handgun hunting

[white eagle]

what is handgun hunting ??
to me its getting close to game and placing a well earned shot.
close matters
to be sure woodsmanship and hunting ability comes into play...
I do not believe hunting is shooting at VERY long range with a gun that looks more like a rifle than a pistol.....:holysheep

[9.3X62AL]

I'm of the same view, Eagle. In most of the deer country I've hunted, a rifle isn't much of an advantage over the handgun or archery tackle. Dense brushlands and thick forestation equal close shots, so a revolver is as likely a tool for venison-making as the long gun is.

No real experience with the "hand rifles" myself, can't give a view on their use.

[Lloyd Smale]

im not much on single shot handguns myself but they are handguns and if a guy likes them and hunts with them he surely is handgun hunting. Alot of traditional bow hunters detest compound hunters and some compound hunters detest crossbow hunters but bottom line is there all bow hunters. Same goes rilfes. Some rifle hunters use a single shot some a lever action and some a bolt. Some like scopes some dont but there all rifle hunters.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I personally have likes and dislikes as far as appropriate equipment for anything I do.

However when it comes to guns, ESPECIALLY GUNS! We all gotta stick together!

I ran into this same debate when I was 4 wheeling heavily. some people were saying that "we need to ban those long wheelbase rigs, (IE not jeeps) off all of the best trails.

The overwhelming answer to that, was, " we all gotta stick together" as the people who don't like ANY 4WD vehicles want all of them banned from the "Pristine Wilderness" and don't care if they are long or short wheel based.

Allowing some people to use a resource, while banning others for what ever reason, is just flat out discrimination. And the left will be the first to Call it, and the first to Use it.

I do however support the "limited" closing of "some" wilderness areas to motorized access.

If you want to hike 40 miles both ways to shoot your "Buck of a Lifetime" I wouldn't care if you killed it with a slingshot, or anything else for that matter.

But on the issue of guns "We all gotta stick together" I don't care what your barrel length or stock configuration is.

Randy

[subsonic]

Handgun hunting to me means some sort of large caliber revolver launching a lead boolit with a flat nose on it at around 1300fps. But I respect the right of others to deafen or set themselves on fire with short barreled rifles that are missing their stocks.:kidding::bigsmyl2:

[sixshot]

This topic does get kicked around about twice on month on every forum related to guns. Although I'm strictly a revolver guy those single shots dominated my hunting life for several years. Under ATF rules a single shot handgun......is a handgun, & thats how they are registered. Are they different, yes but they are a handgun.
If its legal then use it, just use it responsibly.

Dick

[jwp475]

im not much on single shot handguns myself but they are handguns and if a guy likes them and hunts with them he surely is handgun hunting. Alot of traditional bow hunters detest compound hunters and some compound hunters detest crossbow hunters but bottom line is there all bow hunters. Same goes rilfes. Some rifle hunters use a single shot some a lever action and some a bolt. Some like scopes some dont but there all rifle hunters.




this topic does get kicked around about twice on month on every forum related to guns. Although i'm strictly a revolver guy those single shots dominated my hunting life for several years. Under atf rules a single shot handgun......is a handgun, & thats how they are registered. Are they different, yes but they are a handgun.
If its legal then use it, just use it responsibly.

Dick




+1...................

[zac0419]

+1 We HAVE to stick together.

Years ago when I took my hunter ed class, one thing stuck in my head. The quoted stats may not be correct but the premiss is solid. "10% of the public is for hunting and 10% of the public is against it. The other 80% doesn't really care, one way or another. I'm not trying to tell you to hunt "PC", but think about this when your in the eyes of the other 80%. It's the 80% that will decide if your grandkids get to hunt with you." (mostly young people in the class)

[crabo]

Why quibble? Let everyone enjoy shooting and hunting with what they got. We don't need to be gun snobs. Just my 280 grains worth.

[tek4260]

Less than 926 yards is handgun hunting........ :popcorn: :)

[Thumbcocker]

I have gone over to revolver and bow hunting exclusivly for deer for the past several years. I love the challange and portability of revolvers. My longest shot on a deer with a slug gun was 72 yards. My longest shot deer with a revolver, to date has been 65 yards. I do not feel seriously handicapped with a revolver. Back in the late 70's I was considered a bit odd for hunting squirrels with a Ruger mark II target model. I read a lot fo Elmer and Ross Seyfried and they made sense to me. Plus I could shoot safely at a stump in the back yard out to 40 yards or so but could not shoot rifles safely.

I just can't get over having something that weighs 2-3 pounds, can be worn around all day without being noticed, and when called on have a reasonalbe chance of hitting targets out to 75 yards. Handgun hunting and shooting just doesn't get old to me.

As far as the single shots I have great respect for them. The simple fact is that they do what they were designed to do very well and are scary accurate. While I respect them I just can't love them. They don't speak to me like a revolver. If you hunt with a single shot I am in your corner and wish you the best even if they are not my thing.

[44man]

Handgun hunting to me means some sort of large caliber revolver launching a lead boolit with a flat nose on it at around 1300fps. But I respect the right of others to deafen or set themselves on fire with short barreled rifles that are missing their stocks.:kidding::bigsmyl2:
That's good! [smilie=s:
I have to tell the truth here. With the old age shakes, I have often wished my revolver had a stock. :veryconfu
Need to set up a bench and vise soon!
It is perfectly legal to use a rest or sticks so why can't us old codgers have a stock?
I have used everything to shoot deer but I started with stick bows and recurves. I learned to get close, fool deer or use a tree stand. That took the luster out of rifles and shotguns but muzzle loaders are also great. I love to track deer in snow with one and a revolver is fun in the snow.
One thing bothered me and that was the use of inline muzzle loaders in primitive season that could reach out 200 yards. Well so will a round ball .54 but drop is something else.
There is method to the madness because in parts of the country, the deer herd has exploded so much, the herd can't be hurt.
It does not bother me if you run deer down with a knife or drop a bowling ball on one from a tree.
Above all of this is ethics in the field. I have lost a few deer with the wrong boolit at the wrong velocity and it hurts. I never give up and will track with a lantern all night if I have to. I hate the hunting shows where they leave and go back the next day just for a rack.
All of us that hunt with revolvers almost never lose a deer and correct a problem right away.
The rifle hunters lose tons of deer and it is nothing for me to find a dozen dead, rotten deer in the small area I walk. They shoot at anything and everything, even in thick brush a bullet will never go through.
Now look at handgun hunters. Most are better until crazy stuff is used. Hunt deer with a 9mm or .38 or shoot at deer at 100 yards with a 2" snub nose. Please stay home! To brag about kills with guns that can fail really gets my goat. Find a new sport like shooting your cats with a 12# bow.
The worst thing that can happen to hunting is deer running around houses with an arrow sticking out from using wrong equipment or dead deer from wrong guns or boolits/bullets or just a hick shooting at anything.
If you shoot a deer at 10 yards with a .44, .475 or .500, I will shake your hand, good job. Use a .22 and stay the hell out of my woods. Did your Red Ryder rust out? :confused:

[btroj]

I don't know where the "we got to stick together" stuff came from. I didn't see anyone calling anyone names or saying they were against anything.
I have shot deer with a couple revolvers. Shot a deer and an antelope with my Contender. Antelope was about 230 yards.
Am I "prouder" of one over the other? Nope, was happy with each of them.
I hunt deer at handgun ranges but prefer a lever action with irons. Same type of idea, get close and make a good shot.

[white eagle]

Less than 926 yards is handgun hunting........ :popcorn: :)
you get my point
at that distance with a crowd of onlookers (cheering )
that just aint hunting in my book
thats akin to driving down the road spotting and animal and setting up
you wind direstional detensifiers pulling out yer trusty ol'halfmile blastemtohell and telling the golf audience the shot is going to be in 1.2.now

[44man]

you get my point
at that distance with a crowd of onlookers (cheering )
that just aint hunting in my book
thats akin to driving down the road spotting and animal and setting up
you wind direstional detensifiers pulling out yer trusty ol'halfmile blastemtohell and telling the golf audience the shot is going to be in 1.2.now
I like your thinking! :smile:
Animals move---OH, holy smokes, how did I come up with THAT?
I have always been an expert in lead and a deer on a full run at over 220 yards was duck soup. A deer at 50 with a slug gun was dead no matter how fast it was running.
I have shot many deer on the walk or run with revolvers and bows.
99% of hunters aim at the chest when animals are moving expecting the bullet to be there before the animal moves. Magic guns that have a bullet all the way downrange at trigger break.
A survey of all the hunters here that have killed animals on the move or bad hits from an animal moving would be of interest. Long ranges are not easy if you don't know what you are doing but some do stand still long enough for bragging rights.
How I would love the story of a pronghorn shot on a dead run at 400 yards with a pistol.

[btroj]

Only 400? That isn't anything. I have a buddy who can hit deer clear on the other side of the mountain. He can see em but he knows where they bed down so he sets up his bench and lobs a bullet over to the bed of the biggest buck in the state. It must have weighed 600 pounds and had 429 points. New record if he wouldn't have lost the head by taking it to a taxidermist who got closed down for poaching. That guy was the best shot. He could hit a gnat from 200 yards, offhand, with a 25 ACP pistol. Blindfolded. he grew up shooting. I think his ma said he was born wearing a gun belt. Made his own barrels too. From old tire rims he forged into a blank. Drilled em by hand. The old fashioned way. Dug galena from the hillside to make bullets from. Carved the mould from a hunk a metal he found. Used nothing but an old,file and a pocket knife. He said them new fangled guns and moulds was no good.

I would go on but I don't want to bore anyone or end up with a Pulitzer prize for works of fiction......

[wtfooptimax200]

In my home state of CT, handgun hunting for deer has only been legal for a short time. Currently, only revolvers are allowed. Rumor has it that replacing the word "pistol" in the legislation with "revolver" allowed it to pass. Beggars can't be choosers, I'm just glad that they passed the law! Even if single shots were allowed, I'd still use a revolver due to personal preference.

[44man]

In my home state of CT, handgun hunting for deer has only been legal for a short time. Currently, only revolvers are allowed. Rumor has it that replacing the word "pistol" in the legislation with "revolver" allowed it to pass. Beggars can't be choosers, I'm just glad that they passed the law! Even if single shots were allowed, I'd still use a revolver due to personal preference.
Revolvers are great and all you need. They work so well because they are close range guns and there are great calibers and boolits.
Single shots are great too and if distances are longer they are like a rifle.
Some laws are goofy like Ohio only allowed straight wall calibers yet you could use a 200 yard inline with a scope. The laws were made to hold down distance a gun could shoot because of the flat country. Rifles were not allowed for deer but you could varmint hunt with them. Amish used rifles for deer.
WV took forever to allow crossbows but you have to be disabled.
Laws in every state are all over the place because smart people do not make the laws, politicians do! ;-)

[GLynn41]

for me hand gun hunting is fun--it is a .41 --cast boolits-a 7000+ acre swamp not from my home- I walk and hunt and walk and -- I see lots of stuff--AND kill a few deer- -- I hunt from the ground and make a blind where ever i sit - from what is around-
the weapon is a six gun--a wildcat .41- most times but I do use and enjoy a scoped TC 9" pirate barrell from Gary Reeder another wildcat .41
but either of them fit a shoulder holster - I will sometimes use a rifle --a .358 Weatherbye vanguard- but normally if I use a rifle I am around a field (30.06)- but often still wear a six gun-handgun is moving light --naps- and long deer drags- and I love ever trip --every moment
for there will come a time when I will have to change or stop -but until then

[bigboredad]

too me there is a difference a good handgun hunter is also a woodsman. It takes practice to be a woodsman pull a city boy off the streets and tell him to sneak up on a deer and watch what happens. most successful handgun hunters have spent lotsa lotsa of time in the woods watching learning and practicing being quiet it is a skill.

long range pistol shooters that are successful spend lotsa lotsa a time at their craft learning about reading wind direction, bullet drop how atmospheric conditions effect the bullet path and how bullet rotation will effect the path at the super long ranges and so on and so on but it is a skill different but a skill

the people I have a problem are those that try to buy their skills. They think buying the biggest loudest heaviest bullet launching revolver will make them a woodsman and able to pull off a good sneak attack on bambi's lover. When they find out that doesn't work they switch to the short rifles and sit in a blind or shoot over the hood of their truck at stuff that is 4-or 500or a mile off. when that doesn't work they proclaim all handguns are worthless and handgun hunters to all be liars

it comes down to practice practice practice it just depends on which discipline you choose to follow. Just one cranky mans opinion

[buck1]

Its all very personal. Its not a contest. It IS doing what each one of us likes doing with what we like to do it.
Now If braggin rights are what you want , You must compare a revolver to a revolver and a single shot to a single shot , Scope to scope , iron sights etc.
As for me I once took a nice running buck with a Competitor Single shot .308 win pistol at just over 300 yds. I had a good load I knew where to aim as I had practiced out to 350. It was a good clean rested chest shot.
BUT I did not get nowhere the thrill I would have got with a 50 yard revolver kill.
Its all about what YOU like, What YOU enjoy ,what you can do, what it means to YOU. Now I hunt only with revolvers as that what gets MY blood pumping.
If some one just wants to brag their words are wasted on me,. As I said its all very personal.

[Shooter]

Handgun hunting is like bowhunting with much cheaper arrows.

[BWelch47]

when it comes to the sport of handgun hunting, a good author to read is Gene West. He was a wildlife biologist who use a 5" SW model 27 to hunt with. He was a neighbor of Elmer's and a gift he received was a SW model 29 (shown by DOC44 on the SW Forum). His experiences and writings were influencial in the passage of many of the laws allowing the use of handguns for hunting. His 5" 27 is one of the few private revolvers in the SW museum. The list of animals taken with the 357 is astonishing. He was a great motivator for people such as JD Jones and Larry Kelly.:bigsmyl2:

[Buddy]

I hunt with handguns 99% of the time, it's my uncurable disease. As long as a hunter uses the correct cartridge/bullet combo for the intended quarry and stays within his capabilities I don't see where the type of handgun means diddlysquat. We all love our sport and are lucky enough to be able to pursue game with our weapon of choice. Let's not screw that up. I do most of my big game hunting with a very accurate DW744VH8 and my longest shot dropped a doe in her tracks @ 155yds. That's a long shot in my neighborhood. Most deer I take are under 75yds and quite a few could just as easily have been taken with archery tackle. My favorite varmint rig is an ancient XP100 in .221 Fireball so I am active at both ends of the spectrum. I have scopes on both of these guns to extract the best I can due to my 57yr old eyes not performing up to par.

[jameslovesjammie]

One of the most impressive shots I've seen was my Uncle taking a pronghorn at 230 paces with a 10" Contender in 7mm TCU. This was after about 700 yards of belly crawling through sagebrush and cactus in NE Montana. For a rest, my Grandfather (who was acting as spotter) laid his hands flat on a rock and the Contender's forend was laid across them.

I've only use .357 wheelguns for whitetail, but a custom Encore is in my future.

[TonyM]

I'm surprised how many people on here are SET one way or another when it comes to this topic...

Hunting deer with a handgun is one thing, but there are other animals out there that I would not want hunt with a handgun (A revolver anyway), because of how close you'd have to get to the animal.... it would become VERY dangerous...

I hunt ground squirrels and birds with a little 22 auto pistol.... I keep my 454 on my hip at all times (While on foot anyway), and it's intended purpose is for unintended encounters with critters that are above me on the food chain... but my rifle is what I "Hunt" with...

I think the animal/animals you're hunting should dictate what kind of firearm you use...

[white eagle]

hunting with a handgun is one thing
but shooting game at long range just for the braggin rite to claim
the longer shot is preposterous and not hunting

[jameslovesjammie]

hunting with a handgun is one thing
but shooting game at long range just for the braggin rite to claim
the longer shot is preposterous and not hunting

That may be your view if you grew up in a heavily wooded area where typical shots are 100 yards max. In some parts of the country (Eastern Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming) there are vast stretches of land where the game can spot you. When stalking Antelope, for example, their eyes are like 10x binoculars. They will spook and run if ANYTHING doesn't look right. There have been plenty of times where we spot a heard, go on a stalk, and find they have moved another 1,000 yards from where we first spotted them at.

There are times when extended range hunting isn't "Braggin rite"...it is a necessity. This was the case with my Uncle and his Contender. He tried for 4 years to get a Speed Goat with his handgun. Numerous stalks, HOURS of glassing the country and no laser range finders then.

[bearcove]

I agree with that. In missouri I bow hunt or pistol depending on season. Its woods 75 yards is max. In New Mexico I hunt with a 300 win mag or 7-08. Sometimes 300 yards is as close as you are going to get.

[smokingguns]

I use a ruger SRH with 7 1/2" barrel, nikon monach scope
loads are 385 grain gas checked bullet with wide flat nose.
shots are kept between 25-50 yrds. I love hunting with it.

it will drop anything I hunt and don't see a need for rifles in deep thick cover
now anything over 75yrds yeah I would use a rifle, but in the Ga swamps where I will do most of my deer and hog hunting, my 454 is the ticket.

[warf73]

My whole point in getting the 480 was to hunt at a range of 100 yards and in, maybe a 125 yard shot if I felt comfortable doing so.
If I'm going were far shots are needed like in westeren kansas then I grab the 460wby or 300wby.

[Whitworth]

Hunting deer with a handgun is one thing, but there are other animals out there that I would not want hunt with a handgun (A revolver anyway), because of how close you'd have to get to the animal.... it would become VERY dangerous...


Why would it be any more dangerous than getting close with a rifle? With my .475, .500 JRH, .500 Linebaugh, etc., I don't feel in the least undergunned and no less secure than if I were carrying my Mauser in .416 Remington. These big revolvers are extremely effective loaded correctly.

[jwp475]

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/00000009.jpg


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/parker_buffalo.jpg


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/00000003.jpg


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/ParkerBuffInSnow.jpg


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/HondoHunt2008030.jpg


Not much a big bore revolver will not handle with a good hard cast bullet and by hard cast I mean from 20 to 24 brinnel and not over 24 IMHO and experience

[white eagle]

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/00000009.jpg


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/parker_buffalo.jpg


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/00000003.jpg


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/ParkerBuffInSnow.jpg


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d62/jwp475/HondoHunt2008030.jpg


Not much a big bore revolver will not handle with a good hard cast bullet and by hard cast I mean from 20 to 24 brinnel and not over 24 IMHO and experience

looks like someone is having fun

[Irascible]

Handgun Hunting is hunting with a handgun. PERIOD. I prefer a barrel of 14" or under, but that's my preference. I have shot White Tails at 30 feet to 150 yds. Jack rabbits to 250+ and 4 Antelope from 100yds to 345 yds. I use open sighted revolvers and scoped handcannons. I don't care the type of a gun I use or the distance. IT'S ALL FUN. As the man above said, WE HAVE TO ALL STICK TOGETHER.