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View Full Version : Texas Whitetail with 444 and Lee TLC432-285-RF



Ranch Dog
11-18-2006, 11:16 PM
Shot a nice whitetail this evening. With just minutes left, I saw this large 8-pt come off a hill and enter a mesquite and huisatche thicket. I got my gun up and waited for it to cross a sendero. As it entered the sendero (if you live outside of Texas you would call it a right-of-way, firebreak, etc.), I stopped it by bleating at it and shot it through the heart. It was 165-yards out there and traveled about 20-yards.

This is the Ranch Dog boolit that was offered on the group buy earlier this year. I'm casting water quenched 1 to 1 WW/linotype and I end up with a boolit weighing in at 265-grains. I slowed the boolit down a bit for this year and push it with 44.0-grains of H4198 for 2120 FPS.

Nrut
11-19-2006, 01:17 AM
That is a nice buck!..:drinks: ......
can't wait to try that same boolit in my B92/.44mag next spring...

Glen
11-19-2006, 09:22 AM
Nice buck! And good shootin'!

JDL
11-19-2006, 10:27 AM
Nice buck and I do like that old Marlin! -JDL

waksupi
11-19-2006, 10:27 AM
Good going!

versifier
11-19-2006, 01:05 PM
My daughter inquires, "How much did he weigh?" One with a rack like that up here would easily top 200lbs.

9.3X62AL
11-19-2006, 01:06 PM
That's a fine harvest, for sure. Well done!

Ranch Dog
11-19-2006, 01:31 PM
Thanks fellows...

Versifier... tell the young lady, 124# field dressed. These are desert animals down here so the bodies are very small to survive the heat and lack of rainfall. They also tend to have big ears and they act as radiators.

JDL... I do like my 444T!!! I've been hunting with my Marlin 1895M and 1895MR trying to get a kill with either the TLC460-350-RFB or TLC460-425-RFB but yesterday morning said enough and brought the old dog out. That old long barrel is a tack driver, no matter what is said about the Micro-Groove barrels, and the rifle was manufactured the year I graduated from high school!

carpetman
11-19-2006, 02:22 PM
Ranch Dog---I'm Texan and I didnt know what Sendero meant. I also don't know what huistache is(figure cactus?) Familar with mesquite though.

RugerFan
11-19-2006, 03:49 PM
Very nice buck! Might he be destined for a date with a local taxidermist?

Ranch Dog
11-19-2006, 10:57 PM
Ranch Dog---I'm Texan and I didnt know what Sendero meant. I also don't know what huistache is(figure cactus?) Familar with mesquite though.

The exact translation of "sendero" is "a path". About 90% of the senderos in South Texas are pipeline or seismic right-of-ways. These are typically straighter than a line and can run several hundred miles without a bend. In the brush country, a sendero is often the only place to hunt as the brush is impenetrable. This is home of the "sendero rifle" that is offered by Remington and others as some guys get quite good at long range shooting. I've seen tower stands 10' to 16' off the ground with known range markers down the length of the sendero. I have had friends that have killed a buck at 400-yards and beyond. It is often very hard to predict were an animal will cross the right-of-way because this is featureless terrain with little relief and the animals tend to just wander so picking a spot to hunt is a luck at best. A lot of property will often just have a tower stand every 600 or 700 yards along the length of the sendero. Shots are quick as the animals will typically cross the path at a right angle. The right-of-ways are typically 50' to 150' wide so the normal gait of a deer's walk covers the distance rather quickly.

I live here on the edge of the Post Oak Savannah and the South Texas Plains so we have a bit of terrain relief and the brush is mixed with live and post oaks. It's real pretty country.

The huisache is an acacia which are found in just about every dry land of the world. Our [/url]Texas Huisache (http://nativeplantproject.com/trees/texas_huisache.htm) is similar to the mesquite but of softer wood. That link will take you to a pretty good web site for identifying native brush here in Texas.

Ranch Dog
11-19-2006, 10:59 PM
Might he be destined for a date with a local taxidermist?

Actually, I'm out of room but it will be plaque mounted.

swheeler
11-19-2006, 11:49 PM
Nice buck, really nice!

Topper
11-19-2006, 11:53 PM
That's a really nice mature looking buck you got there Micheal.
Congrats.

Baldy
11-20-2006, 12:20 AM
Good shot and a good reward. Good looking buck.

357maximum
11-20-2006, 01:12 AM
That is one nice lookin critter you got there...good job....

Do you happen to know what B&C score is? I know...I know...it do not matter..but enquiring minds must know...

Beerd
11-20-2006, 01:59 PM
One look at the photo & I say "Holy Smokes!"
That's a nice one.
..

carpetman
11-20-2006, 02:47 PM
Ranch Dog---You cant predict where the deer will cross the sendero? Easy fix. Put up a deer crossing sign where you want them to cross---then they'll know. Added benefit those deer crossing signs seem to make good targets.

Ranch Dog
11-20-2006, 11:19 PM
Do you happen to know what B&C score is? I know...I know...it do not matter..but enquiring minds must know...

It matters to me also as I'm trying to grow them big on my low fence ranch. My Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist scored the deer today and it is 134 1/8. That's a heck of an 8-pt. They are saying that our drought conditions have cost us about 10" of antler mass so this could have been a 144 deer in a normal year. Here is a picture of the deer I killed last year... these are pretty close in frame and he scored 143 and some change.

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Hunting/2005/Deer111605_002.jpg http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Hunting/2006/Mikes_Deer.jpg

Somehow it is a humbling experience for me that I'm fortunate enough to live on a place with such fine animals. I wonder how many times throughout the year our paths have crossed but they just didn't allow me to see them?

Ranch Dog
11-20-2006, 11:21 PM
Ranch Dog---You cant predict where the deer will cross the sendero? Easy fix. Put up a deer crossing sign where you want them to cross---then they'll know. Added benefit those deer crossing signs seem to make good targets.

Every year around here at this time of the year you see a bunch of them with red reflectors stuck on their noses.

Steelbanger
11-21-2006, 07:20 AM
Really a nice one RD. Congratulations. Did you get complete penetration at that range?

Ranch Dog
11-21-2006, 10:42 AM
Really a nice one RD. Congratulations. Did you get complete penetration at that range?

Oh yeah! Like I said at the top of this post (I think), I slowed my boolit down a bit. I always seem to be shooting these rifles and boolits at something that would rattle your eye balls but this year I went at it a little different as all my whitetail hunting has been close (I wouldn't call this shot close though).

I used my Load From A Disk (http://www.loadammo.com/) software to predict a charge that would give me a specific pressure. What I was looking for was the point of obturation and nothing more. My 444T's Micro-Groove barrel is fire lapped so it will pretty much handle any pressure I shove at it but I wanted obturation and nothing more (Lee calls it the Ultimate Compression Strength). My boolit BHN is 29... so 29 X 1422 equals a UCS of 40.8K CUP.

Steelbanger, I think you are a guy that would appreciate this stuff so this is how I do it... Here is what the output screen of LFD (v5) looks like:

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Firearms/444/LFD_Whitetail_Load.jpg
Load From A Disk output page

I send this info into MS Excel so I can get a detailed look at the various charts...

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Firearms/444/LFD_Whitetail_Load_CUP.jpg
I plotted the pressure (40.8 CUP) and come down to the charge (44.0-grains)...

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Firearms/444/LFD_Whitetail_Load_FPS.jpg
I then plot the velocity (2170 FPS) vs. the charge (44.0-grains)...

When I shoot the load, I go back and check the validity of the data against the exact temperature. I did my initial load calculations at 90F and want a load that is based on that temperature as about 85% of my hunting and shooting can be done near there. The day I shot this, right before hunting season started, it was 77F and here is the velocity chart for that data...

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Firearms/444/LFD_Whitetail_Load_FPS_77F.jpg

My actual chronographed velocity was 2116 FPS which makes this method of predicting a cast boolit load very accurate. I'm actually going back through all my rifle loads and boolits with this method and I'm having better success with the end result (accuracy) than any method I've tried in the past. I've shot the LFD output against my RSI Pressure Trace equipment and I would say that the LFD software's predictions are right on the money. Anyway...

Here is my ballistic table for the load...

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Firearms/444/Whitetail_load.jpg

I went back and lasered the distance and it was 160-yards exactly so if my tables are correct (it was about 77F), the boolit struck the deer at 1606 FPS. In a post on MarlinOwners I stated I thought it had about an 1.5" exit wound. I thought I would look at Marshall Stanton's Permanent Wound Channel calculator (http://www.beartoothbullets.com/rescources/calculators/php/wound.htm) and here is what it said...

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Firearms/444/BTB_Permanent_Wound_Channel.jpg

Pretty close! I hit this deer perfectly through the heart and there was absolutely nothing left, I mean nothing. I've seen a bullet hole through a deer's heart but there was nothing left but some thicker blood.

Sorry for the long answer but I just wanted to relay everything behind the answer.

JDL
11-21-2006, 12:53 PM
Thanks Ranch Dog, I enjoyed that post very much!! Very informative!-JDL

357maximum
11-21-2006, 12:54 PM
It matters to me also as I'm trying to grow them big on my low fence ranch. My Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist scored the deer today and it is 134 1/8. That's a heck of an 8-pt. They are saying that our drought conditions have cost us about 10" of antler mass so this could have been a 144 deer in a normal year. Here is a picture of the deer I killed last year... these are pretty close in frame and he scored 143 and some change.

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Hunting/2005/Deer111605_002.jpg http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Hunting/2006/Mikes_Deer.jpg

Somehow it is a humbling experience for me that I'm fortunate enough to live on a place with such fine animals. I wonder how many times throughout the year our paths have crossed but they just didn't allow me to see them?



Dandy whitetails in anyones book...Gongratulations again...sounds like you have some worthy goals there...Someday I would love to come down and help you with some "CULL" bucks[smilie=1: Awesome bucks....they do not get that size by accident...I know what is involved to make a critter that size,,, and again I congratulate you...not just on taking some great animals,, but for all the work/restraint that leads to an animal making it that large...Unfortunately my managed areas are not quite large enough,, and we are always getting cut off at the knees by the surrounding landowners...just not quite enough acreage to stop it entirely...

If you ever need a ranch hand that understands your goals/desires...give me a holler..I would be there within days...I would have to convince the missus first...or not..:drinks:

Michael

Ranch Dog
11-21-2006, 02:47 PM
Michael...

I feel your pain about surrounding landowners! I was actually thinking about high-fencing my place because of the small acreage around me. Simply put, they sniped the young buck population to death. I believe everyone is entitled to hunt but a fellow with a few acres would kill a deer then they would pile on the bait and every son, uncle, and however would try to do the same. We finally got antler restriction rules and that has changed everything. Buck deer are living beyond 2 1/2-years old and by that time they are smart enough not to cross the fence into some dudes yard with a box stand and corn feeder.