Deer hunting BS thread

This means nothing to anyone but me but.....
My dad was a certified gun nut. We were really poor but he still managed to haul guns in and out of the house (maybe we missed a few meals because of it ).
Anyhow, his goal was always to get them to shoot at their absolute best, then he'd get rid of them.
I remember helping him reload (he had a bench set up in the bedroom) when I was a kid; he'd drink beer and weigh powder, always while having a lit cigarette dangling over the whole process ).

For many years I kept an old piece of paper in my shop, it was a group that he had shot with his Remington model 600 .243. It was a 5 shot group at 100 yards.....you could cover all 5 shots with a dime. I finally had to pitch it because it was so old it just kinda fell apart.
There was also a 'rich guy's gun club' in town; my dad somehow got invited to shoot with them one day...a guy that was there that day told me that my dad took everybody's money (they bet on shooting)...he said it was almost embarrassing watching my old man beat those guys with their fancy and expensive .22 rifles. My dad was shooting an old Mossburg (I think) that his father in law had bought in like the '50's for 19 bucks, my dad had totally reworked that gun and it was a helluva shooter. I'm pretty sure my brother still has it.
He gave me the model 600 on my 30th birthday, its the only gun that will definitely stay with me until I die.
I used to go coyote hunting, then drop my gun off at his house because he loved to take them apart and clean them.
I miss that old bastard.


The 600 is on the bottom.



I killed my first deer with the 700 (top), I was 14.

 

My apologies, I naturally assume everyone I meet on the Internet is a 14 year old boy, but since this is a truck forum I typically bump my assumed age to 17 lol. I started hunting this year with a 25-06 I inherited, but haven't put anything down with it yet. My farthest deer was 4 years ago opening weekend. I dropped a pretty good 8 at 252 steps with the .243 that has been recently misbehaving. I've killed a handful of coyotes north of 400, a couple with this 243 and a couple with a Ruger m77 also in 243 (that walked away one December night in 2009...) But I've missed probably two handfuls of coyotes north of 400.

 

Ej never misses on his cooking show

 

Don’t think that helps

 

All the talk about accurate guns. ive bought,sold and traded more guns than id like to admit. my collection now is guns for everything i hunt and are money accurate. i cant shoot like i use too because of lack of pratice and my age. all guns have quirks. back in the day Ruger 77’s had a pressure point on the stock at its end.my .223 didnt shoot good so sanded it. better. so sanded the pressure point off to free float. groups went to 8” at 100. glass bedded it. still only 3moa at 100yds. . sold it. point is all guns are different.

 

I've always had just the guns that I needed, but not really anything extra. The last couple of years I've kinda got this weird 9mm fetish, for some reason I'm kinda crazy about them....but I cant shoot a handgun for shit.

I think if someone broke into my house I'd just hand them a loaded pistol and say, "I hope you're better at it than I am"

But I sure do love shooting them!!



I forgot it was a deer hunting thread, my apologies.



Random deer pic

 

I also am a handgun nut.got quite a few highend handguns. but also im not a great handgun shot. it takes a ton of practice and trouble shooting to be proficent with them. best thing ive learned is straight wrist,tight support hand and relaxed trigger hand

 

You know I've never really stopped to think about the body count before. 10 was an average, I've killed many more deer than that some years. Like I said, I have a job that allows me a lot of time off during deer season, and have/had people that owned property in KY, TN, GA, LA, and MS that let me hunt and stay, so all I had to do is fund licenses. But yes, you are correct, I pulled 1k off the top of my head in a hurry. So the total... IDK, 600,700, maybe 800 but that's probably high. It never occurred to me to keep count.

 

That's cool, but you posted a picture with impacts all over the place from a gun I wouldn't trust past 50 yrds and blew it off like "oh well". What is one suppose to think? That said maybe it is the ammo. I've never seen ammo lead to groups as large as that but.... I shoot Hornady Precision Hunter out of my A-bolt with excellent results.

 

Why would you take a gun into the field that had been "misbehaving"?

Like I said, I had an Encore that wouldn't group consistently. I sold it. I didn't hunt with it hoping it wouldn't "misbehave".

And when you use a phrase like "misbehaved" you understand you are giving life to the gun? Like it has a mind if it's own.

 

FYI, no one really gives a rip how many deer or turkeys you’ve killed but I get it. I count and record every turkey I’ve ever killed. Means something to me.

Had an interesting hunt yesterday eve. Humor me if you will. Saddled up a tree in a fork of an open hardwood draw with my 30-30. Saw some does. Along comes an armadillo. These are relatively new here and the first live one I’ve seen here. Black Yote shows up and rushes it. It goes under a log. Yote stands on top of log. I can’t see with naked eye that far, last light, so red dot 30-30 is out of play. I squeak as best I can with kissing noises trying to call Yote closer. Hear more racket in leaves and here comes a red fox up draw to 10yards from tree. It hears armadillo up under log and heads that way. Yote rushes fox and runs it off, returns to log. Never a chance to shoot, all this seen through binos. Finally hear deer start moving through woods down draw and Yote trots off toward them. Armadillo leaves from log. Climb down tree after dark and have more deer come in draw either side as I try to slip out.

 

ah, but it does..

 

I was going to let this one die man but it just keeps coming back. I don't know how to take you, I have legitimately wondered if a troll was a foot. I guess I'll start at the beginning, because what the heck does it matter if we keep saying the same things in a circle Amirite? You initially thought my .24 cal muzzleloader didn't like the loading I was using but then found out it was a rifle so the ammo couldn't be the cause of consistency issues. You have apparently been shooting for over 40 years and have never seen a rifle that shoots over 1.5 moa if the barrel isn't shot out, you reload and throw out any group that isn't touching, yet haven't seen ammo make a +-1.5" difference in grouping? Like you develop loads that start at MOA and in your ladder tests have never hit a bad node. I also can't tell if you are bad at math as pointed out earlier because 10x40 (heck even 49) not only way less than 1000, it's still way less than 700 even though some years you kill "more than 10" because... Averages lol if you kill 15 one year and 7 the next and 8 the next, that's an average of 10 because math. I use the term "misbehaving" because the results of my input do not produce what is expected, and to figure out what is going on, I will have to continue"giving it life"
I'm not sure you implied this (I'm addressing it as that particular part of my statement was quoted with your response), but the buck I shot at 252 was while the rifle was cooperating, it only recently (this season) has been shooting below standard. There are thousands of not dozens of thousands of people that shoot with irons that would be more than happy to hold 3" at 100 yards, so as I stated, I currently have no issue keeping shots with it inside 100 yards. I don't mean to be mean, but I trust people on the Internet a little, I trust people I just met on the Internet very little to none, I'm sure we would get along great in person and tell stories back and forth at a deer camp or a killer day at the range or on the river or something, but based on these interactions, we seem somewhat incompatible. And to give some credit to your opinion, I haven't completely ruled out the scope, I simply am starting with ammo because that is what was changed or at least potentially changed (yes i know i also changed scopes which somewhat goes against the scientific method but the gun shot poorly with the old scope this season as well). I'm sure one day we will look back on this and laugh and say things like "remember that time the 243 wouldn't shoot and it was simply fixed by (insert solution) and when you weren't subscribed to my YouTube channel yet? Ahh good times"


If it Fitz it bakes

 

Some of my best, most memorable times hunting have involved not harvesting an animal .......

 

nothing like watching and listening to your surroundings awaken, and go to sleep..and toss a 6-7 foot wingspan owl or other raptor gliding thru the thick trees without making a sound....

 

Same. Watching the rising sun kiss the mountain top working it's warmth to me, thankful for our blessings.

 

I thought so I do what I can.

 

Was wondering if this was a Friday thread
What’s the biggest wheel I can fit on a 556.
Sorry I couldn’t help my self I was not supervised @1buzzbait Murph was