Jim Taylor
Long Range Sixgunning by Paco
Monday, March 25, 2024, 09:00

(this is part of a series of articles Paco wrote on long range handgunning for the old Sixgunner.Com website more than 20 years ago)

The Keith 1968 article for Guns and Ammo magazine called...500 YARD SIXGUNNING...became a pivotal point for long range handgunning and brought letters of protest, unbelief, and articles by other writers giving their expert opinion that it wasn’t possible, though they themselves when asked, stated they never tried it. One noted writer...gone to his reward now...even said ..."everything Keith states has to be taken with five pounds of salt..." But just a decade later Silhouette would explode on the scene, and suddenly the truth of long range handgunning became clear even for the most rabid non believer.

What was this that sent shock waves into the readers of G&A? Keith killed a deer with a 44 magnum at 600 yards. Lets have it Elmer’s own words.....

.."later when hunting mule deer with Paul Kriley, we ran into a big bunch of mule deer feeding on a steep mountain side a half mile away. They spotted us when we came out on the ridge. So I told Paul to drop back out of sight, make a circle and come up to a low ridge between us and the deer, and to kill the biggest buck for me, as I carried only the 6 ½ inch S&W 44 magnum. He in turn asked me to take his 300 magnum model 70 and do the job. As it was sighted at one inch high at 100 yards, I told him I would not know where to hold at 500 yards—the range we figured from the small hillock to the deer. He made the circle, crawled up to the top of the ridge and fired from a prone position. The lower of the two big bucks dropped and rolled down the steep mountain into a foot of wet snow and mud. The rest of the band fled straight away for about 200 yards, then turned up a ridge and dropped over out of sight. Before I got across the swale, Paul was firing again. When I got up to the top, the buck he had dropped was running straight away in the tracks of the band with one fore leg dragging. I asked Paul if he saw any harm in my getting into the battle, and he said Go Ahead."

Conditions forced me to assume the prone position, the worst possible for shooting a heavy sixgun. I held up the same amount or a trifle more front sight as used on the rock shot. (They had just before that been testing the long range of the S&W on a rock out to 500 yards). I fired and nothing happened; Paul fire again with like results. Then I held up about all of the front sight clear down to the ramp, shot again and Paul said, "I saw that one hit at his feet." He shot again and missed, and then I held all of the front sight up, perched the buck on top and squeezed off another round.

The buck stopped mid-air and almost turned a somersault. It came back towards us on three legs, shaking it’s head. I thought I must have hit a horn. When the buck got back toward us to where Paul had first hit it at around 500 yards, Paul fired and missed. The big buck again swapped ends and headed back over the trail it’s band had taken. Then Paul said.."I’m empty." I told him to take off and go around the mountain and get above the buck while I hazed the animal on around our side of the hill.

As Paul took off, I held all of the front sight up and some of the top of the ramp in line with the rear -sight notch, perched the buck on top again and started the trigger squeeze. Just as I was finishing the squeeze, the buck turned up the mountain in the tracks of the bank on the low ridge, so I shoved my sight picture in front of it and let go. The gun kicked up and settled back down. The buck turned and disappeared over the ridge. I got up and started the long swing across the swale and then to where I had last seen the deer, well over six hundred yards away.

When I had reached the ridge, I saw where the deer had rolled down the mountain then gotten up and walked toward a clump of yellow pine. I cut across to the trail, finding blood sprayed out well on both sides but never dreamed I had hit it again at that crazy long range for the best rifle, let alone a sixgun. Paul yelled, "Just climb a little higher." We were soon at the fallen deer. We finally found Paul’s 180 grain Remington bullet entrance on the right side back of the rib cage. It had stayed in the left shoulder.

When I examined its head, no horn was even touched. We found that my first hit was in the back of the right jaw. It had come out the top of the nose, right in the black tip. Then Paul asked, "Who shot him through the lungs? I only had the first broadside shot that hit the flesh of the left shoulder and just below the chest and made the him run on three legs?"

The lung shot had hit three inches higher on the side turned toward me, and then it had exited. We dressed it out and found a rib cut on each side and Paul said, "You must have done that with your last shot." I could not believe it. However , some days later, my son Ted skinned the buck out and came back in the house with that Remington base-jacket of the bullet in his hand. He said, "Dad, I picked this up under the skin on the left side near the lung shot exit hole."

I wrote up this episode some time later, (for the American Rifleman...it wasn’t until it appeared in the G&A that the fun started), and have been called a charter member of the Ananias club ever since.

Well maybe many didn’t believe him then...but today we know better. Keith himself states that he would never have tried to kill the buck at that range if it had not been wounded. He didn’t believe in that kind of ultra long range handgun hunting of live game animals. Though he would and did take them under 300 yards often. This is part one of this mini series, the next installment will be on guns and loads.....PACO