Distance of "Quigley Bucket Shot"

[Gabriel Law]

Our Quigley match will take place later in the summer PJ...not at the Chilako Trials - sorry if I misled you.  Nice shooting with that 45-70 too.

[Buffalo Creek Law Dog]

I shoot in the military x-legged sitting position. Like you said, it's as good as prone. But, "chunky built" I'm not. I'm 130 lbs which is why sitting and prone are so comfortable for me.

In he Army, we'd be slung up in the sitting position with .303 Lee-Enfields (equipped with P-H microsights) and an NCO would walk down the line in front of us saying - "Soldier, I'm going to push down on your barrel and when I do, I want to see your ass come off the ground."

I also do daily sit ups, push ups, chin ups, pump a little iron and hand stand push ups, so I don't lack for upper body strength. I do a lot of off hand shooting, but seldom with my Sharps rifles. Especially my Business Rifle which has a barrel the diameter of a sewer pipe!

Today I was shooting my #1 Sporter which is a lightweight compared to the BR.

Speaking of thick barrels, I showed my Sharps with the 32" bbl to my son's father in law and he said I could also use it as a pry bar. 

[Pitspitr]

Quote " I see you know your rifle " by the way ,, I bet the wagon shot was just as far & moving ,, love the show ,, make's me try harder .


  smoke'm if y'a got'm ,, Hootmix

"- Well, lieutenant..."
"- Major!" 
"Major, we already run the misfits out of our country. We sent 'em back to England."

Hollywood Weapons did a segment on the twofer shot here a while back

[Capt Quirk]

Using my old Winchester 94 with iron sites, the best I have done is 3 rds into a cigarette pack @100 yds. To be fair, it was a pack of 100's. I also won't say how many times I fired at it 

[PJ Hardtack]

Our Quigley match will take place later in the summer PJ...not at the Chilako Trials - sorry if I misled you.  Nice shooting with that 45-70 too.

Now I'm torn .... do I pack along my #1 Sporter for the Steel match on Sunday or use my '86 as I have in the past? The Sharps will do it with class but the '86 will do it faster.

[Coffinmaker]

You best remember, Quigley was "Down Under"   Since he was upside down when he made that shot, the reverse gravity was keeping the bullet from dropping.     Went from rifle to target like a laser.   

Even an old guy like me can SEE a bucket at 1000 yards.  Provided, the bucket is the size of a Buick   

[Lumpy Grits]

At the Quigley Shoot held every year in Forsyth, MT.
The 'Bucket' is set at 350 yds and is the size of a real bucket.
You shoot this off-hand. 
LG

[G Bulldog Grainisland III]

I'll mention a scratch shot I made once with my flintlock. A couple of guys with scoped rifle were shooting at a Pabst can at 130 yards prone at our local range. I didn't know them. I told them they couldn't shoot and that I could make the shot offhand with a muzzle loader. They said prove it. I grabbed the rifle out of my truck, loaded it. I didn't realize the trigger was fouled and was like a set trigger. As I was pulling down on the can the gun went off, and the can flew over the berm. I sent my son to retrieve the can. The ball had struck one of the ribbons in the logo. I said, "sh!t I was aiming plumb center."  Hoping they wouldn't notice my bleeding lip from the recoil of not having the butt tight to my shoulder.

Will Ketchum

Very, very cool story.

-Bulldog

[upnorthairgunner]

A guy on the latest NRA bulletin calls BS on the movie "Quigley Bucket Shot".

He figures the ride out with the bucket was 20 seconds. He figures that a fast horse could maintain 40 mph for a short distance. Calculating that in fps, he calculates a distance of 400 yards.

We do a "Mini-Quigley" at our annual shoot, the targets being white painted 28 oz. tomato cans filled with water at 100m. Off hand, of course. I've won it a couple of times with my Shiloh 50-70 carbine.

Think it's easy? Try it .....

Huge shout out to this forum and posts like this about the Quigley bucket shot! You all helped me with my research that took me 9 months to figure out the distance EXACTLY! Check it out:

[The Pathfinder]

When it comes to 'lucky' scratch shots... I was out shooting with a couple of buddies back in the early eighties, shooting clay pigeons against a berm at about 60 yards. My friend was shooting a Super Blackhawk using 44 special ctgs, after about 10 rounds which he had hit all around but not on the target, I jokingly told him he really needed to adjust his sights for the milder ammo. He responded that if I could do better to do it. I figured why not, used a cavalry twist draw and pulled my Uberti BP frame 7 1/2" 44-40 from Allen Firearms and snapped off one round of BP loaded 44. The dang bullet went almost dead center on the clay pigeon. Wished I still had that old lady. After we all picked our jaws up, my friend asked me to do it again. I told sure, right after he did it once. Still waiting. I will be the first to admit that was the single luckiest shot of my life and I doubt I will ever be able to replicate it, at least I haven't yet in around 40 years and thousands of rounds.

[Kent Shootwell]

I wonder, does a ranch horse run 40 mph? I would of guessed less, 30 or maybe 35 mph.
At the Quigley match in Montana there has been fellows that hit the bucket as many as eight for eight. This year it was called off due to the virus so my first trip up there didn't happen. Saved my ego for now! 

[Dave T]

Scratch shot:

Back in the late '70s or early '80s I acquired my first 45-70, a new Marlin 1895. A friend and I went to the range together because he had just picked up a used Rem 700 in 30-06 with a Redfield 3X9 scope. The range was crowded so we had to share a bench. The target was up at 100 yards and I told him to go first.

He had a box of his favorite reloads, IMR 4350 behind someone's 180g spitzer. The previous owner of that rifle had never sighted it in or more likely just stuck the scope on it, hoping to get more selling it. My friend had fired half a box or more and still wasn't on the middle of the target, just scattered shots around the edges as he tried to get closer to his POA. After his last shot, which I was spotting for him, he said he was tire and going to give his shoulder a rest. It was my turn.

I took his place at the bench and loaded the first round ever in my new 45-70. It was a cast 420g bullet over a charge of 3031 I got out of an old Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook. I had no idea where the sight were set from the factory so I just held on the center. Understand, the gold bead front sight on that Marlin completely covered the black of the standard rifle target. I held as steady as I could and slowly pressed the trigger. The sear tripped and there was a satisfying "boom" and a serious but not painful shove on my shoulder. When I recovered from the recoil I looked at my friend who'd been watching through the spotting scope.

He gave me a funny look and got up from the bench, walked off into the parking lot and lit a cigarette. I walked around the bench to the side the scope was on and took a look. There was a nearly half inch hole in the exact middle of the target. All you could see of the "X" that had been there was 4 little legs, barely visible at the 4 corners of that 45 caliber hole.

I lit my own cigarette (I was a smoker back then) and went and found him. I said I was sighted in and it was his turn again. He looked at me with disgust and told me to shut up.

We remembered and laughed about that "scratch shot" for years to come.

Dave

[Arizona Trooper]

OK, I'll throw mine out. A few years ago at an N-SSA skirmish my team was having a terrible time hitting the last hanging clay pigeon. I was shooting my Merrill carbine and doing pretty well up to that point. I had just loaded and was bringing the carbine up to my shoulder when the horn sounded to end the relay. I snapped the carbine to my shoulder and slammed off that round before the horn quit. Well, I missed the target. What I hit was the wire just above it and it dropped. Quite a cheer went up from my team!

[wildman1]

Ah, but the speed of a horse is a total guess, so lets use cinema arithmetic.

it took 3+ seconds for the stooge to hear pistol shot and drop bucket . We can try to factor in reation time, and just assume 3 seconds.
   at sea level, sound travels ~ 1000 ft per second, thus about 3000 ft or 1000 yards

then we can time Quigleys shot -  it took 2 sec for quigley's shot to hit bucket, at a MV of ~ 1500 fps thus about 3000 ft or 1000 yards.

yhs
prof ( loves math) marvel

Not bad Prof Mumbles, onliest thing you fergot was the downrange decay of velocity in that +or- 1000 yds. If you would be so kind as to give me a weight of that bullet I WILL tell you exactly how far that bullet traveled in 3 seconds. Plus the amount of drop involved. If you care to add a little side wind I will also tell you drift.
wM1

[Fox Creek Kid]

It's kind of like the Billy Dixon shot.  Dixon borrowed a 50-90 Sharps as he felt his 45-90 would not reach, he fired at a group of Indians and on his third shot, he knocked an Indian off of his horse at nearly a mile away.  The US Army verified the distance at 1538 yds or 7/8 mile.  The question is, was he aiming at a particular Indian or, was he aiming at a group of Indians and just happened to hit one?  I tend to believe the latter.  Doesn't say if he used cross sticks or off hand....

It's a great story. Too bad it never happened. The first mention of this mythical shot is ironically in the biography of him written essentially by his widow after his death in 1913. Famed gunman Bat Masterson, who was a participant in the battle, never mentioned it nor did any other survivor interviewed for the Pearson's Magazine article in 1908. It does mention that "Dixon signalized his advent by killing an Indian at 800 yards." early in the fight. Of course, how they knew it was 800 yds. is not mentioned. I doubt anyone stepped it off in the heat of the fray.      

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/indian/showdown/little-1908-1.html

[dusty texian]

The Billy Dixon long shot . If you were not there you cant say  it did happen  , you can only rely on hearsay  . If were not there you cant say it didn't happen , you can only rely on hearsay  .  One thing you can say  ,  not one person alive was there  . So it's anyone's  guess . I think he made a very long shot at an  warrior and killed him more than one time during the battle , and the longest shot was a scratch shot , but a good hit  just as he claimed . Read      Empire of the Summer Moon  , in particular Quanah Parker's description of the shots fired by the Hunters . Quanah was there . .,,, DT