I guess I could be more specific, 223 Remington centerfire cartridge is what I used, but the various other .224 caliber centerfire cartridges are legal too, like 222, 22-250 etc and 204 I believe. Was actually pretty modest for area damage wasted meat wise. Others like 257 Wby or even 30-06 with 150 grain bullets are horrid for that.
Oh no, don't be shocked at a 100 meter poke. This rifle has the most shots through it (barring rimfire) than any of the other rifles here. For a savage (I call it a salvage) it sure does shoot good. I'd probably not go past 200 meters on deer with it, but she's my go to coyote gun.
For some reason I got it in my head it was a 300 yd shot. It is a touch over 100 yds. The embarrassing part is that I do metric to inch conversions all the time at work. Longest successful shot I've ever made was around 150-175 yards on a woodchuck with my friends 22-250 What a sweet shooter.
Another piece of the puzzle here to paint a picture. Hornady #2266 55 grain bullet. It's actually not rated as a deer bullet, but I read of others having success with it, and not being explosive on coyotes or Sask ballistic testing medium (poplar logs!). Turns out they were right. I figured as much, just being a basic cup n core bullet. I'd say it's at the limit of what it can do here. Calipers tell me .448 across, and 34.1? Grains remaining. Peeled back like a Wby bullet
You a reloader Saska? I'm not completely setup yet, but the fundamentals are in order. Have dies for 300 Savage, 270 Win, and 30-30 Win at the moment. A few more dies to purchase, and a better case trimmer.
Yeah I got confused. When I see 22 I immediately thing of 22 rimfire. I've never seen 223 referred to as 22 around here lol. I'm taking my Rem 30-06 up with me this year. I just love how that rifle feels compared to my Savage 30-30. Its a little heavier but it shoots much smoother.
Great end of a season and write up! It looks like the soft point did it's job. How much bone did it contact? If that (bone contact and shallow penetration) becomes a concern look at the Barnes ttsx line of projectiles. They keep 100% weight retention, and offer a more controlled expansion. Use only Barnes load data however.....these are very long for caliber and will cause bad things to happen if standard data is used. I'm a believer in them after using quite a few in other calibers to fill my freezer (my state thinks .224 is too small for bambis)
Brain is fuzzy from lack of sleep, so I'll have to check after. At the very most, it clipped one rib on entrance and no other bone on the way to the far side. In the future I would most likely use a tougher bullet so it punches out the other side and hopefully gives a blood trail. But the other side of that is, if it won't leak blood out one hole, will it leak out of two? I do plan on testing the bullets on the shoulder blade once I have them processed to see how much is too much for these bullets.
Here's a better photo of the buck. Also the temp where the deer is aging, which funny enough, is the back room of the shack! It's always cooler back there, but one night we had really cold temps and I closed the room off and blocked gaps with a sheet and towels. When you have 150-160 less square feet to heat it makes a difference with a small stove. I was shocked how low, but how stable the temp holds.
Just a few photos to put the finishing touches on this post. Needed the deer in the wood shed photo! A few random food photos. This has got to be the most tender deer I've had to date, including does...you'll never convince me aging doesn't make better meat. bocefus78 , showing entrance and exit damage photos (obviously crud removed in both) and no ribs hit at all.
I was out on Monday for about 4 hours. Weather was nasty. Blustery and raining on and off with 30 mph gusts. This weather actually works to my advantage during shotgun season as I usually still hunt. I had to enter into the woods via one of the crick valleys as the wind was not right for normal entrance. Spent a half hour or so working my way back the crick and just as I started the climb up the hill I caught some movement about 120 yards further up the hill. At first I thought it was a doe as I had only seen the hind quarters. I pulled the shotgun up to let the Nikon give me a better view...it's a buck...and a pretty good size one...what's that going on the right side of the rack...is that a drop tine? I wasn't able to see him very good even with 7X. There was a little brush on the floor where he was so my view was partially obstructed. I had wind on him. He seemed to see something in my direction at that point. He stopped and started staring in my direction. I was 'caught' with the shotgun shouldered, standing out in the open. I had a momentary chest shot opportunity, but wasn't sure I could make it...by this time I had been holding the gun in the firing position for about 3 minutes and was beginning to fatigue causing a very wobbly scene through the Nikon. Not gonna take it, I told myself. Finally, he went behind a large enough tree after losing interest in my direction, so I took the opportunity to drop to one knee, then fully on my belly (in the wet and cold muck for the first time of the morning). I got into prone position and found him in the scope. He had turned uphill and was travelling away from me at that point, quartering. He was not spooked. He had his nose on the ground. No other shot opportunities were presented. I wait for him to fully move up and over the ridge, then get up and brush myself off. I know my woods pretty well and figured I could finish my climb up out of the valley and cut across to head him off on the top of the ridge. So I continued my slogging up the hill, stopping for a smoke break with one last hill to go in a good vantage with wind travelling away from where I was headed. Finished up, had a drink of water and jammed a fresh mouthful of sunflower seeds into my gob and start up the last hill, which was very soft and muddy. I had to keep my feet perpendicular to the hill it was so slick and muddy. Just as I am coming to the top of the hill I freeze...another buck...25 yards directly in front of me...carelessly munching on acorns....he's looking right at me...how does he not see me!? (The crest of the hill was between us and I figure just my head and maybe top of my shoulders is in his sightline). I stand there in disbelief that this deer is not spooking and running the other way. He continues to munch on the acorns then drops his head to get some more and again, I drop to my knees, then onto the ground. Laying there (ground features and crest of hill hiding me), I consider trying to take this buck...but he wasn't as big as the first I had seen. He was a nice 8 point but I still figured I could catch up to the first one and decided to wait until this buck moved on...which took 20 minutes...ugh. I couldn't hear him moving around, so I was only guessing when it had been long enough. I stood back up, gun at the ready...buck nowhere to be seen....good...didn't spook him either. At this point, it's starting to spit snow and my left side is completely soaked. I still wanted that first buck, so I began to continue my plan of interception, modifying the route to avoid spooking the second buck who surely hadn't gone far. The weather was getting really nasty at this point. While taking a slight detour to get back to where I wanted to be for the bigger buck, I spot antlers off the side of one of my trails about 20 yards. Is that a buck laying down....nope...he's dead. A 2-1/2 or 3-1/2 year old 8 pointer. No obvious gun/bow wounds on him (youth season was weekend before). Only visible wounds were his hind quarters which coyotes and opossums had been working on. My guess is that he'd been there around a week or so? More weather...the wind is really really blowing now. To the point where I'm hearing big cracks in the tree tops. I spend a few more minutes checking out the dead buck and it starts raining again...hard this time. I wanted to continue pursuit of the first buck I saw, but between the widowmakers hitting the ground around me, being half soaking wet and getting more so by the minute, I decided to 'call it' and started to head back towards where the truck was parked. Along the way I encountered a solitary doe, who saw me before I saw her (I was out of sneaky mode at this point and was just covering ground). Meh, I think...don't care if you spook...I'm headed out of the woods. She spooks and stomps and blows and runs about 30 yards before stopping to look back. I never slowed my pace. Made it down the hill and back to the truck, jumped in to fire up the heater/defroster and try to warm up. Something is crawling on the back of my neck....a deer tick...chit.... Now I'm back out of the truck doing an impromptu field strip to make sure there were no more of them on me. (the tick surely came off of the dead buck when I was flipping him over to look for holes) Satisfied with my search, back into truck I go. The heat feels tremendous. The feeling of 'defeat' in my mind was offset by having seen some nice bucks while I was out, and the exciting moments of this particular hunt. Here is the fellow I found dead. The second buck looked very similar, but a little bigger. The first buck had at least two points and several inches on the other two, along with some kind of curiosity on his right side. I'm going to try and find him again tomorrow....in the rain. Hate finding the younger ones this way. He may have gotten a pretty good rack with another couple years to grow. Antlers have great symmetry. Sorry for the . Sask's story put me in 'spinnin' mode. Wish I had some nice jerky and back strap pictures like he does!
Don't worry about hijacking, I enjoy reading about hunting. Give it time, and hopefully you'll be doing a deer down story yourself!
