I made a bad shot yesterday

[User00056]

I’ve put the wrong moderator on and shot wide.

Not once but twice. One was a clean miss. One was… not.

Eats at you, doesn't it?

 

[VSS]

Eats at you, doesn't it?

It does, but if we we're to have a thread dedicated to messed up shots I think it would be a very, very long one.
We've all messed up at some point, and if we keep on shooting deer then, as sure as night follows day, we'll mess up again. And again.

 

[Mungo]

Eats at you, doesn't it?

Very much so.

Best you can do is learn from it and takes steps to avoid making similar mistakes in future.

Though I tend to be quite good at finding new mistakes to make!

 

[User00056]

I tend to be quite good at finding new mistakes to make!

I hear that

 

[Smellydog]

Good thread. I decided a while ago to use calibres that don't fit in each others' rifles so accidents are theoretically impossible. Aware wouldn't have prevented your mistake but it's in the same vein.

Poka-yoke - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 455645

Things like this make my blood run cold.

Be oright but it definitely won't be a sub sonic!

 

[Mike1979]

Good honest post As many have said things go wrong despite out best efforts and even if it is possible to deal with the consequences quickly if makes you (well makes me) feel sick. I had a deflection off a fallow bucks neck recently and he ran about 10 yards before his head dropped and I put a second shot straight through the top of his head. He was dead very quickly but I felt awful. The more you shoot the more likely something will go wrong.

 

[geoshot]

I messed up in a similar way to you many years ago,
I thought all my ammo one particular day was 85grain BTHP for my .243, but my first round was 90grain ballistic tip - just enough of a difference to get it wrong and require follow up etc, I had hurried in the dark and clearly hadn't checked properly
As a result I became paranoid about keeping ammo seperate, even to the extent of keeping different chamberings in different safes - which got difficult as for a while I had .243w .308w 270w & 30-06sprg at the same time
There was worse to go wrong there than merely using different bullets in the same cartridge
Thanks for the post, admitting our mistakes keeps us humble and learning from them

 

[sauer]

funny how some slight differences make a big change to POI ....yet i found opposite

i use 100grn reloads in my .250=-06
i got given some 87grn and loaded them and found all within 1.5" POI out to 150yds easy...so minute of deer no problem ..but his reloaded differences

im guessing big difference you found as a generality I'm guessing the factory
not loaded with same oomph as reloads ?

Paul

 

[bottletopbill]

Don't we all f up at times and how many times we re-play it in our minds,

 

[Nickb]

funny how some slight differences make a big change to POI ....yet i found opposite

i use 100grn reloads in my .250=-06
i got given some 87grn and loaded them and found all within 1.5" POI out to 150yds easy...so minute of deer no problem ..but his reloaded differences

im guessing big difference you found as a generality I'm guessing the factory
not loaded with same oomph as reloads ?

Paul

Yep I found the same thats why I asked. I had my scope zeroed with 100grn .243 and tried some 58 grn ....only about 1 inch different in POI so makes no difference in reality.

Also recently changed brands in
22/250 and no change in zero at all.

Sometimes people give things too much thought.

 

[StoatallyDifferent]

Good on you for coming clean, but I’m a little surprised so many people have had similar issues with getting their rounds mixed up. I’m probably a bit OCD about it, once found a spent 6.5 casing in my bag of .308 brass after a range day and nearly had a heart attack.

I recommend getting some MTM Caseguard boxes for ammunition management. If you have different loads for the same caliber then you can get different colours, label them up or whatever you need to do to make it foolproof. They’re not expensive and will last years and years.

 

[Heym SR20]

Bad shots are a fact of life. There is usually a comedy of errors before hand. In a group with others, you are supposed exit. You have climbed a munro in a pretty verticle manner, you have a group of hinds at the edge of a comfortable distance. You are on a hind. The others are fannying about with turrets, menus apps etc etc and you in a position to shoot but sliding down the hill. Then they start to spook, one of the others lets a shot go, and you let yours go as the beast starts to move.

It tumbles fifty yards, staggers up and then collapse behind a rock out of sight. Its calf follows and goes out of sight as well.

Now is absolutely the time to sit on your arse for 10 to 30 minutes. Its a typical liver shot by the looks of it. Its not going anyway. In the past you have a lit a smoke or two.

But you don’t- I suppose the positive is that you did move them down the hill towards the truck. And both ended up in the larder.

 

[jonnybotang24]

Good to admit mistakes as it helps everyone stay on their toes.

 

[Selous]

It shouldn't have been. It was a 120 yard doe off sticks with my .223. I have a tried and tested home-load that never fails me, so how I managed to pull the shot puzzled me. I won't go into detail, but suffice to say I made it right very quickly.

I felt bad about it all last night, and was just about to head out to check zero this morning, when I picked the two fired cases out of my pocket....

Can you spot what's different? Old Q' now can. Yep, I'd inadvertently managed to load a factory round as the top round in my mag'

I usually have a few loose rounds in my ammunition safe, but I hadn't realised I'd left a factory round in there as well as a few reloads. That's not a mistake I've made before, and I'll be making damn sure it doesn't happen again.

View attachment 455605

It may be my old eyes but is the left one a 223 and the right one a .222?

 

[kenbro]

Yep been there - done that.
Fortunately on a range day so no animals were harmed in the making of this post…
Did you know that a .308 will fire in a Mosin Nagant? Nope neither do did I….

No, but I know 243 will fire in 308.
Ken.

 

[kenbro]

It may be my old eyes but is the left one a 223 and the right one a .222?

Not very clear but look like 222.
KB.

 

[weblyish]

It may be my old eyes but is the left one a 223 and the right one a .222?

I've never shot a 222 but this made me look up what the headstamp looks like as I thought there couldn't possibly be 2 similar cartridges with basically indistinguishable head stamps

That would be dumb.....

 

[JMikeyH]

Out of interest how much did the POI change ? Were they different weight bullets ?

I swap between factory and home loads semi-regularly - if someone else is coming out stalking with me and firing my rifle I put factory rounds through it, just in case I cocked up a round I don't want it going pop in anyone else's face. The shift I adjust back and forth is 2.5MOA vertical and 1MOA lateral. I can't quite wrap my head around the lateral shift, but that is what it is

Difference in weight is 5 grains

 

[Chris Richardson]

I've never shot a 222 but this made me look up what the headstamp looks like as I thought there couldn't possibly be 2 similar cartridges with basically indistinguishable head stamps

That would be dumb.....

The .222 is the lords own cartridge, and one has a 2 on the end one has a 3 pretty simple really

 

[User00056]

It may be my old eyes but is the left one a 223 and the right one a .222?

Nope. Both .223