worst shot I've ever taken.
So here's my 2012 story:
There I was, sitting in my stand, enjoying the weather, and a Nice doe came walking up the path (with a group of a few other less-desirable-for-harvesting deer). I had a perfect broadside shot down a shooting lane, put the crosshairs behind the R should, fired, and the deer dropped in it's tracks. So I Waited a little, and went to gut it and was thinking about fresh fried tenderloins…
To my shock and horror, I'd discovered I'd hit the deer under the ear…
A little more info: I was aiming with a scoped .270 (that I've shot for years, never having anything resembling accuracy problems…) and this deer was at most ~40 yds from me, slight uphill, shooting through very light brush (the shot was on a cut shooting lane and generally speaking, this I'd call an unobstructed shot). The rife when shot was suppoted on the stable wall of my deer stand.
Let me repeat--I aimed for the heart (with a shot a child could make) and hit the head.
Now, I admit I'm not the world's finest marksman, but I try to make up for it by being very selective with my shots… (been hunting since I was 13 and only one time have I failed to find a deer I shot…) I pride myself on taking one shot for one kill (and it's why I often hunt with a muzzleloader…)
(Background: I like shooting my muzzleloader and do a lot of plinking with it just for fun, but the .270 I've been so confident in, I rarely do any target shooting with it--last time I'd fired it was 1 time ~1 year previously when I'd harvested my 2011 deer and prior to that 1 time ~1 year before that, harvesting my 2010 deer… I haven't done any target shooting with this rifle in ~5 years, but really, didn't see a need to--it hadn't required a second shot since ~2008 when a buck I'd shot and was downed required a final killing shot…)
The only solace I have from this is that I again maintained my "one shot, one kill" belief, and the deer was harvested humanely, but, it certainly wasn't how I intended it…
Anyways, After this (and somewhat horrified by this) I took the gun out for some practice shots, figuring the scope must be off… I was hoping it'd be a foot or so high/right and I could blame it being bumped or what not… Unforunately, It wasn't far off--While I tweaked it a little--only to account for ~1 inch of accuracy issues, it was nothing to explain missing my intended target by, what, nearly >1 foot!
So, I'm puzzled. I'm trying to figure if I can realistically "blame" this on anything other than an unexplainable operator error… ("buck-fever" seems ridiculous--it was a "eatin'" doe nothing I haven't seen/shot many times before…) I realistically can't blame hitting a branch because I don't believe any twig can alter the accuracy of a .270 rifle at 40 yds by that dramatic an amount…
However, I'm wondering
1.) I've been shooting from a box of cartridges that are ~15-20 (possibly more) years old. Do older cartridges go bad or can accuracy be dramatically altered by time? (visibly, the cartridges look fine…)
(in retrospect, I've had 2 deer shot in the past 5 years that had entry wounds where I expected but somewhat odd exit wounds--not where I'd expect if a straight path was taken through the deer)
2.) Is there a such thing as a single defective cartridge I can blame this on?
3.) Anything else you all can think of that could account for this???