rem encore had a deer come in behind my stand at 20 yards I put the scope on him and at the crack of the gun he ran 10 yards in a dead sprint(no pun intended) and smacked a big red oak tree and flipped backwards and was stone cold dead. I hit the heart and it turned it to jello.

Tough act to follow Doc! I have one thats a bit different. Back in my twenties, before I got deep into handguns, I was walking a field edge with my trusty .270 and saw a buck and doe enter the woods to my right, about 350 yards away. I figured they would probably go right through as that strip is only a couple hundred yards wide, so I hustled along a trail in an effort to get to the other side before they did. Well, just as I was nearing the field edge I saw the doe walking along the edge in my direction so I stopped in my tracks. I had about 20 yards of brush and pines between me and the field edge so vision was so so. I kept waiting for the buck to emerge but the doe kept getting closer and was about to catch my wind so I had to make a decision, any meat is better than no meat so I layed the crosshairs just below her ear (all I could see) and touch it off. All I saw was a flash of brown heading to my left and thought WTH....I missed???? I threw another round in the chamber and whistled and she stopped so I held a little lower in the neck and let fly, DRT. I continued down the trail I was on, toward where the first shot was taken. Still puzzled as to how I could miss a 20 yard head shot, I looked to my right as I entered the field and there was a doe, DRT. Oops!

I never saw the fawn, and believe these two deer had nothing to do with the other doe and buck, which broke back through the woods and across the field at sound of my shots to a barrage from our hunting party. He was a brute, won the local big buck contest. If's and coulda's.....

I was going to tell a story and then Doc Rogers pulls out a picture of a lion! Thanks, Doc!! I think I'll stay quiet.....LOL!

Absolutely awesome, Doc Rogers! (wvhitman)

Me Too!

The center pig was dropped instantly from a 400gr XTP from my 475
while hunting in North Carolina. Only time that happened...

I think we have a winner. After reading that story, I'm not worthy...I'm not worthy.

I've had a few DRTs over the years -- hogs and a couple of deer. The calibers and shots that produced them varied. One that stands out was about five years ago in Florida where I shot a 200 + pound boar at 80 yards with my .475 (420s at 1,350). I didn't brain or spine the animal but punched him through both shoulders and down he went, lights out.



Another one was this one that I shot offhand around 25 yards with a 400 grain WFN from my .454 Casull. On impact it was like someone had flipped his switch. Again, no CNS, but through the boiler room, tight behind the shoulder.

One was a KS whitetail at about 45 yards using a FA 454 with hornady 300 grain XTP's.
Just knocked him over
Then there was a couple of antelope using 130 Bergers in a 6.5 Leopard (WSM)
The shudder and drop were memorable

Never had a DRT with my handguns but puched the lights out on a hog from 350 yards with my .270

I was in probably the noisiest elevated box blinds I had ever been in. If you scratched your nose, the whole thing would squeek. Not suprisingly I never had anything come remotely close to the blind or the feeder while I was in it. After sitting through hours of sweltering heat in what probably could have been classified as an elevated dutch oven I spied a couple of dark shapes out on the edge of the field I was overlooking. Glassing I could see a couple of decent sized hogs out there. I tried ranging the hogs but I couldn't get a range, it was beyond the range of my rangefinder. I figured I could estimate the distance pretty well so I ranged the farthest fencepost I could and estimated the distance by counting posts beyond that. OK, 350 yards or there about. I referenced the bullet drop table taped to my stock and figured my hold over. It seemed that every time I was building trigger pressure for the shot, the hogs would reposition and require me to ease up and reset. After what seemed like an eternity one stood completely broadside to me. This time before the hog moved, the rifle barked and it looked like someone just pulled it's plug, no squealing, no flailing, nada!
When I climbed down and went out the pig, my rangefinder was able to get a reading when bouncing off of the blind. 350 yards on the nose. The shot was right in the crease behind the front leg. Both lungs and the heart. Wasn't a CNS hit so I am not quite sure why it was DRT but it was.

LOL!!!!! That is VERY similar to mine!!

I shot a 450+ pound boar at 400 yards with my Rem 700- BDL-SF in 30-06 shooting a 150gr SST at 3000 fps. At the shot he hit the ground and just spun in circles. Upon cleaning him, not only did I clip the heart, he must have been turning when I shot because the bullet angled all the way into both the spin and cranium before it stopped. That boar was 6” long… it took three of use to load it in the back of my truck.

A few years ago, I shot a blackbuck antelope, that was looking directly at me, in the throat with a 41 mag 210 gr XTP. He was about 100 yds away (he must have been "brain dead" because that is very close for a mature blackbuck where we hunt). It had rained some earlier and the ground was wet.

At the shot, he flipped over backwards and buried the tips of both horns about 2" into the wet ground. Momentarily, he was suspended --- all four legs sticking up. When he fell onto one side, he never moved at all.

I was hog hunting in Monterey county with a buddy when we came across a small sounder of pigs about 75 yards off. I shoot the first one right in front of the ears and it dropped. DRT number 1

My buddy saids "I bet you can't do that again." I said "watch" and did it again. The look on his face was priceless as he said "now your showing off".

The 2nd one was pure luck, but I didn't tell him that.

I was hunting with my 441T with a 4X Redfield on board. The laod I was shooting was a 240gr magnus SWCBB at 900fps. The gun was shooting great. I watched what I thought was a doe for about 30 minutes with the only availible shot between two limbs about 15' in front of me and the deer was 65 yards on the other side of teh limbs. It finally stepped up and turned broadside. I put the cross hair on the bottom dege of the top branch which would be tight to the back of the deer's front leg. At the impact the deer spun around like a top and piled up. The bullet hit right through the aorta. reflex264

I had a special "muzzleloader / Handgun" Antelope hunt in Wyoming one year. We had tried to put the sneak on a few nice Buck Antelope with the Smokepoles for a couple of days but decided to use the Contender's for the last day of our hunt. With my 14" SS 7-30 Waters and a 140 Nosler B-Tip in hand we saw a very nice Buck just go down into a gully, so we put the sneak on him. At about 250 yards he appeared on the other side, so we laid down and watched him for a few minutes. I knew I could not get any closer, so laying the Contender on my back pack, I took steady aim on his back and carefully squeezed the trigger. My brother slapped me on my back and said he was down. When I got to him, he was on his back, all four leggs in the air and didnt go a foot after he was hit!

Bbybee

My last DRT was last September. Shot a fallow buck at about 100 yds with a FA single shot 338 Fed. He fell straight down, but his head remained elevated. Watched him for several minutes. He did not move, but his head was up. Finally, walked over to him. He had hung the right antler in the fork of a tree when he fell which held his head up.

http://www.handgunhunt.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=5082&ppuser=4104

Well my favorite was last years gun season. Sittin in a little clump of trees in a crp field. This buck comes out of the woods, and is facing me. Seemed like he was looking right at me, but wasn't sure what was up. 110 yrds away, leaned my shooting stick against a tree, put the crosshairs on the white patch under his chin, and squeezed. Bullet flew true from the 7 08 Encore pistol, and DRT. One of my best bucks.

The most fun DRT story was when I was about 19 or so, and before I started using handguns. The land that borders my grandparents land was inherited by some people from the city about 3 hours away. We never had a problem with the original owner, but his relatives were the worst kind of hunters you would want next to you.

They were rude, didn't know the property lines, and more than once tried to kick us off my grandparents land thinking it was theirs. Another time they pulled in behind our truck, and came out saying "who got the buck that I got". We were like..what?? He repeted, who got the buck that I got. Apperantly he had shot at a buck and it ran our way, and he thought it should be his. Well we never saw the deer come through, and sent him on his way.

Total jackass pricks.

Also, they put their stands right ON the fence line, facing my grandparents field with their woods behind them.

Well one day I am in a ground blind in a water way in the middle of the field. My uncle is on the far side of the field from the other hunters, and my cousin is right across from me, and up in a woodline. My uncle shoots at a buck, and misses. The buck takes off across the field at full speed right twords the other hunters. They are watching, and just waiting for the buck to cross the fence so they could shoot. I'm in the waterway, and they don't know I'm there.

The buck is about 70yrds, and running flat out, so there isn't a lot of up and down motion. I lead him by about one full body lenth(shooting a 12gage-not a rifle), and squeeze one off. He does a huge cartwheel and doesnt move again. Double lung shot, but I think it hit a rib and disrupted the spine. Stopped about 100 yrds short of the other hunters. I bet their jaws hit the ground seeing that buck roll.

Well my cousin went up and got the old smelly farm diesle pickup from the top of the hill, and came down to help gut the deer, and haul it out. On the way, he made sure to drive right down the edge of the field and past the hunters blowing smelly diesle smoke the whole way!

Well it was hi fives and fun from there. They were so pissed they climbed down from their stands and just stood there facing us.

Serves them right for putting thier stands on the fence when they have 400 acres to hunt right behind them.

That was a fun day.

MN