My Marlin 336D Is Ready...

[Ranch Dog]

to hunt with boolits dropped from my Lee special order TLC359-180-RF. I have a couple of doe permits issued for my managed lands and thought I would kill one of them with the rifle/boolit combo. I finished working through several different powders and that little short barreled gun liked 38.0-grains of H4895 best. It is shooting that 27 BHN boolit at 2016 FPS at a .67 MOA!

My questions is that I've simply never killed a big game animal with a cast boolit this small in size and I'm wondering how the boolit will perform? I've killed plenty of deer and hogs with this caliber (35 Rem) and jacket boolits, but never cast. Our deer are small, about 120 pounds on all four hoofs, and very thin skinned. The maximum distance for the shot will be 100-yards. The boolit has a .255" meplat and here are some charts representing the killing authority contained by this load combination. Your thoughts?

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Casting/TLC359180RF/FPE.jpg
Foot Pound of Energy

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Casting/TLC359180RF/Taylor_Index.jpg
Taylor Index

http://home.awesomenet.net/~ranch-dog/Casting/TLC359180RF/BTB_PWC.jpg
Beartooth Bullet's Permanent Wound Channel

[357maximum]

My thoughts...with this load in your hands.....HMMM ...let me think.....Hmmmmm

Load that marlin up and do what you do...aim, shoot, kill, dress....

eyes don't needs no chart to tell me that....

[Ranch Dog]

Thanks 357Max... I was encouraged by the results you posted here in CB Hunting with your boolit!

[Bass Ackward]

I consider the meplat size of .225 - .250 to be about ideal on deer sized game. In fact, my larger calibers all are designed with this meplat range in mind. At these velocities, all I want is a 1" sized hole with just enough shock to let the animal know it was hit without causing excess damage that results in blood clotting and ruins trailing and delays death.

On my 35s, I usually run .220 or slightly less. But I am a softee as I want 200 yards of reliable expansion and "hard" has failed for me to be as ..... swift in the desired result beyond say 100 yards on smaller game.

I hope that you will post your results.

[Ranch Dog]

The saga of my work with my 336D continues. I ended up not being happy with the results of the boolit with H4895 and started the work again. I just didn't like the low velocity of this H4895 load.

I went back and decided exactly what I wanted from the powder (has to be Hodgdon as I'm not buying any more for the shelf). Something that will have at least a 90% load density, produce 37.1 CUP, and deliver at least 2100 FPS from the short barrel of the "D". I went back to Load From A Disk and got it's recommendation and then performed some witchcraft with the other appropriate Hodgdon powders based on my pressure trace work. This ended up boiling down to 38.3-grains of H335. Loaded them up and shot a .33 MOA at 50-yards while slinging the 180-grain CB out at 2174 FPS.

I was kind of pressing a boolit issue in that I'm running out of them and won't cast again until after the new year. I also had a powder problem in that I was working with a 1# cannister that I used up and had to open up another lot # of powder from an 8# cannister. After sighting the rifle in at 100-yards and some confidence shooting, I'm down to 2 rounds of loaded ammunition.

I hunted for a doe this morning and saw one but a buck ran off with it. The last two nights I've had hog problems here at the house. I live 300-yards off a paved Farm to Market road. Along my entrance road I have mots of oak trees that are lighted and watered. The hogs have decided to tear the hell out of everything for the love of wild onions. What a mess the last two night. I went out and ran them off last night as I was too tired to clean one. This morning after deer hunting I saw that they didn't take much stock in my warning and tore the hell out of my drive. Right now the "D", two rounds of ammunition, and I are waiting for them to show (I've got wireless outside!). I figure it will be about an hour from now. It is one dark night out but from the low voltage lights at each group of trees my Bushnell should be fine plus it is going to be very, very close encounter. That H335 puts out about 3' of flame from the short barrel so it should be a very impressive light show.

I've just got deer out here with me now but when they haul ass I will know the hogs are enroute!

[Cayoot]

Michael,
This is real edge of seat reading! Keep it up!!!!

[Ranch Dog]

Well, I hung out there till 2 am and they didn't show. We had a lot of rain yesterday (.1"... that is a lot of rain for us), so they might have decided to dig somewhere else. I just woke up and started moving. I almost hate to turn my binoculars down my road!

[Ranch Dog]

It's been a long day and just after midnight. I gave up the watch and came inside cold and tired but it is a beautiful night out there.

I heard the sonic boom of the Space Shuttle as it passed over this afternoon on it's reentry. The noise pounded the metal on my barn and all the coyotes started to yell. It is great to be an American living in the outdoors!

[PatMarlin]

Can't wait to see what that boolit does Michael. My 336-35 needs some magic.

The 4895 loads sounds great for deers.. :drinks:

It'd be a plain hoot to get that accuracy with the ol' 35 rem though... :Fire:

[Ranch Dog]

I had to fly the airliners on the 23, 24, & 25. When I arrived in Houston late Christmas day, I stayed another night to pickup my niece when she arrived from Denver and together me headed to the ranch. My stepson, Adrian, had arrived from Las Vegas were he is stationed in the Air Force and had been chomping at the bit to wade into the hunting here at the ranch. I had my wife do some prep work with him and her Marlin 39A, as Adrian has not done any hunting and very little shooting... only the training he received in the AF and some shooting we had done after he got back from the sand box.

My niece and I arrived at the ranch and I was was pretty pissed off at what the hogs had done to my drive while I was gone! I will get some pictures and post. Anyway, Adrian had shot about 50 rounds from the 39A so we did some drills with the 336D and I felt he could handle himself with rifle. Remember, I only had two cartridges left for this rifles so there was to be no practice with it. I cycled a bunch of game camera pictures through my laptop for him to study shot placement ... would you take the shot and if so, where would you place the boolit.

We stood a hog watch up and down the 300 yards of my drive until about midnight. Nothing, so we went in to bed. At 2:30, I looked out and saw some hogs cross the drive so we where both up and out. If you haven't hunted hogs at night without lights you are missing some fine action. The moonlight was supplemented with the low voltage lighting I described earlier. This attempt didn't work out. Adrian was surprised by the lack of a target that doesn't move. Hogs are very "fluid" especially in low light. One second they are there and the next second they are gone.

My son hit the sack and I know he was disappointed as he is leaving today. My wife and I laid in bed talking and finally she said... "are you going to go check for hogs are not!" I got up and looked out the drive and it was covered with the critters! I got Adrian back up, grabbed the bipod and "D" and we slipped out the back door and up the drive.

We set up on the first hogs we encountered and this fine young fellow took our last discussion to heart. He was on a hog and the first second it slowed down to look at something the shot was out. I saw the hog disappear into the dark and it seemed to be getting lower and lower to the ground. I had told him to expect the hog to run but I could tell he was a little apprehensive about it not being knocked over. We talked about his sight picture at the shot and reassured him he had just killed his first feral hog.

I went back to my reloading room and got my light, one of those Gerber Carnivore's that my dad had given me for my birthday. We gave it about 10 minutes and went to where the hog was standing (50-yard shot) and I immediately saw a good blood trail with this outstanding little light. The trail took us to the first wall of brush and the hog was laying there, deader than a hammer!

We took the hog up to my cleaning area at the shooting range and got to work. Shot placement had been perfect on this slightly quartering away but almost broadside 124# sow. The boolit had entered just behind the near shoulder, about a third of the way up the body and exited the arm pit of the far shoulder. The boolit took out the bottom of both lungs and the top of the heart... perfect! I will get some wound channel measurements when I skin the hog today and see what this 31 BHN boolit did.

As I climbed back into bed, my alarm went off at 5:00 as we had planned to go crawl into a box blind this morning. I think I will let the young fellow sleep while I start a nice slow pecan/oak fire and slow cook those ribs to perfection just in time for lunch! I am real prowd of this young fellow!!!

http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/TrophyRoom/2006/359AdrianHog.jpg http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/TrophyRoom/2006/Daybreak.jpg

[sundog]

Michael, great story! sundog

[PatMarlin]

Outstanding!!

Go RanchDog boolits and Marlin!.. :drinks:

[felix]

That is a great short story to say the least. Might consider contributing to Reader's Digest (or equivalent) after your airline gig is up. ... felix

[405 WCF]

Great story RD!!!

[Ranch Dog]

Butter fried tenderloin has been served with tortillas, the ribs are on the grill for a late lunch, the backstrap is in the freezer and the rest in waiting for a deer to make into sausage!

Boolit hole in was 2.25" and out was 1.5" measured with a ruler. Here is a couple of more pictures of the rib cage, my driveway from highway to house, and the damage to the oak trees I've planted.

[matm0702]

Ranchdog

How did you get your bhn so high? I'm considering making my own bullets. Will be trying them in a Marlin 336cs and a couple of Mosin Nagants that I have. Effective range is not a problem as most of my hunting is at 50 yards. Looking at bullet sizes between 165 and 185 grain.

Mike

[Ranch Dog]

Ranchdog

How did you get your bhn so high? I'm considering making my own bullets. Will be trying them in a Marlin 336cs and a couple of Mosin Nagants that I have. Effective range is not a problem as most of my hunting is at 50 yards. Looking at bullet sizes between 165 and 185 grain.

Mike
Water quenching 1:1, linotype/wheel weights. My alloy usually has a BHN of 31 but this lot of boolits were actually cast with water quenched 1:1, melted Beartooth Bullets/WW and ended up at a BHN of 27.

I saw a great opportunity to kill two hogs with one shot while we were working these hogs. At one point another large hog was immediately behind the first hog. I would have taken the shot and killed two but this being my stepsons first experience, I didn't press the him on the shot. I've done this several times... all the more reason to hunt with a hard boolit!