After shooting my favorite non-Linebaughed revolver for over a year, I decided I was ready to hunt with it. Freedom Arms 97 in 357 with 7-1/2" round barrel and a red dot. Old man sights I like to call them. Some call em non-Amish sights. I am using a good load of 2400 and an air cooled wheel weight NOE 180 FN GC. This gun shoots them in 3-6" for 6 shots at 100; sometimes, I do too.
15 year old son and 6 year old daughter came along for this one. Had been to the special spot in a bush-line with a tree behind and a wood 2x6 rail fence in front, looking across a couple flood irrigated fields, mostly alfalfa, with an overgrown ditch-line at 200 yds. My practice has been to 120 yds, with a little steel shot at 200m or farther, so the field is only half mine, as it were.
Son behind me and to my left, daughter behind me and to my right. Waiting. And waiting. Such is a handgun hunt. Watching three groups of goats through the binocs, all slowly milling their way to me. Some as far as 400 yds, the others just over the ditch and overgrown grass/weeds. Finally, with about 5 minutes of legal light, the first doe comes through the weeds into the alfalfa field. The rest of her group, about a dozen goats, come behind her. They stare at the doe mule deer and her fawn of the year off to my left at about 100 yds. She blows nose noises and they leave to my left. Three bucks in the group on the right, two sparring, one unicorn. Or so I think. I am intent on the black faced buck, noticeably more horn mass and longer prongs than the other and more than the unicorn, who has white tips. It is Oct 27 in the northern Big Horn basin, Wyoming. No goats have shed their sheathes yet. Or so I think. The clock is ticking and we are down to about two legal minutes. I hate to disappoint my daughter and I always take the opportunity to make sure my kids know I am Dad, with powers and abilities beyond their understanding.
The other herds have now joined the growing mass of ready-to-bed goats. The two sparring bucks move off and the unicorn comes closer. 99 lasered yards. Go time. Son says, "One minute." Revolver goes on the fence rail, dot centered on the right-facing buck's shoulder, two pounds are applied to the shiny stainless trigger and the 180 FN whacks him hard. Straight drop. Not the butt first, guaranteed kill drop, but the all-at-once, oh-no he may get back up drop. I wait a few seconds, maybe 15, and keep watch through the binocs. He kicks like a recently dead goat, so I figure all good. Son takes the folding decoy and walks out there toward the nearly 60 strong herd. He makes 40 yards from the downed buck and 50 yards from the herd before the lead doe turns, flares her white rump patch, and trots off, herd following.
Daughter and I join son and approach from unicorn buck's rear, behind his back. He is still breathing, but unable to lift more than his head. Just about then, he lets out one last breath and is done. We thank him for his sacrifice (as if it was a willing one) and get out the knives. Mid-gut, I ask for a lung damage pic. Hit was high and right of my aim point, striking bottom of thoracic spine. Aorta was missed by an inch or two. Spine broke and spalled the lungs sufficiently for a kill, though delayed. I was unable to recover any mass of bullet, but I did get the gas check. Shout out to Gator here, it took full bullet disintegration, or bone, to dislodge the check. And the unicorn had shed his sheathes. On October 27. So the ivory tipped unicorn wasn't. But that's not why I took him. I took him because he was there and so were a couple of my kids. So he is a real trophy. He just didn't have any horns left. I got my first 357 pronghorn and my daughter wants to hunt even more now. We got a bunch of hamburger patties and every time I fry one I think of this hunt, more than the other hunts where we killed with rifles.
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