Old Ironsights
11-12-2007, 12:09 AM
Went up to Minnesota to hunt Opener with my FIL. Took my M500 for Shotgun Zone & the Rossi for Rifle.
Wanting to use the Lever, and not feeling at all confident with the slug gun, in Shotgun Zone I mostly Drove for the guys posting. Scared up a decent buck & doe which were brought down immediately by the 2 old-timers we had posted (one is 75 and carries an original purchase Browning Light 12... and is dead-fast with it).
After butchering out on Monday, the FIL & I went up to some farmland near Sebeka MN, in the Rifle zone, wherupon I sat on Stand for too bloody long. :coffee:
I'm not a "sit & wait" hunter - it's too much like Ice Fishing. (actually, one of the shooting stands WAS an ice hut... on a trailer and parked to cover an alfalfa field...) So on Wed afternoon I decided to "track & flush" a couple of woodlots that looked like bedding areas while on my way to the place the FIL wanted me to Post for a Drive.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/farm.jpg
I followed a deer trail into the (my guess) 150yd x 50yd kidney shaped woodlot in the middle of the field (on the right of the pic) and deer-stepped my way through it. Coming out on the West side, I started in on another trail. I had no sooner turned back in, when a buck crashed out of his bed and took off at top speed for the field & willows beyond.
Since my Rossi was already at High Port Arms, I snapped it up, thumbed the hammer back, took aim just behind the left elbow as it was quartering away and fired. (Offhand. Remember, I was walking.)
Nothing. Clean miss. Dang. :oops:
But then I thought... "Wait a minute... this isn't my Flintlock... this is my LEVERGUN!"
I levered in another round as the buck jigged to the right, giving me a quartering away right shot. This time I gave him a little lead before the lead..
CRACK - THWOP! Dropped like he'd been pole-axed.
Deer Down but not DRT, so after I walked up on him, I put a final shot into the temple, jacked him up and whipped out the cellphone. Picture time!
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/1107071429a.jpg
Well, after attaching my hat to an antler (so I could spot it), I went back & got the truck and my rangefinder. The woodlot looked a lot farther away than I had thought... (note, first image is from the cellphone, 2nd thru & 4th from the camera from the truck)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/1107071355b.jpg
Hmmm. Stand up where I shot from and range the truck (deer is just 5yds short of it. That's my FIL in the pic.)
5.8mm
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0531.jpg
3x (17.4mm) (about how it looked to my eye)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0532.jpg
12x (digital zoom)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0533.jpg
120yds to the truck!?!??!?!? YIKES ! :holysheep
I don't think I would have taken that shot if I had known how far out he was.
So... I dress out the deer. Looks like the Right leg is broken. Abdominal cavity nice & clean, lungs OK, but the heart is in tatters & chest cavity full of blood? Weird.
Hang & skin. Hold on... I did hit with that first shot. The bullet hit in the right buttock and passed cleanly through 12+" of ham, stopping just under the hide with almost no loss of weight (gas check gone) and a .41+ nose. A totally survivable flesh wound. :oops:
But what I found when I got to the Right shoulder... I have never seen the like. The bullet entered just behind the shoulder blade and plowed into the joint - detonating it like a bomb.
GRAPHIC LINK 1 (not fully skinned, shoulder flopped back) (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0534.jpg)
GRAPHIC LINK 2 (after I removed the hide, shoulder hanging "naturally") (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0535.jpg)
Compared to the Left side: A Not so Graphic look at the carcass... (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0536.jpg)
I looked for an exit wound and found none, though I DID find a nice round hole at an odd angle leading into the trachea just forward of the shoulder - but not out. I'm guessing the bullet had just enough oompf to punch into the trachea and roll into the lungs or stomach, but I didn't check the gut pile.
Other than the single hole, I found NO other penetrations - bullet or bone fragment - into the chest cavity itself.
So, I'm somewhat ambivilent about the shot. Yeah, it did the job, but I lost 90% of the shoulder meat and don't believe I actually damaged the heart with the shot. I think Bambi there tore it apart himself from shock & exertion.
But the the Rifle/bullet DID do it's job in cratering the deer - at absurd distances - and I did get my first "non-cull" deer in 23 years... and I didn't sit in a stand to do it.
Wanting to use the Lever, and not feeling at all confident with the slug gun, in Shotgun Zone I mostly Drove for the guys posting. Scared up a decent buck & doe which were brought down immediately by the 2 old-timers we had posted (one is 75 and carries an original purchase Browning Light 12... and is dead-fast with it).
After butchering out on Monday, the FIL & I went up to some farmland near Sebeka MN, in the Rifle zone, wherupon I sat on Stand for too bloody long. :coffee:
I'm not a "sit & wait" hunter - it's too much like Ice Fishing. (actually, one of the shooting stands WAS an ice hut... on a trailer and parked to cover an alfalfa field...) So on Wed afternoon I decided to "track & flush" a couple of woodlots that looked like bedding areas while on my way to the place the FIL wanted me to Post for a Drive.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/farm.jpg
I followed a deer trail into the (my guess) 150yd x 50yd kidney shaped woodlot in the middle of the field (on the right of the pic) and deer-stepped my way through it. Coming out on the West side, I started in on another trail. I had no sooner turned back in, when a buck crashed out of his bed and took off at top speed for the field & willows beyond.
Since my Rossi was already at High Port Arms, I snapped it up, thumbed the hammer back, took aim just behind the left elbow as it was quartering away and fired. (Offhand. Remember, I was walking.)
Nothing. Clean miss. Dang. :oops:
But then I thought... "Wait a minute... this isn't my Flintlock... this is my LEVERGUN!"
I levered in another round as the buck jigged to the right, giving me a quartering away right shot. This time I gave him a little lead before the lead..
CRACK - THWOP! Dropped like he'd been pole-axed.
Deer Down but not DRT, so after I walked up on him, I put a final shot into the temple, jacked him up and whipped out the cellphone. Picture time!
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/1107071429a.jpg
Well, after attaching my hat to an antler (so I could spot it), I went back & got the truck and my rangefinder. The woodlot looked a lot farther away than I had thought... (note, first image is from the cellphone, 2nd thru & 4th from the camera from the truck)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/1107071355b.jpg
Hmmm. Stand up where I shot from and range the truck (deer is just 5yds short of it. That's my FIL in the pic.)
5.8mm
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0531.jpg
3x (17.4mm) (about how it looked to my eye)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0532.jpg
12x (digital zoom)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0533.jpg
120yds to the truck!?!??!?!? YIKES ! :holysheep
I don't think I would have taken that shot if I had known how far out he was.
So... I dress out the deer. Looks like the Right leg is broken. Abdominal cavity nice & clean, lungs OK, but the heart is in tatters & chest cavity full of blood? Weird.
Hang & skin. Hold on... I did hit with that first shot. The bullet hit in the right buttock and passed cleanly through 12+" of ham, stopping just under the hide with almost no loss of weight (gas check gone) and a .41+ nose. A totally survivable flesh wound. :oops:
But what I found when I got to the Right shoulder... I have never seen the like. The bullet entered just behind the shoulder blade and plowed into the joint - detonating it like a bomb.
GRAPHIC LINK 1 (not fully skinned, shoulder flopped back) (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0534.jpg)
GRAPHIC LINK 2 (after I removed the hide, shoulder hanging "naturally") (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0535.jpg)
Compared to the Left side: A Not so Graphic look at the carcass... (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/MrMisanthrope/IMG_0536.jpg)
I looked for an exit wound and found none, though I DID find a nice round hole at an odd angle leading into the trachea just forward of the shoulder - but not out. I'm guessing the bullet had just enough oompf to punch into the trachea and roll into the lungs or stomach, but I didn't check the gut pile.
Other than the single hole, I found NO other penetrations - bullet or bone fragment - into the chest cavity itself.
So, I'm somewhat ambivilent about the shot. Yeah, it did the job, but I lost 90% of the shoulder meat and don't believe I actually damaged the heart with the shot. I think Bambi there tore it apart himself from shock & exertion.
But the the Rifle/bullet DID do it's job in cratering the deer - at absurd distances - and I did get my first "non-cull" deer in 23 years... and I didn't sit in a stand to do it.