Idaho proposed special season open sight centerfire

[Q_Sertorius]

It’s important to give the animals a chance [to run off and die slow deaths so the coyotes and buzzards can eat them].

I am mostly joking, but I do think that limiting hunters to technology that is only good out to 150 yards makes it harder for most hunters to be killers. But my experience has been that this doesn’t really affect the kinds of hunters who are successful year after year.

Nor does it stop the sort of “hunter” who is lobbing shots well outside his “known effective range.” I have a neighbor who asked me to “keep an eye out for a big ole buck I might have wounded.” He said he shot at it running at “about 300 yards.”

And anecdotally, I have seen and heard of a lot more animals wounded and not recovered by inexpert close-range weapons (archery and muzzleloader) than by centerfire rifles. It’s a lot easier to be lethal at any range with a good centerfire rifle.

 

[nm.otter]

anecdotally, I have seen and heard of a lot more animals wounded and not recovered by inexpert close-range weapons (archery and muzzleloader) than by centerfire rifles. It’s a lot easier to be lethal at any range with a good centerfire rifle.

Hence my questions about what affects hunter success rates. Iron sights clearly limit effective range, but I am less clear about the contributions of other factors (like time required for a potential follow-up shot).

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Hence my questions about what affects hunter success rates. Iron sights clearly limit effective range, but I am less clear about the contributions of other factors (like time required for a potential follow-up shot).

The only reasons I would oppose a requirement to use single shot rifles are practical and political. I wouldn’t want to make millions of hunting rifles illegal and I would never give up a justification for ordinary people to own repeaters of any kind.

In terms of success rates, I am not sure it makes a measurable difference, but I suspect it matters for recovery rates.

Edit - for what it’s worth, the only deer shot more than once on my farm last year was hit three times by a muzzleloader.