Henry speaks again

[CastingFool]

Went out yesterday, wanting to fill out my 2nd tag before the upcoming winter storm hit this weekend. About an hour if sitting on the blind, a lone doe came down a trail and offered a shot. I was not sure of a solid hit, and fir a second or two regretted taking the shot. I got down off the blind and found no blood, and thr tracks in the light snow were not distinctive enough. I decided to head out in the general direction the doe went. After a few minutes, I found her sprawled at the base of a tree. The area where she went down, the trees are not that thick, although it's a wet area. When I spotted her, I just thanked God for letting me find her. I did double lung her, but with the 45 colt, it doesn't seem to shock them enough. She ran somewhere between 75 and 100 yes. At any rate, that's the 2nd doe I killed using the Henry, with a cast boolit both times.

[white eagle]

good thing you found her , congrats

[Smoke4320]

Congrats .. meat in the freezer cant go wrong there

[Texas by God]

Congratulations, nice doe and nice rifle/scope combo.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[stubshaft]

Congrats, good recovery.

[ChristopherO]

She's a big girl. Glad for your success. Always good to follow through once the trigger is pulled as they can fool us pretty quickly by running off so strong. What boolit are you shooting and velocity out of the good looking Henry?

[Winger Ed.]

Glad you found it.

[CastingFool]

ChristopherO, I'm using the Lee 452-255 RF, with 7.0 grs of Unique. I didn't write down the published speed, since it was probably for a pistol load, and my Henry has a 20" barrel.

[pworley1]

Good for you. Happy eating.

[versa-06]

Good Shoot'n, Good Story, & Great Ending!

[T-Bird]

Boy! that's a big fat "nanny". They eat good! congrat's!

[doghawg]

CastingFool. Congrats on the deer! I recently purchased the same rifle and after one range trip it looks like it's going to be a good shooter with that 255 Lee over 8.8 of Unique. My thinking was to use it for deer next year with that 255 cast soft and powder coated with the 8.8 grain load. I'm thinking your 7 gr. of Unique would probably clock at around 1000 fps. In your opinion how much difference would an extra 150 fps or so make? How soft was yours cast?

[smokeater]

Glad you scored< nice fat looking doe.

[CastingFool]

Doghawg, I cast my boolits out 50-50 cows and soww plus 2% pewter. I don't know how hard or soft they are. A thumbnail does not scratch it. I wouldn't mind having a little more speed.

[Iwsbull]

Congrats on your kills this year, glad you were able to find her.

[missionary5155]

Good morning and Congratulations !
Slow moving lead gets the job done but not so dramatically. 7 grains Unique is a slow one.
But God guided your footsteps and all that great eating to your table.

[LenH]

CastingFool - that 7.0 grains of Unique is the published load in some of the newer manuals. I started out with an old Lyman manual published back in the 70's.
The starting load then was 8.0 Grains of Unique for a 255 gr SWC.

Even with that 7.0 gr of Unique and the bullet you were using probably hit that doe like a freight train.

[TurnipEaterDown]

Casting Fool: Good job on the deer!

I would not worry about the performance that you noted. Seems reasonable to me.
I have shot enough deer with handguns (really what your load is closest to), getting lungs only, to have convinced myself that these shot scenarios will usually have the deer run off ~ 50 yds even when perfectly calm.

Getting lungs only, they will often fill up inside and not bleed a notable amount out onto the ground after they leave the point of the shot.

I used to load everything up to max performance at best available accuracy when I was younger, and once shot an old doe whitetail of about 180 lbs live weight just 12 feet in front of blind w/ a 475 Linebaugh Long pushing a 400 LBT WFN just over 1600 fps. She was absolutely calm when she stopped in front of the blind and waited for me to look down the side of the barrel to get the aiming point -- single shot was wearing a scope and all I could see through that was brown fur.
I measured the wound diameter w/ a pocket ruler when I field dressed. Due to the large flat meplat there was 1 1/2 inch holes in hide through both sides, and 2 inches through the lungs.
She still ran off about 50 yds before collapsing. Just takes a wile for the oxygen to run out, and the loss of blood pressure isn't as quick with this shot as rupturing the heart.

Looks like all is good to me in your post. Carry on!

[Thumbcocker]

Excellent!

[koger]

Great job., thanks for sharing.