I see nothing wrong with shooting any animal on the run with a rifle. I have no clue how many deer I've killed with a rifle, I'll guess in the upper 50s or so, and I'd say about 20 of them were running when I shot them. I shoot my deer rifle a few hundred times during the year, I know where it shoots, and I know how to make a 1 shot kill on a running animal. I usually use jackrabbits in the summer/fall as my running shot targets. I shoot at 'em while sitting and intentionally miss them, then when they are running I shoot them. I suppose that is un-ethical too....

Now that I am much older and have all the trophies I really need I only take near perfect broadside standing still shots at 100 yards or less. That saidI do remember when I was a youngan in Jersey and buckshot was the shot of choice on deer drives wherejust about all shots were on the run. Don't forget with buck shot we are talking about 50 yards or less shots usually.

By the way anyone who can hit a running target at 200+ yards must be a supershot. Ishoot quite a bit and was expert in the Army, way back when, and have trouble consistantly hitting a 6" bull at 200+ yards.No insult ment but this site must be heavily full of expert marksmen from what I have read over the years,sure would like to shoot with ya so I could pick up some tips!!!

Sir,
I shot at a buck running at full throttle and hit the deer exactly where I aimed at. The buck fell immediately. It was only about 40 yds away but a nice broadside shot. I didn't lead the gun. The 30-30 is not a shot gun. It hit exactly where I shot. I was 22years old.LOL

im not talking 200 yard shots i dont know where all this 200 yard stuff is coming from. a lot of deer that you see running in the woods arent 200 yards. im just talking about general running shots with a rifle anywhere from 5 yards to 100 not saying every deer i ever shot was over 200 yards running full throttle. so some of you have to quit getting all bent out of shape at us guys who can take these running shots and make them it really doesnt make us expert marksman just makes us experienced at these types of shots

I would say that the vast majority of my own running shots would have been 100 yards or less.At that distance my shot placement has been very consistant.Shooting cartridges with muzzle velocities of 3400fps to 3500fps makes lead much less of a factor as well.I learned to shoot running targets by shooting coyotes and years of shooting skeet seems to have improved my swing even more.The vast majority of my shots are standing,but under the right situation,Iwill take a running shot.

235 yard running deer and you determined it was wounded and going to die an agonizing death?? Now that is impressive [:-].

I agree in general that running shots are a bad idea. I've taken one in my life, and missed. With modern game regulations requiring you to basically have a DNA sample of the deer before you shoot it, on top of the difficulty of making a clean shot, I can't advocate running shots.

That said, I know some guys can pull off the running shot so long as the range isn't extreme. I think the key is doing a lot of bird hunting, which sort of gives you the instinct for leading. It's got to be instinctive, you can't rationalize it. A deer running just 20 mph is covering 30 feet/second. Even abullet at 3,000 feet/second takes about 1/10th of a second to cover 100 yards. In that time, the deer has covered 3 feet!

That's some tough shooting, and even though I was an expert rifleman in the USMC, I won't even try it. It ain't combat out there, and I want to KILL things, not maim them.

It also makes a huge difference if you swing the gun.A stationary gun requires a much longer lead than while swinging the gun as you will discover if you shoot a lot of skeet.