Well I never got around to loading up those purple lee 200 grain 50/50 cast bullets my dad wanted for his 35 Remington 7600 this year so he ended up using a bunch of 180 grain speer hot cores that I had loaded up a few years past at 2350 feet per second out of his little carbine. The little gun is a twin to my 35 Whelen I set up last year so we have matching guns. I have not shot a deer yet with either. It was a weird Opening weekend for us. I sat all day in my tree stand on the opposite end of the property and never saw one deer during legal shooting hours! It’s not uncommon for me to see up to 50 deer on opening day and close to 30 deer on the following Sunday I guess I’m pretty spoiled. I also sat Sunday morning from dark till 1230 and ever saw a deer again. I decided to take a break because it started to rain. I was scratching my head wondering what was going on because I’ve seen passed up several decent bucks bow hunting this season waiting for Wall hanger like usual which never happened. I slipped a disc in my back on Halloween and had four nice bucks chasing doe that day. I hurt my back to the point I never got back out in the woods till November 8th and by that time we had a really nasty cold spell and deer were literally already shut down or just not on my property as I feel the rut came and gone. I wasn’t even getting hardly any big bucks on camera after the eighth. I had a nice one on the 15th at 9:45 AM but I passed up a few times that was probably 130 to 140 class deer. There are also miles of square corn that never got cut down starting a block away from my property and across the road about a mile away so I would assume all the deer are laying in that corn or most of them.
Well back to the story...
Dad and I went down to the car and had little lunch. We decided since it was raining the both sit in the shack I built him to stay dry. Got back in about 230 and at 3 PM on my side I saw three doe get up out if their beds about 80 yards laying underneath a cedar tree right in dab smack open. We were too tight in the shack and my dad didn’t wanna make noise crawling over me to try to take the shot as I offered it to him. So he decided to hand me his gun instead of using mine. I put that little carbine out the window in the magazine dropped and hit the ground in the shack making a loud bang. At that time the three doe we’re about 110 yards just about ready up into walk into the woods. The noise of the magazine stopped them and they just stared around for a few minutes while I tried to fumble that magazine back in. I never felt a click like it latched but magazine was in the gun. I then stuck his 35 Rem back out the blind at the lead doe which was the biggest but never took the shot hoping a buck would follow. After a couple minutes the doe had enough and started to trot in the woods and a buck never did show. My dad got excited when they started to try it off and told me to shoot. I did not lead far enough and I hit that lead doe broadside through the liver and just catching the tail end of the lungs. The doe immediately stopped at the shot... And the magazine fell out and hit the ground again making a loud bang. Well that loud bang from the magazine (the 2nd time) was all it took for the two doe behind the one I shot to run into the woods and the one I shot slowly trotted 20 yards to the right, went into the woods and made a complete U-turn and stopped about 20 yards directly up above where I shot it really thick brush. We then heard a thump and a little flicker of white so we both knew the deer had to of dropped. I then picked up the magazine from the ground the second time a little riled up trying to figure out what happened as I planned on shooting the other two and filling some of six doe tags. It took me a minute to figure out what happened I, repeat I, Put five rounds in his 7600 35 Rem magazine instead of four so the magazine was overloaded and wouldn’t clip into place. Good thing I used my dad‘s gun and not him or I would’ve never heard the end of it. I was used to my 30-06 7600 magazine that would only take four and wouldn’t allow a fifth one to grab. So basically I just put bullets in until they stopped going in and never counted...shame on me. Well after a minute of screwing around and figuring out it was my fault why the magazine kept falling out I put one in the chamber and we figured we’d wait a few minutes to walk up and check on that doe. I wanted to make sure to give it time and not jump it. About three minutes later the two other doe came back looking for the doe I shot walking through extremely thick brush up in my woods. I figured it was showtime and figured I’d try at least put another one in the freezer. I immediately zoomed my scope up on seven stuck it back out the shack to aim in that direction. They were about 130 to 140 yards away In the brush and it was so thick you could just see parts them of them sneaking back up to see what happened to the doe. When I got that gun Pointed in their direction I had three spots about the half of the length of deer in between three separate trees where they were heading. I knew I had about 2 seconds to take a shot or they would be out of sight. One already passed through the last available shooting lane I had and the second one was right in the last spot I could shoot. I quickly put the crosshairs right on its head and was getting ready to pull the trigger...BUT...BUT... I saw horns in the far left of my optic! I opened up my left eye and saw a buck with his head down following these two doe. I immediately closed my left eye, took aim, and sqeezed the trigger taking a Hail Mary through thick brush as the Buck was walking up the hill. I could tell the buck reacted from the shot and tried to trot up the hill which was probably all of three steps and he was out of sight but he immediately turned right back around and fell in the spot I shot him. Well it goes to show everything happens for a reason because of that magazine was loaded correctly I would’ve emptied it on those three doe and never saw that buck. It’s a nice buck. Its one of the ones I passed up bow hunting. But during gun season when everybody and their brothers normally out there shooting away my standards normally drop after opening days and I’m just happy to shoot some nice looking racks. The inside of the rack measure just a hair over 17 inches. We still have one more gun buck tag to go but are heading out of town tomorrow through rifle season end and I’m not gonna waste my time today is the schools are closed and the roads are slippery and it’s said up to 50 mile an hour winds. Starting Monday we have a 10 day muzzleloader hunt and can use our leftover rifle season buck tags. It sounds like it’s supposed to get the 40° next weekend so I would assume they’ll be up and moving around since there has been no shooting in my woods accept for me. There were barely any shots on opening day and I heard four shots on Sunday besides myself. Nobody is hunting in my surrounding area and it used to sound like World War III back in the 70s and 80s which explains why are used to see so many deer they all got kicked down to my property.
Well now that I know how deer react with jacketed bullets out of a 35 Remington it’s time to load up some of those group by hollow points with 50-50 alloy. Maybe for muzzleloader season I’ll take some of those 45 caliber hollowpoint’s and shove them in some Sabots and see if I can get them to group in my muzzleloader instead of using my 300 grain shockwave bullets so at least I can see how those group buy 45 cal 265 grain hollow point 50/50 alloys boolits work. I can’t wait for antlerless only to try out my Ruger 7744 with my 7.5 BH alloy which starts in about two weeks and is a four-day season. It was a pretty exciting day for us after putting in a day and a half and not seen a deer between both of us during legal shooting hours. As I’m writing this Wisconsin says the harvest is way down I think they said 27% down with their guessing numbers. So anybody who gets a deer this year I commend them because they sure are moving around in my neck of the woods. I did sit again on Monday afternoon after I cleaned both deer in the morning and didn’t see a darn thing. I also sat yesterday morning and the only two deer I saw were too doe running for their lives but the neighbors must’ve spooked when they went out to their car to go to work. I’m really blaming all the corn that’s up that never got cut to the lack of deer in my woods right now. With that extreme cold spell snap
I’m sure it knocked them right in the feed mode and they’re all better than the corn fields where the wind can’t get to them and neither can I.
The bullet entered breaking the Second from the last rib and exited in front of the shoulder on the opposite side taking out both lungs. That hot-core bullet is nasty! I’m guessing I might hit brush before the bullet entered because on entry I found a good sliver of lead under the skin And the rib where it entered look like frayed pieces of straw on both sides where it split. The rib was shattered a good 4 to 5 inches long. The bullet completely exited the deer going almost 3/4’s lengthwise through it.
I promise a post some cast bullet harvests in the next couple weeks!
I was down to about 10 packs of hamburger from all the deer I harvested last year so it was a blessing to get some tags filled.
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Originally Posted by white eagle
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