When engaging a large game target that’s moving, do you establish a lead and swing the gun to maintain that lead until the gun discharges, or do you pick a fixed spot ahead of the target, stop and aim there, and then fire when the target gets to the required lead distance from that spot? Please note that this question refers to situations in which the animal is at least 100 yards away.

The two methods are called swinging lead and ambush.

Question:
Which method do you use for targets at 100 yards or farther?
.

Choices:
Swinging lead.
Ambush.

 

According to the poll choices, I use the Ambush method. I basically use "Kentucky Windage" to lead the target.

However, I only have a small amount of experience with shooting at moving large game, so I'm not all that confident in my "guesstimation" ability. As a result, I don't use it on long or difficult shots. For challenging shots, I wait for the animal to stop, and if that means the animal wanders off before I get a shot I'm comfortable with, then so be it.

I don't like taking moving shots at game and don't do it often. But if the animal is moving, then so is the gun.

I know that many large game hunters aren’t normally comfortable with shooting at moving animals, so I appreciate whatever answer you can give to the question as posed. If you do have a lot of experience with doing that, it would be good to know in a posted response.

I voted swing with, but I wouldn't call it "leading". Obviously, it would depend on how fast it is moving and how far away.

With any modern rifle, if you need to have the crosshairs off the animal when you fire, it's too far/fast. IMO

At that extended range, ambush makes much more sense to me. Personally, that range would keep me from chancing a shot on fast moving game unless I was starving to death; if I thought other game was in the area, maybe even if I was.

I have hit deer at ranges out to about 30 yards or so while they were moving about half speed using a lead, but they obviously much closer than your chosen distance.

At the stated distance in the OP, I wouldn't take the shot.
In the other poll, shotgun & flying target, lead the target.

For this poll, I'm patient enough to wait for a stationary shot.

I've only shot one thing truly running, a coyote going flat out. He was going up hill, quartering away. 198 yards. I "ambushed" him.. but it took three tries to make it work. Not three shots, but three setups, him running through my sight picture twice before I got what I wanted and broke the shot. That was with a pistol and a pistol scope. I don't know that I would do the same with a rifle / rifle scope. I'd probably swing through and shoot when I got the lead I wanted. The other way was tricky.

Oftentimes, in cover, one has to wait until the deer/Elk walks through an opening. The further the game is away, the slower I’d want the animal moving, to take a shot.

It’s likely been decades since I’ve taken a shot at game over 100 yards at more than a slow walk. I have done coyotes, but even that is uncommon.

I strive to make that 1st shot lethal, or wait until we meet again.

Stalk and ambush for me. I love the chase!!!!!! Then hopefully I can make a clean shot.

Swing and lead.

I also stalk, the stalk is as satisfying as the kill.

If I don't get a kill, I at least have had a nice walk with my rifle.

I don't like shooting at a moving animal at 100+ yards, but a swinging lead is what I normally use from bird hunting.

I actually take a lot of shots at small moving animals...swinging lead. I wait for large game animals to quit moving.

I tried leading a big game animal once. If I were shooting a 20ga at a rabbit it would have been just about right. I wasn't and she wasn't. As I later anylized my shot I decided there quite a bit of difference between a load of 6 shot and a 180gr Nosler Partition at mag velocities. The bullet arrived long before the cow.

I have no way of practicing, and I'm not planning to repeat on an unwounded animal.

I've killed dozens of moving whitetail in the PA woods. I've used the following three rifles to do so: Marlin 1895 guide gun in .45-70, Winchester 88 chambered in .308, and a Remington BDL in .30.06. Only the Winchester is outfitted with a scope. A 4X32 with the "German" post reticle. I find that moving the rifle with the target allows me to get a better feel of the proper lead distance. The only time I use the ambush method is when the woods is extremely dense.

Oddly, I ambush the steel plates when shooting the Texas Star in USPSA.

I first try to match my swing with the movement of the target, which gives me a sense of how much to lead it, then I adjust to add the leading aspect right before firing, and ambush.

So, kind of both, I think...?

My only reference is whitetail deer, and no one ever taught me this method, per se, I had "leading" explained to me once ages ago, and the rest just seemed to make sense to me.

The only shot I have taKen at a moving animal was a dog in a flat run at my kid who was 80 yards away from me and maybe 300 yards running to my kid. I looked at my boy and knew I wouldn’t be able to get to him in time.

I reached into my dads truck and got his Ruger 44 carbine and lead the dog until it was in the scope. When i squeezed the trigger, the crosshair was about three feet in front of the dog. The shot was perfect. Dog folded, my toddler looked at me and the loud boom, and I told him to come to me- my boy had never seen the charging dog. I asked if he wanted a popsicle, and when he was out back eating the popsicle, I rolled the dog into a trash can and kicked some dirt on the blood in the driveway.

That night I told my dad and he told me the owner was really gonna cause problems. I met her the next day when She came to the house looking for her dog.

I’ve never shot at a moving animal before or since...that was 1993. And I didn’t think about it-I just acted on reflex.

I’m so glad the first shot was on the spot, because I don’t think I could ever hit something moving that fast again.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
[L]ead the dog until it was in the scope. When i squeezed the trigger, the crosshair was about three feet in front of the dog.

Do you recall if you stopped the gun at the point you fired, or was it while swinging?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
[L]ead the dog until it was in the scope. When i squeezed the trigger, the crosshair was about three feet in front of the dog.

Do you recall if you stopped the gun at the point you fired, or was it while swinging?

Still swinging, I've never shot shotguns at birds, just riot guns at stationary taregts for score. I can still see it , I was holding about two or three feet in front of him. And the 44 was exactly what I needed right then.

Later my dad told me the owners dog had chased people walking down the road, and other animals. But the owner was a state trooper and apparently had a bad attitude and everyone around her called "the bitch" and everyone knew exactly who they were talking about.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
That night I told my dad and he told me the owner was really gonna cause problems.

What never fails to amaze me about such owners is that they don’t know what problems are like until a dog actually makes it to someone like a child or elderly person who can’t effectively defend himself against an attack—assuming, of course, that they live in a jurisdiction where such things are treated with the seriousness they deserve.