story in the American Rifleman magazine about Herb Parsons shooting a crow at 1250 yards? Could he even SEE a crow 1250 yards away? Or maybe over the years the story grew from 150 yards? Or 1250 feet? Or could you just figure if it was 1250 yards that he was just shooting in the blind and happened to hit it? C'mon, people. Gimme a break.

I don't believe it either. The article must have meant 125 yards.

quite possible.....look at the world records for group size at 1000yds....absolutely scary stuff 3 shot groups sub 1.5", ten shot groups at sub 4.5"......way, way out of my league, but with that in mind, a lucky shot at 1250 does not seem out of line.
Steve

I had a uncle, now deceased, that went on a quail hunt with Herb Parsons while on an Olin corporate retreat. According to my uncle, Herb's quail gun on that occasion was a Win. Mod 61. He did miss a few times. He could also forcefully eject a fired case and hit it with the next bullet.

OB

I had a uncle in NE Oklahoma that told this for the absolute truth.
Some fellars came from Tulsa to hunt quails on an older guys place, and some surrounding neighbors. The old gent gave them permission and they asked if he would like to go along. He said sure, he'd get his coat and gun. They told him they would furnish the ammo, but he told them they didn't have ammo for his gun. He came back out with a Winchester pump 22. They told him they hunted over dogs and flushed the birds, shot 'em in the air. He said he knew how to hunt birds, been doin' it most of his life. Unc said they got into several coveys, got in a lot of shooting. The Tulsa boys could hear the 22 say "pat!" every once in a while, and thought it was pretty funny. When they got back to the old gent's house they offered to divvy up the birds with him. He told them he only wanted the ones that he had shot. They poured them out on the porch and he went to digging through the pile of birds, setting one to the side here and there as he looked. I can't remember how many Unc said the old guy had, but the Tulsa boys wanted to know how he was so sure which ones were his. He turned them over and showed the guys that EVERY ONE of them in his pile was shot through the back of the head with a 22!! Turned out he had been an exhibition shooter for Winchester for years.

I like that story. When I get the bad news from the Doc some day, I'm going to book a few days at the local preserve and oil up my Model 61. If I have a good day, my buddies will be talking about me for decades. However, I won't be shooting bobwhites and I won't be taking head shots on the ringnecks.

Anything's possible. I've seen "impossible" shots. At 1,200 yards, I'd give it the benefit of doubt, depending on the caliber he used. I don't think any .22 or .25 calibre would do it; maybe a 7mm.

Too much comes into play for this shot - one must shoot at this range time and time again. Snipers do it - but they practice at such distances. The average rifleman can barely hit a deer in the haunch at 100yards.

A similar story, or another version of it, is in a book somewhere on the shelf. I'm thinking it's in D. Lee Braun's book on trap and skeet.

Or I've been drinking with your uncle and got things confused...my brain is starting to lie to me a little bit. Maybe a lot.

By the way, the crow was flying. I wonder how much he had to lead it?

D Lee Braun's trap shooing book describes a young boy showing up at a country trap shoot and breaking about 17 or so birds with a .22. Braun claims the young man was the best trap shot he ever saw.

"The average rifleman can barely hit a deer in the haunch at 100yards"

we aim for neither the haunch or hte paunch. we aim at lungs neck or heart or front shoulder.

and most are pretty damn good shots.

pity about the midwest where you may be

not in my area of the country.

Elmer Keith killed a mule deer @ 600 yds. with his 4" S&W .44 mag.
JR

Here in Missouri, we have signs - "Welcome Hunters," in Colorado it's "Welcome Yuppies."
Your days of hunting in Colorado are numbered!
...and fireplace fires (hehehe)

Herb Parsons shot a SuperGrade Model 70 in .270 Win., with 4x scope- a "Jack O'Connor rifle" as per Rule's book on the great Model 70-a crow dead at 125 yards I would believe- at 1250 I would question- even with a Harris Bipoded M40 .308 168 grain Sierra handload and a Leupold sniper/Spec. ops. scope-- or a .22-250 with 50 grain Hornady bullet in a comparable M700 actioned accurized rifle- wind at 125 yards is a factor- at 10 times that at a small and possible moving target, plus sky and light conditions, sun glare, shadow, moving cloud cover overhead-even Carlos "Long Tra'n" Hathcock who "dinged 'em in at 1000 yards at Camp Perry in 1959 with a NM 1903 would maybe pass up that 1250 yards (or metric today thanks to NATO) shot- Hathcock also show quail awing with his single shot .22 rifle-even after at age 12 he had a single shot 12 ga. shotgun to use- he head shot his birds awing, and the .22 was way cheaper than a shotgun shell, he grew up dirt poor and shot to feed his family- ditto Alvin York from TN in his pre-WW1 boyhood- a hungry empty stomach and only one round at your command makes for an accurate shot-IMO

About two weeks ago I took a shot at a rabbit in my neighbor's back yard with my Gamo pellet gun. The pellet went into it's eye and came out the ear on the opposite side. I stepped it off at a good 55 yards. So, I don't think Herb Parsons has any thing on me.

Lucky shots happen all the time and only idiots say they are lucky shots when they happen. Having shot with the 1,000 yard National Record postion shooter, Carl Kovolchick, and having been there the day he set that record in the Wimbledon, I can assure you that any crow hit at 1.250 yards on the first shot is a lucky shot. Snipers can take head shots at 1,000 yards plus but Carl's 200 19x group was over 10 inches in diameter.

This was done with a 16 pound, .300 Win Mag with a 24X Leupold. Carl also had the advantage of unlimited sighters before he went for record. Carl was, at the time, a Secret Service counter sniper.

It can happen with a single shot out of a cold barrel, and being an incredible rifleman helps, but the truth is, it's luck.

By the way, Hathcock shot a model 70, not a 1903. He may have competed with a 1903 at some time, but it's not likley. The Marines were using M1s in service rifle competition by then. He was Distinguished so he shot a service rifle at some point.

Also by the way, the reticle on a 4X scope at 1,250 yards covers about 8 inches, more that the total size of the crows body.

Dick Jones Distinguished Civilian Rifleman #946

With Herb Parsons anything involving shooting was possible.

Why would you even want to shoot a deer in the haunches? The haunches are the best part of the deer and you sure wouldn't want to ruin the haunch by putting a bullet through it.

Having fired at minimum 1000 shots per year for over 40 years, I have made a few truly amazing and memorable shots at extreme range. Add luck, practice, and skill together, fire enough shots, and hits happen. Try this... Shoot a .22 rimfire at 250-300 yds. on dry ground where you can see your hits, and before long you can hit a pop can offhand with open sights quite often at those ranges. Yes, the sight would more than cover the can, but your aiming point will be several feet high and well right or left if it's windy. Now, if I can do that, I have no problem believing that a guy who routinely shoots bullets through thrown washers could hit a flying crow at 1250 yds. Parsons shot more in a month than most shooters do in a lifetime. He had a gun that could shoot that far easily, and he had the skill to put a bullet in the vicinity. Add that measure of luck, and the bullet would hit the crow, or the crow would run into the bullet. Those of you who feel this must have been 125 yds. if it happened at all just haven't shot enough at long range. Understand also that the next 100 shots at crows at that range might well all have missed. But it's tough to beat a bricklayer at his trade.

I understand you, keith. After reading Elmer Keith's book, Sixguns By Keith, I spent many years shooting handguns at long ranges, mainly S&W .357s and .44 magnums while laying down, holding them between my knees. I could "walk" bullets out to targets several hundreds of yards away and get remarkably close. And sometimes I would hit them. I remember one time, being on a hill in Kentucky and shooting probably a thousand yards away or better, down at a large rock in the middle of a creek (where I could see where my bullets were hitting in all directions around the target) and coming pretty close to hitting it with my Smith .44 magnum. Probably within 20 or 30 feet. But still, hitting a bird in flight at 1250 yards would have to been so lucky, in my opinion, that it would have to have been called "lucky" rather than "skillful". Especially, since you don't have any idea when the bird would decide to change directions, when the wind speed would have increased, etc.

If I remember right, 2 MPH full value wind deflects a 180 grain 308 bullet over 2 feet. Remember that competitive shooters have scopes to read mirage and wind flags.

Getting pretty close to a stationary target that's big enough to see at 1250 yards is a lot different than hitting it. The human eye is capable os seeing about 1 minute of angle or a 1' dot at 100 yards. that equates to a 12.5" dot at 1250 yards. I don't think the naked eye can see a crow at that distance.

Most "1000 yard" shots are less than 500 yards. If you've ever stood on a 1000 yard line, the 4 foot bull on the target looks like a period on your front site. My sight was .072 and the bull was not as wide as the sight.

Dick Jones

I'm sure in good light against the right back ground a crow could easily be seen at 1250 yards.

Parsons had to have a sixth sense when it came to shooting...his shooting wasn't mechanical like a bench rest shooter.

Most here shoot at the public's expense, or their buddies - most never see the aftermath of deer season. I can tell you as a landowner that has found dead deer on their property, they are shot wherever they're shot and wonder off to die.
Some really think too much of themselves and their stuff!

at 1250 yards? that's bs.

Lowell, it's entirely possible those deer were victims of suicide. Did they seem depressed in the days leading up to their discovery?

usually all that's left is stinky gut piles!

In the "pure sh*t shot" category I once dropped a flying crow at 70 paced yards with a Remington M12 .22. The blood trail over 50 feet of fresh snow that ended at the dead bird (no tracks, just blood splatter) was all the proof needed for my witness to stop calling me a liar! (40 years later I still wish he hadn't turned to take a leak before I fired so he would've eyewitnessed the shot!) I never tried repeating the stunt.

So when you left the woods that day the snow was red and yellow....

Kinda. Several things I do know.

Really good shooters usually have really good eyesight. So yess, its' more than likely he could see a crow at that distance

As was pointed out, with Parsons, anything was possible.

There's difference between a lucky shot and a good shot. Ask a top notch shooter what his best shot was and he's likely to look at you stupidly - his are all good, working shots that get the job done expertly every time. Ask Joe Blow and he'll go on about a once in a lifetime Hail-Mary affair that he thinks was his best and everyone else knows was his luckiest. Big difference. But to the point, just yanking a cold gun out of the case and whacking a crow-sized target at most of a mile is luck. If the story has any basis, it was a lucky shot, but believable garnish to a career such as Parsons'.

As to Keith, he spent a lifetime taking a lot of stupid shots, wounding and crippling a lot of game along the way.

Possible with some luck? Absolutely. Likely? Less so.

And as soon as I started reading I knew the Keith shots would be mentioned and the bashers would show up.

Very few people have had the chance to shoot anything beyond 300 yards. I miss the Arizona range facilities I had access to in the '80's. I used to regularly shoot at 600 yards at Ben Avery and on two occasions I was able to shoot from the 1000 yard line. If I can hit a target from that range AT ALL, I don't doubt that someone like Parsons might have done what is reported.

It's gotta be on the first shot, or bye-bye crow.
Paper targets stick around for the next shot.

As per your first statement, I would tend to agree. I think I'm a pretty good shot with a rifle and the last eye exam I had at age 50 showed I was still blessed with 20-16 vision right eye and 20-18 left eye. I still don't need glasses. As to your last statement, you show your ignorance, as nowhere in my post did I mention taking wild random long range shots at game. I suppose it is possible that I wounded some flies that were attracted to the pop cans I regularly hit at 300 yds. Sorry. I gave up hunting with scoped high power rifles around 1980 and switched to flintlock rifles. I wanted more of a challenge than lining up crosshairs and squeezing the trigger. I killed a lot of deer with the muzzleloader, one shot kills, all between 40 and 110 yards. I passed up a lot of shots because I wasn't sure I'd put the animals' lights out with one shot. Around 1990 I took a shot at a running doe with my flintlock at fairly close range. My hold seemed good and the gun fired instantly. I found no hair on the snow, nor any blood as I followed the tracks for about 100 yards. I couldn't believe I missed, but I gave up due to no blood trail. Five days later, as I walked in to the same spot, I found a dead doe perhaps fifty yards beyond where I gave up. Possums had been feeding on it, eating its' eyes and chewing at a bullet hole behind the left front leg, which was my aiming point. They also chewed into its' anus and startled me as they ran out of the body cavity. Now, I cannot be certain this was the same deer I shot at, but there was a lot of circumstantial evidence... There was an entry wound at the heart, but no exit, which is common with round balls. The doe was the same size and traveling in the same direction. Not many people hunted this area, and there were no human tracks in the vicinity in the old snow. I beat myself up a thousand times over the years and asked the Lord to forgive me for wasting one of His animals, even though I'm not sure it was me, who only needed to keep following up my shot for another fifty yards. Then I have a moron like you who obviously can't read, insulting me as being a slob hunter. In my next life, I hope to be perfect, like you.

Keith;
I really do believe Ithaca5E was not speaking of you, but the writer Elmer keith, as his 600 yd kill of a mule deer with a 4" S&W magnum had just been mentioned. My opinion is he probably has no basis for his statement concerning that Keith either other than his own personal opinion.

I believe it.

Ithaca5E, you must be a pretty accomplished shooter/hunter to be slagging off Elmer Keith ?! best, Mike Bailey

I have witnessed a 110 yard kill with a 22 Ruger singel six, a three point buck shot at night. I saw the same boy shoot a flying mallard at over 90 yards with an iron sighted Remington Pump 3006. I also killed a Canada Goose at 80 yards with a 4" Smith and Wesson Model 63 22 LR. If it can happen, it will happen but all of the three shots above were luck, not skill. I am sure the crow died a similar fate.

I was one of the lucky boys drawn from the crowd to throw objects for Herb at Pebble Lake trapgounds near Fergus Falls, MN. I'm guessing about 1948. Anyway, I had a hell of a throwing arm and he gave me an egg and I whipped it straight up as fast as I could and he missed it! He then made a remark that got the crowd laughing hard. We had one of his Indian chief heads drawn with a Model 63 hanging in our hardware store for many years.

Two shots that shook me up, wondering if I was dreaming, were 20 years ago on my property on the coast along 100-foot cliffs at the edge of the sea. Two crows jumped out of the cranberries into the wind about 50 yards away and I shot both with my scoped Remington Model 700 custom 25-06.

Awww, hell.

Keith.

First, the circumstances, eyewitnesses, and background of the 'infamous and unbelievable' shots of Keith ARE on record and in print. If someone has not read them, then that is their loss, but does not validate their own unsupported and unwitnessed judgment of the facts: AS WITNESSED and RECORDED.

Secondly, unless a person has spent considerable time with a pistol, sagebrush, and mountain sides, just constructively and carefully plinking a ton or so of lead away, I'm not sure on what grounds that soul can make any informed decision about long range pistol shooting.

Thirdly, Keith's own son has commented in print about his father's eyesight. The man was raised in wide open spaces, spent great amounts of time there, and was noted for his game-spotting ability by contemporary accounts: far beyond the ordinary folks perception. Yes, it's in print and verified by more than one source.

Fourth: how about ya read the man's autobiography, and check out exactly HOW MUCH shooting he did? I did a brick or two of .22's thru my Colt Match Woodsman about every weekend in my late teens. I could hit specific dirt clods and other far targets better than most of the local .22 rifle shots, and I'm a mere child compared to the distances shot and the guns which Keith used all his life.

He knew trajectory and wind and light and terrain and the capabilities of a weapon far better than just about anyone reading this. Disagree? Publish y'r own biography,with the number of witnessed shots that Keith has.

Whenever i read this topic and the windy, opinionated, inflated ego, jealous, little minded, disparaging and ignorant self-displays of Keith bashing that inexhaustibly accompany it, I am reminded of a friend's motto.

He manages the buildings of a large health complex, as big as some small towns, inhabited by a lot of high IQ's and higher egos.. He says, "People are stupid, and the more they think they know,the stupider they are."

As to Parson's feats? I grew up knowing the grandsons of an exhibition shooter for Winchester: one Mr Richards. His son was Win Richards, long time school superintendent of Phoenix, Ariz schools. The old boy's mementos and medals and tin Indian targets and memorabilia were all over the house and barns. I listened carefully to eyewitness accounts of his shooting. Those men could see a target like a super-star major league hitter can count the stitches on an incoming fast ball. No shixx, Shakespere.

When even ONE of the Keith/Parson type critics have the experience and practice and demonstrate in public and for the record, even a smattering of the recorded feats which were witnessed, then they might have a tiny shred of cred. Until then, the whole lot of you are just puffing smoke and blowing wind.

Hell, I can't even see fine-sight picture pistol sights anymore, but if you want to show up at one of the long range pistol seminars that Linebaugh puts on, or have a personal chat with John Taffin or Ross Seyfried or a few other pistol luminaries, I'd be more than pleased for you to pay my way to shoot with them and you, so's ya can try and demonstrate just how 'impossible' long range pistoling is: according to y'r mentally blighted and ignorantly crippled concepts of human possibility and ballistic fact.

Just a thot, ya know? God, this subject makes me laugh so hard, it's difficult to leave such a target rich environment. However, if anyone could have made that crow shot at that distance, I doubt you'd find anyone more capable or in better tune to do it than Mr Parsons. Trying judge a phenomenal man like that by our personal standards, no matter how much we value our experiences, is still comparing the Allegheny Mountains to Mt Everest.

The hardest part of the entire article for me to believe is that all those mentioned Winchesters were "Over Engineered". Good guns Yes, but exactly what is "Over Engineered" anyway. Even the much maligned '93 Mauser buried its case up to the extractor groove while the cone breech of the model 70 left virtually the entire solid portion of the case head hanging out in the open. no they don't have a reputation of blowing off case heads, but the Mauser design certainly has a higher built-in margin of safety in that aspect. The Browning designed rear locking system of the Lever action Winchester has proven reliable for the cartridges for which they were chambered but if modern higher intensity cartridges are tried to be used then case stretching becomes a problem, "Over Engineered" Hardly!!. Etc, Etc. Over Engineered & Ergonomic are two highly overused terms IMNSHO.

PS; Look at all the Black Powder proofed Damascus bbl'd guns which have many years later passed Nitro Proof, perhaps they were all "Over Engineered".

"Thirdly, Keith's own son has commented in print about his father's eyesight. The man was raised in wide open spaces, spent great amounts of time there, and was noted for his game-spotting ability by contemporary accounts: far beyond the ordinary folks perception."

No question about that, John. My peers in our village who spent their lives at sea had extraordinary vision. My brother, a marine engineer who spent his working years in ships and oil rigs, could identify birds I could barely see. I saw a pilot friend, a New Brunswick pistol champion, hit a popcan with a .45 on his first shot on a 100-yard rifle range.

It's interesting for me to see how passionate some people are about this. I would never day that what is discribed didn't happen, I can assure you that there was a great deal of both luck and skill involved if it did. It is NOT a repeatable shot. If you can't do it over and over, there is a certain amount of luck.

By the way, anyone who has shot a pistol at long range with iron sights knows that good distance vision is not an advantage for accuracy, good vision at the front sight is what makes for an accurate shot with iron sights on either a rifle or a pistol.

As a past AAA NRA Metalic Silhouette Pistol shooter, I've shot a lot of fairly long shots with a pistol. I won't question Mr Keith's shot, but I have enough experience with long range shooting to know there was a certain amount of luck. I've shot out 2 spotters at 1,000 yards with iron sights on a rifle and a bunch at 600. Shooting a spotter out means putting 2 bullets in the same hole since a .30 caliper spindle holds the spotter in place. I could tell myself that those shots were skill and I admit that skill played a part, but unless I can do it every time, it's luck.


As I said, If you can't do it over and over, it isn't all skill.

I have a dim recollection that D.K.M Bell used a .256 (probably a Mannlicher) to shoot either cormorants or pelicans on the wing at well over 100 yards when using up a supply of defective ammunition. He was hitting about one out of two. An Italian visitor supposedly asked where Bell had gotten a shotgun with such a great range.

Birds on the wing with a rifle can be done, given enough skill, eyesight, ammunition, practice and a safe backstop. Not by me, I hasten to add, but there are lots of other things I can't do either that can and have been done by those more able.

Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell. It was cormorants.

I should not do things from my (obviously failing) memory. Thanks for the correction, Greg.

I should not do things from my (obviously failing) memory. Thanks for the correction, Greg.