I decided to try something different this year. Instead of dragging out my trusty .44 Smith or the 6.5X55 Remington 700, I took my Prairie Dog Rifle Deer hunting. We got a lot of wet sloppy snow the week before the opener and had a freezing drizzle on the first morning. I decided to hunt close to the house since my old bones couldn't handle the trip to my normal stand. I set the 6 MM BR Norma up on my shooting bench and began the long, cold wait.
The 6MM BR is a pissy little round that holds about 32 grains of Varget behind an 87 grain Hornady Interlock soft point. That load will move that bullet at around 3100 FPS so it's a bit slower than a .243 but not by much. The deer trail I was watching is about 180 - 230 yards from where I was sitting.
6MM BR Norma along side a .338 Win Mag.
At about 2:30 this afternoon, I was watching some does feeding along the trail and looked away for a minute then looked back and saw a third deer moving up behind them. A quick check in the spotting scope showed horns and I got behind the rifle. There is no safety on my Pdog gun so it wasn't loaded and I quickly chambered a round. The does stepped into the woods and the Buck stopped for a minute and looked right at me. I centered the cross hairs on his chest and touched the 2 oz trigger. I could hear the impact as he leaped straight in the air and hit the ground running into the woods.
I figured it was a good hit so I poured a cup of coffee and relaxed for a bit to let him tire out and drop. After my coffee, I picked up my 6.5X55 and went out to where he was shot. I was 190 yards from my bench and there was no blood. He was headed toward a swamp south of me so I figured I'd cut him off and see if I could cut his trail farther into the bush. I hadn't gone ten yards when I came across a good blood trail.
I followed it for a few more yards and found him crumpled up. He had only gone 25 yards from where he was shot.
While I was looking at him and taking the above photo two more deer showed up. You can see one standing on the other side of my rifle.
My buddy brought his 4 wheeler over and helped me drag it to the house where we skinned it out. The bullet had taken the top off the heart and he was totally bled out.
The 6MM BR is a pissy little round that holds about 32 grains of Varget behind an 87 grain Hornady Interlock soft point. That load will move that bullet at around 3100 FPS so it's a bit slower than a .243 but not by much. The deer trail I was watching is about 180 - 230 yards from where I was sitting.
6MM BR Norma along side a .338 Win Mag.
At about 2:30 this afternoon, I was watching some does feeding along the trail and looked away for a minute then looked back and saw a third deer moving up behind them. A quick check in the spotting scope showed horns and I got behind the rifle. There is no safety on my Pdog gun so it wasn't loaded and I quickly chambered a round. The does stepped into the woods and the Buck stopped for a minute and looked right at me. I centered the cross hairs on his chest and touched the 2 oz trigger. I could hear the impact as he leaped straight in the air and hit the ground running into the woods.
I figured it was a good hit so I poured a cup of coffee and relaxed for a bit to let him tire out and drop. After my coffee, I picked up my 6.5X55 and went out to where he was shot. I was 190 yards from my bench and there was no blood. He was headed toward a swamp south of me so I figured I'd cut him off and see if I could cut his trail farther into the bush. I hadn't gone ten yards when I came across a good blood trail.
I followed it for a few more yards and found him crumpled up. He had only gone 25 yards from where he was shot.
While I was looking at him and taking the above photo two more deer showed up. You can see one standing on the other side of my rifle.
My buddy brought his 4 wheeler over and helped me drag it to the house where we skinned it out. The bullet had taken the top off the heart and he was totally bled out.
