300 & 400 Yard Shots!

[Skyrider]

Greetings Gents!  I been playing with my 1874 Sharps and my Creedmore lately and I just can't fathom a Buffalo Huntint back in the times of glory, shooting animals at 300 & 400 yards. I was told this some years ago but never really gave it much thought savvy. Since then I have rifles from that era and it just seems to me a whole lot easier and faster to set up on those buffalo no further than 200 yards. I think personally this 400 yard business was dreamed up by HOLLYWOOD and the fact that Billy Dixon made one heck of a lucky shot on an Indian 4 times the above yardage.

Now what say you members of this forum? Am I being to critical of the facts or does someone have documented proof, that such shots were a thing buff hunters did in those days. I am all ears to those who know.

[Ranch 13]

 They set up within good shooting range, but far enough back that the report of the rifle would not spook the herd.
There's letters to the Sharps factory telling of the great performance of their rifles and ammunition on the buffalo, including one satisfied customer that wrote of killing two or more buffalo with the same shot from a 44-77 at 500 yds.
Hitting critter sized targets at distance is not that big of trick if you can get the windage guessed right.
So long story short yup they did shoot at long range with the barrel sights then and some still do today.
Google up Bill Bagwell's zebra on utube.

[wildman1]

Check out some of the shots made before cartridge rifles, with flintlocks and percussion rifles. WM

[Skyrider]

Ranch-13, I sure will do that pronto like! Now that is some far out great shooting you betcha.   

[Ranch 13]

I've shot several "gong" matches with targets all the way to 1000 yds with the barrel sights.

[Galloway]

While long range shots absolutely were made dont confuse them with the typical distances most of the buffalo were shot at. From what I've read on the subject the hunters got as close as possible to maximize their profits at each stand. They did not hunt everyday however and Im sure some days they shot for the hell of it at a rock or animal 1000 yards away. Im also sure some of the long range shots mentioned in period literature were fired blindly into a huge herd hundreds of yards away by pure luck. I dont think of the buffalo hunters as expert shots per say, but rather men who lived in the frontier with little access to information and no training making up their destiny as they went.

The later shutzen/creedmore crowd however I do consider expert shots and they routinely made extraordinary shots at targets on a regular basis. They of course had the best equipment, access to information, practice, and fired under controlled conditions at known distances.

[Galloway]

I dont think any buffalo hunter would set up at stand at 500 yards intentionally. If you think about it, if a herd is 100 yards wide it would require sight adjustment on every animal because their scattered at ranges that at that distance would cause a complete miss from one animal to the next closest to farthest.

[Ranch 13]

 There are a great many places where getting setup on a batch of buff under 500 yds might make a pretty good trick.
Schuetzen matches happened long before the buffalo hunt, and the first challenge match between the Irish and the US happened in 1874. They were shooting long range at Wimbleton in the 1860's.
While the distances are known in a longrange match the conditions are anything but controlled,the original longranges rules excluded the use of any artificial rests, and only 2 sighter shots were allowed,,,,, if you paid for them in advance.
The targets were about the size of a full grown buff tho...

[Freedom]

I can show you a lot of places on the MT prairie that you will have no idea how far things are...espcially if you are looking at a huge animal like a buffalo. I have used a rangefinder to settle issues between gentlemen...I have seen many times that guys would be arguing with numbers between 100-175yards....only to be blown away when the rangefinder turned out a 340 yard reading. Their 350-400 yard estimates very often go to 5 or 600+yrds on the rangefinder.

The hunters of old, had to have much different morals than we have today..They would have to,; in order to Genicide an entire race of people and all of the buffalo, just for the price of there hide...leaving the meat to rot in the sun.

They cared nothing of the animal. Heart and lung shots were actually avoided because it could cause the animal to run. Head and spinals were also avoided because the instant "Dropping" of the animal could cause the others of the group to run...Don't want that!. They aimed "Center Mass" and hoped....from far enough away that they wouldn't spook the animals and fired...any animal taking a bullet got sick staggared off and layed down. Lots of these shots were problably taken at center mass of the herd...not just one animal...so 400 yards was nothing.

The idea of a giant herd that measured 10 miles wide and 2 weeks long, of 1000's of animals is myth...the buffalo live in family and social groups of 20-75 animals...Now yes these grouple were everywhere and they traveled as a unit with 1000's of other groups. But they do not travel in one giant mass.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

There are a great many places where getting setup on a batch of buff under 500 yds might make a pretty good trick.
Schuetzen matches happened long before the buffalo hunt, and the first challenge match between the Irish and the US happened in 1874. They were shooting long range at Wimbleton in the 1860's.
While the distances are known in a longrange match the conditions are anything but controlled,the original longranges rules excluded the use of any artificial rests, and only 2 sighter shots were allowed,,,,, if you paid for them in advance.
The targets were about the size of a full grown buff tho...

The Irish team were using muzzle loaders and actually outshot the American Sharps & Remingtons.  The American team won because an Irish shooter fired on ONE wrong target .  VERY close, really

[Ranch 13]

Reading the entire report of that first international match there was a lot more than just the one crossfire.
It really was amazing in many ways that the American team did as well as they did. No one prior to the New York club taking up the challenge had ever fired at target level beyond 500 yds.
The tang sights in use at the time were not the adjustable verniers , and the only windguage adjustment was on the front.
By the time the US team traveled to Dollymount and Wimbleton tho most of their equipment had been improoved and the Irish and Brit teams could no longer use an errant shot on the wrong target for their defeats...
Wasn't long before Rigby started ordering sharps rifles 25 at a time and "rebarreling" them when he got them home...

[Ranch 13]

 You guys ever put the calculator to work when you go to thinking about how those nasty buffalo hunters wiped out the buff?
Even at the supposed low estimate of 10 million head, if you figured 1 bullet per each at 400 grs, that's comes out to something like 286 tons of lead.....10 million primers,cases, and 100000 lbs of powder at 70grs per shot......

[Trap]

  Also if you do the math, there is no way the hide hunters wiped out the herds. Disease was probably what contributed most to the demise of the buffalo on the plains.

[James Hunt]

P. 142 of Getting a Stand where the personal account of Oliver Perry Hanna is given as he first sees the great Jim White shoot. White has agreed to help Hanna fill his meat contract before going after buffalo. White stops the wagon when about 20 deer are spotted some 400 - 5oo yards distant. Hanna is trying to figure out how to sneak closer when he notices White preparing to shoot his 16 pound .50 caliber rifle.

"The first shot hit under the belly of one and the next shot killed one. Most every shot after that I could see one fall."

When White asked Hanna why he was not shooting after downing nine deer, Hanna said he replied "You have taken all the conceit out of me as a hunter; I can't kill deer at a distance you killed these."

White told him to throw his "pop gun" into the wagon and use one of his rifles. Hanna reported that with practice he also could kill at that distance.

Hanna was no rookie as a hunter, he had considered himself a fine shot. There is no reason to think that he would embellish this story as it made him look foolish. Now Jim White was a boss hunter no doubt, but if he could hit a deer consistently at that distance, others with similar experience could certainly shoot buffalo. It is hard for us to imagine this, but many of these guy's had made shots like that thousands and thousands of times. Given circumstance the learning curve must have been steep, but those that could not perform at such a level probably returned after a single season - broke. White was no youngster either, he was in his 50's  when he did this.

Me? I'd be lucky to hit a billboard at that distance.

[PJ Hardtack]

A professional hide hunter would have regarded long range (400-500 yd) shots as show boating. He was in the business of dropping as many animals as possible with as few rds as necessary. A 'stand' would have been at a more modest 200-300 yards.

Recently BPCN ran a series of articles on buffler hunting from documented and researched sources. When you think of hundreds of hide hunting outfits on the range, it is not inconceivable that within a few years, vast numbers of animals could have been taken.
The piles of bones gathered up bear mute testimony to the slaughter.
Regina, capital of Saskatchewan was once named "Pile of Bones". Gathering and shipping buffalo, elk and deer bones for fertilizer and other uses was a source of income for many struggling prairie farmers.

If the buffs were decimated by disease, it would have brucellosis, deadly to man and beast. This disease is still prevalent and the reason ranchers are not keen on neighbouring buffalo herds. There is no historic record of such an epidemic.

No one thought that the Nazi death camps could exterminate an estimated 6 million people either. The historic record says otherwise.

[James Hunt]

PJ: "A professional hide hunter would have regarded long range (400-500 yd) shots as show boating."

References for that statement please!

From "The Buffalo Harvest" by Mayer and Roth

P.35 - I have worked hundreds of stands... Now and then though when I crawled to close, to within 200 yards or less, I failed. Then the heavy report of my Sharps would wake up the survivors...
P.37 - Most of our shots were at 300 yards or beyond (emphasis mine).
P.42 - I have seen the .45-120-550 Sharps lay down 200 buffalo with just 200 shots, most of them at ranges of 300 to 600 yards.

Granted, Mayer was an old man when he was recounting this information, but there is plenty of writing supporting the capability of hunters for longer stands including Hanna above.

I don't doubt that the majority of stands were in the 200 to 300 yard range, but there has been a trend to be dismissive of longer stands and the capability of hunters at those ranges when there are plenty of primary source references to indicate that they were more than capable of much longer stands. I have never seen any reference to hunters claiming ranges of 400 to 500 yards as showboating.

[PJ Hardtack]

James - Sorry you can't hit a billboard at 400-500 yards.

Get a copy of Seller's book on the history of the Sharps rifles. The musings of Mayer, written in the 1930s, ghost written by Roth, are now considered the imaginings of an elderly fraud. Mayer's name doesn't appear in contemporary accounts and he did not come into prominence until the 1920s. He spoke of his 45-120-550, a rifle that did not come into existence until the buffalo were nearly wiped out.
The following is a quote of buffalo hunter George Reighard from Seller's book:

"Between 200 and 350 yards was all right, the closer, the better. I would choose my spot ... lie flat on  my stomach , get my guns ready, spread a lot of cartridges, adjust my sights and be ready to shoot."

[Ranch 13]

PJ look a little deeper into that book and come back and tell us what the guy said about how many buffalo he could kill with one shot from a 44-77 and at how far..
Actually sharps did load the 45-120-550, only they did it in the 2 7/8 case.

[sharps4065]

Actually sharps did load the 45-120-550, only they did it in the 2 7/8 case.

Already told him that Ranch, but he don't listen...... 

[PJ Hardtack]

Sure, since you can't be bothered ....

"In the earlier years when the buffalo were found in mass herds, kills were usually made from 200 to 600 yards, and for these ranges, the .44-70 (increased to 77 grs in Feb. 1876) and 50-70 were adequate, although the 50-100 seems to have been more popular with the hunters who worked in the 500 to 600 yard range.
The 50-100 did not stand up well at ranges over 700 yards as did the smaller .44 calibre slugs, and for this reason it was never as popular as the big 44-100 which was popular from it's introduction in 1873.
As the herds were thinned out, and tended to shy away from hunters and become more cautious, further developments were necessary to reach out and knock them down at ranges from 700 to 900 yards. The heavier rifle, using the 45 2-7/8" case loaded with 100 to 110 grs of powder, came into general use on the open spaces of the Texas Panhandle in 1877 and was used on both the Texas and Northern herds into the 1880s."

So it is moot as to how many 45-120-550s were actually used in the buffalo slaughter by hide hunters. The bulk of the killing had been done earlier with smaller cartridges. No reason to believe that hunters couldn't load up their own with as much powder as the case could hold.

Sellers lists no Sharps or UMC 45 2-7/8" cartridges loaded with 120 grs of powder. Logan's "Cartridges" says this about the 45-120-550:

"Used in the Sharps-Borchardt Express Rifle which was introduced in 1879 and was discontinued two years later. It was designed for long range hunting on the western plains. The short life of the cartridge was due to the closing of the Sharps Rifle Co. in October of 1881 for lack of capital.
Cartridges were made by Sharps and UMC. These large cartridges were for the most part loaded with 100 grs of powder. They may be found, however, with the 120 gr load, as was the specimen illustrated, which came pout of an original box so labelled."