In my neck of the woods, a shot over 50 yards is pretty hard to come by. Even still, I would think that a succesful shot at a deer running flat out (tail down) over 50 yards would be just as lucky a shot as it would be a good one.

I like FLA/GA' s comments as well.

Depends on the conditions and the angle the deer is to me. If I don' t feel confident, I don' t shoot, anytime.

When I was young, it didn' t matter how fast or how far away they were...I was shooting [] The amazing thing was that I killed pretty much every deer I shot at running...woods, fields, far or close...didn' t matter. Then I grew up! Now I wouldn' t even think about shooting at running deer. If I don' t feel that I have a 100% chance of making a clean kill, I let it walk...period.

Deer in my sig. was a running shot at about 30 yards. When I first saw him my buddy had scared him toward me (never even saw or heard the deer he later told me) and the deer was probably about 1/2 speed quartering toward my left about 40 yards and closing. Missed the first shot and the deer kicked up to warp 9 running right past me at about 30 yards. 2nd shot dropped him. This was a deer-of-a-lifetime and I would have shot the entire clip to get him. Probably not terribly ethical but until it happens to you it' s hard to say what you would do. I figure anything inside 50 yards is doable if you are comfortable shooting at moving targets (I had many years of birdshooting and moving targets don' t scare me). Matter of fact my Elk I got last year tried to get up about 50 yards away and I had to " wing-shoot" him to keep him from stumbling to the bottom of the canyon. Had to do the exact same thing with my very first deer as I had originally shot him too far back.

Generally I would try not to shoot uninjured animals past 50 yards if they are moving faster than a walk. I would like to lie and say I would never do it but when that 400 class Bull Elk runs by at 100 yards in an open plain I would really have to decide then. If you are in a dense area probably not but in the wide open areas I hunt it is feasible.

I have no problem with a shot 40 yards or under as long as it is a clear shot and I can put a load of 00 buck in the boiler room, I would probably stretch it out to 50 yards with my 30-30 on one running with the same conditions as the shotgun shot. I have let plenty of them keep on getting up because even though I could have hit them it would not have been a clean shot. Being an ex duck hunter helps a lot when it comes to shooting a moving target, a mallard is just about the size of a deers kill zone.

I have always had a rule that I never take a shot at a running deer (I hunt with a rifle - if I hunted shotgun I might have a different opinion). I' m a very good shot, but I just don' t want to take a chance on wounding one.

The worst kill I ever made was a deer on a very slow walk at about 200 yards. This is a distance I am comfortable with and have made more than one clean kill from that far at standing deer. This was a nice 4 pointer and I took what I thought was a well aimed shot and he went down like a ton of bricks, but it turned out I had clipped both his rear legs. I waited a few minutes as usual before moving over to the deer at which point he tried to to crawl away and I had to finish him off. I felt pretty bad that he had to suffer for several minutes with a non-lethal wound.

And this was a very, very slow moving deer - just barely creeping forward and I missed my aim point by a good two and a half feet.

I won' t say I' ll only shoot at completely stationary deer from this point on, but I learned my lesson about shooting that far out at a deer moving at all. I like my game to be dead when I get to it.

Strange, sounds like that was just a unlucky shot really as I doubt that your rifle was off by 2' at 200 yards due to the movement of the deer, although your are right about your personal preference not to shoot moving game. I agree that most people should not shoot moving game past 100 yards, myself included. I can' t imagine what the lead would be past that point and there are too many variables like wind, animal speed, and potential brush along the bullet' s path. No good reason to shoot that far at moving game for any reason. Under 100 yards and their can be debate.

My answer would be a carbon copy of the answer WV Hunter gave! [8D] NO MORE RUNNING SHOTS.

Ditto!

Power, I didn' t mean to imply it was impossible or that my rifle was off (it wasn' t, as I checked later) - my point was that I am an above average shooter and I still screwed that up to the point that I missed my aim point by that far.

It was also very windy, which may have accounted for it, too, but I still think the fact that he was creeping forward was the big issue. It wasn' t unlucky - I just missed the shot.