Feeling a little Guilty

True to my normal form I cant do what I am told and take it really easy after my recent surgery. These deer have been coming down into my neighbors a few property’s away. Grazing in the sun at about 5 pm yesterday I got the rifle and walked a fair way towards the deer there was still 425 yrds to the deer but I was done and my heart was thumping like crazy. So it was a pretty easy shot no wind and I thought I would shit it in. Bloody missed didnt I. I was using some factory Hornady Precision Hunter 178 grn in the 308. When I got home I ran the numbers through JBM and I would have been a way low.

My normal dope for 300 yrds is 3 MOA and 500yrds 8 moa. I knew that the factory would be slower than what I was used to but my memory told me these were going pretty fast. I had set the drop at 4 moa. When I got home and ran the numbers on the box of ammo 2600 fps was the MV but that would have been for a 24 inch barrel and mine was 28 so a bit of a gain there. Anyway JBM spat out numbers like

300yrds 4.6
350 6.1
400 7.7
500 11.3

That put me at 3 moa off at close to 400 12 inches a miss.
You have to know the dope of the cartridge you are shooting.

So Today the same deer turned up again and despite protests from the wife I set out again the deer was a bit further away this time and I tried to take my time not to wear me out and bring on some heavy duty pain. Just as I was at the spot I shot from the day before and a point from which the further travel is uphill and another fence crossing another deer popped into the scenery. So I quietly took up my previous position on top of a dam back to sit and watch and relax. What transpired was in the next few minutes another 3 appeared it was obvious that there were two mums (cows?) and there calves. The calves were a decent size and I think able to feed on their own.
This was the cause of feeling guilty I hope the little bloke can fend for himself

The deer were now only 235yrds away I tried to work out who was with who and I am sure just back still in the trees there would have been a couple of spikas and a Stag.
There was a pause and maths and graphs were running through my head what would be the extreme spread if miss calculations were done. She was moving around a bit giving me quite few different options of angles to choose from. The day was again a no wind of any strength to be worried about. I didnt take any notes on the 200 yrds and 250 before I left home or even have a zero set at 100 so it was all flying blind in some ways.

A decision had to be made so I went with the 3 Moa thinking that any error is not going to put me in a bad place. I waited for the deer to turn about 45 degrees to me which gave a big windage tolerance not needed but it gave a good deal of Vertical options if my calcs were out. I pulled the trigger and the impact was just in front of the shoulder at the top of the shoulder height. She ran around a bit but quickly fell and passed away. I hate it when they run straight into the bush the are nearly impossible to find and retrieve.

So it was a quite walk back to the house, put things away and went for a drive in the tractor a few doors down the road to pick up.

The gun is an old Remington 700 with some updates added along the way a new 28 inch barrel a trigger and lumly trigger Gard the new barrel a 28 inch Bartlien 10 twist and a few mods of my own to refine it.

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I feel like I need to come down to pick up my hat and blast and help you, since you know, you’re in recovery. Carry your gun and all :smiley:

And help you butcher up

I just took some pain killer before writing that post I tried to delete it until I am not on cloud nine and some sleep
.

I took a few pictures so we can size feet and have a play. This one was quite tough to skin perhaps a good layer of fat

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The Skinning was done last night. My thoughts on the best way to prep any meat is to gut it and get the skin off as quickly as possible to let the meat cool. If possible let it hang for a week that is if you have it at about 4 deg.

It was a bitch to skin. Even having the nice ability to hang the animal up and adjust the height to your current working height. It may have been blunt knives but the skin really seemed to stick in spots creating plenty of spots of cutting through the skin.

You can see a little red patch on the rib cage that was the off side and I found the bullet lodged in here it didnt exit the skin on the off side. So it traveled from a in front of the shoulder on the other side to well back. So it would have passed through a lot of organs but not a lot of internal damage was jumping out at me. I certainly wasn’t looking for any.

Today will be portioning up the carcass into steaks and tomorrow mince.

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Easyiest sambar hunt i have ever heard of. You have it easy up your way. But well done.

Crazy thing is that there were six more there in the exact same spot last night. Same mob but a couple of boys came out with them. My wife and I just finished cutting up the dogs portion and bagging into manageable sizes. I cut up the back straps and cleaned the eye fillets the night before and the two back legs are ageing in the spare fridge. Will get to them later in the week.

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I think I live in the wrong part of the state :persevere:

I have virtually no bunnies though. :cry:

As you know I live in the wrong state.

hug

@sungazer, i think i love you. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: And since im semi retired I can rock up almost any time just to help you and your neighbour out. Unlike some young blokes who spend all their time in front of a screen in the CBD and have young families to take care of. Some dont even own a 30-06.

I’ll trade you for the bunnies any day mate.

Sounds like you need your chrono back… :grimacing: i’ll get onto that

No real rush but I have pulled a ll my old GameKings and Prohunter loads that I had as I think I can do much better at reloading now than when I did them. I have upgraded every component in the reloading process and learnt a shit load. Hence why I used a factory load which I used to think was too expensive to do a lot of testing $3 a pop I think I fired 1 shot in my last barrel the factory Rem 24inch and had never shot them with the new barrel.
So I have to stop being a tight arse with them test them at a few ranges to confirm a trajectory curve /drop sheet. Then perhaps use them, still cringe at the cost, I think I may go with a mag of reloads and a mag of these expensive ones. :rofl:
I should get that tactical 6.5 c set up and use that aswell when going for a walk 140 ELD-X . Favorite is the Sako 85 243 though 105 grn Sierra. First world problems of too much choice.

Got to say joining the forums and the rifle club has really reinvigorated my interest, passion and time spent behind a gun shooting. It has also played havoc with my bank account. ignorance was bliss.