Flesh Wound

Re fisrt question, yes feasible.
Re the other two, what was the hunter hunting? (Big diff if he was going after pigeon v. elk).

There is a truckload of rifles that would shot at ¼ mile. Most would do it with an optical system (scope). Calibers vary greatly. But I don’t quite understand your scenario.
The hunter is chasing a deer and someone shots him from ¼ mile away?
The Remington 700 is a great rifle (the M-24 sniper rifle is basically the same), shots the standard .30-06 (7.62 NATO) ammo.
The Dakota Longbow is another great one—especially in the .338 Lapua magnum caliber.
The Winchester Model 70 Safari Express comes in 7mm magnum.
A good scope for all would be the Leupold mk4x16
All could fire the full metal jacket rounds or lead tipped, hunting rounds.
The full metal round would make a “cleaner” wound while with the hunting round the lead nose would flower up and do considerable more damage.
A shoulder wound would be relatively easier to recuperate from (if it didn’t sever blood vessels or break bone).

All those rifles are bolt action (usually outfitted with a standard 5 round clip), all can fire full metal jacketed rounds (which is available in all those calibers), but most people would not use such rounds when hunting. Lots of hunters (me included) would use military weapons when hunting—and then you’re talking semiautomatics (with full automatic potential). It all would depend on who these people are.

The Remington

If it's a bolt action rifle type it's gonna be .308 caliber which could take an entire arm.

If it's a semi-auto type it could be .223 (.556mm in metric) in caliber (which in some states is to small to use for hunting the bigger stuff)

CoLiamPet said:

I have a character who has an accident, hunting mule deer, shot at long range (1/4 mile, give or take?). Need the wound to be fairly minor, one/two nights in hospital would be perfect. Prefer a shoulder/upper arm wound, but again, not a deal breaker.

Click to expand...

If he's reasonably muscular, the trapezius, deltoid, or "lats" would do. It will hurt like hell, he'll bleed moderately, but it's fixable in surgery.

Recover, OTOH will take some serious physical therapy to minimize scarring and regain mobility.

If you want to scare the crap out of him, hit the abdominal subcutaneous fat at the side of the torso - shoot him in the love handles ... much pain, moderate bleeding, no muscle damage and short recovery unless there are infections. But seeing the "gut shot" everyone will freak.

CoLiamPet,

Modern hunting bullets are designed to maximize hydrostatic shock. Thus a hit anywhere in a deer-size thoracic cavity at 500-600 yards with any modern hunting bullets from any caliber rifle suitable for deer will incapacitate and eventually kill the deer through hydrostatic shock effects, as the shock wave can damage organs without hitting them directly. Deer and humans are roughly the same size, and have roughly the same size thoracic cavity, though arranged somewhat differently.

So the effect of a chest cavity hit in a human will be roughly the same as for a deer.

An alternative would be an upper thigh hit without hitting bone. It'll lay the char up for more than two days though, and require several weeks recovery time.

Tsu Dho Nimh's suggestion is the most reasonable alternative if you want minor wounding that requires a trip to the ER and a one or two-night stay for observation. No major organ damage or muscle damage but lots of gore, if that's what you want.

--Stan, Evil Gun Geek