Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints More experience with the 6mm. Stories and chuck pics (GRAPHIC).

I just recently started getting into the centerfire game a little more seriously and after purchasing a custom Rem 700 in 6mm I've finally got out a few times and got some chucks. My current goal is to get one past 500 yards, but I haven't quite reached that yet. My rangefinder (Nikon 400) is only good out to about 375 in a field with no reflective targets and anything past that is guess work for the most part. The first 3 that I got were all less than 200 yards away.

On my 4th trip out my buddy Matt spotted a couple of young chucks along with a mother just over 250 yards away. I got my bag and rifle set up on the hood of my truck and by the time I finally got situated I had lost the mother. I'm guessing I spooked her but the two younger ones stayed out. I ranged the first one and it was 256 yards. The other was only a couple of yards away, both within feet of their mound. I dialed in my elevation and got settled in. There was a light 3/4 value wind coming from the right so I placed the crosshairs on the edge of the right side of its face and squeezed the trigger.

The shot felt good and I got the mound back in my view as quickly as possible, but not in time to see the shot. I looked for a ball of fur and saw nothing. I looked over at Matt and asked him if it was a hit. He said he had no idea. The 2nd one was still out and walking around the hole. I got situated again and waited for a broadside shot this time since I was unsure whether or not the first shot was a hit. I held a couple of inches behind its left shoulder and squeezed off another shot. Again I couldn't tell if I hit or not and with a quick gaze I didn't see a ball of fur. I looked at Matt and said "anything?" He wasn't sure.. He said he thought I shot a couple inches high.

I was feeling like a pretty lousy shot at this point because at 256 yards there was no reason for a miss and I that any errors were mine. I grabbed the spotting scope and cranked it up a tad from 16X. I immediately spotted what appeared to be the ball of fur that I had anxiously been looking for. We walked down to check it out and at first glance the chuck looked like it had died from a heart attack with no visable damage. I flipped it over to reveal the majority of its insides hanging out the bottom of its stomach. The bullet struck just behind its shoulder slightly left of where I was aiming. Right about where I expected it to with the wind.


Entry


Exit

After seeing that my shot had hit pretty much exactly where I intended it to, I started looking around for another body. My first shot had felt too good to be a miss if the 2nd one wasn't. Matt walked over to the mound and pointed to a couple of small specks of blood and then said "thats bone fragment." It was a small shiny white speck only a millimeter or two in size with a light red film over it sitting on top of a rock at the top of one of the holes. I got on my knees and peered into the hole. Just barely in sight was what appeared to be a red blob with some white things that looked like either teeth or broken ribs. I looked at Matt and said "guess this is why we couldn't see him." I had to see the damage and got down on my side and slid my hand down the hole clear up to my shoulder. Not even joking! I slowly grabbed the blob and had absolutely no idea which part I was grabbing. I pulled it out and Matt made a gruesome noise and laughed. The chucks head was a disaster with teeth, tongue, and eyes in every direction.





A couple of days later I went out again, this time alone. I was limited on time and could only shoot out into 2 of the fields due to some farmers being out in the others. I sit on top of one of the fields and can shoot into 4 other ones. The right ones, where I had got the 2 previous chucks were off limits this day. I scanned around for a while and about crapped myself when I saw a baby pop it's head up out of a hole less than 10 yards from my truck door. I stared at it for a few minutes until it went back down in. A while later another one appeared just 40 yards away. This one was a fairly large mother. I watched her for a moment and even got a pic with my phone looking through the rangfinder just for kicks. As soon as she went back down I slowly got out of the truck and got my rifle set up and waited. About 3 minutes later she popped back up and I had the crosshairs on her and trigger pulled within seconds. Her head looked just as bad as the younger ones had.


Before


After

[img]http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z422/sharpshooter3935/0601111058a.jpg[/img]
Just a second view.

Matts first shot:
This one happend just the other morning. I texted Matt to see if he was awake (we both work 3rd shift and have crazy sleeping patterns) and asked if he was up to go shooting. He said heck yeah and came over. We went to Zacs farm and I hadn't even put the truck in park before he spotted one on the same mound that I had got the two young chucks on. It was the mother. I looked at him and said "your shot" as I put the truck in park. He got out and set the bags up on the hood. I was excited to watch through the spotting scope because I hadn't got the chance to see one get hit with my new toy yet. It took him a bit to get settle on it and calm down enough to where he could pull the trigger. The shot went off and I saw a cloud of dust form as the chuck collapsed. I didn't see any red mist or anything as I had hoped. We waited a few minutes and scanned hoping to see another but Matt was anxious to see his kill and I couldn't blame him. We walked down and it turned out to be a neck shot. He said he was having trouble holding steady. He had only dry fired the gun before then to get a feel for the trigger and was pretty excited. He said it surprised the hell out of him when it went off.

[img]http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z422/sharpshooter3935/0607111743.jpg[/img]
Matts

My current personal best:
After Matts shot we drove up on top of the hill to our usual spot and waited. It wasn't long before I spotted the one I had been looking for. Not one in particular, but just one that was way out there and would be my first test at a long shot. I got the range finder out and couldn't get a reading. I kept holding it on scan and slowly moving it around until I finally got a reading. It said 495 about 20 yards in front of the chuck. I tried getting a second reading, but it couldn't pick one up. I dialed for just over 500 and took a minute to calculate the wind. It was pretty steady and I guessed it to be between 8-10mph. I held one mil to the left and steadied my breathing and fired. As I got my eye back on target I saw him running down the hill towards us. I missed. I had forgot to bring a second set of ear plugs so Matt didn't have a set and was holding his ears rather than spotting for me through the spotting scope. I asked him if he could tell where the shot went and he had no idea. I got ready for shot number two and this time aimed further to the right and fired again. Miss. The chuck froze for a couple of seconds and then ran down a little. I tried to range him again and this time managed to get one reading of 411, but again couldn't get a second reading. I redialed my elevation and took another shot. Another miss. Man is it frustrating not knowing where your shots are going!!! It wasn't until later that I realized that 500 yards is the range where every 1mph of wind equals .2 mils instead of .1. If my wind estimation was right then I should have held 2 mils off instead of just one. Damn.

The chuck continued to run down the hill straight towards us. After he stopped I re-ranged him and got 365 yards and this time got a second reading to match. I dialed in and again held one mil to the left. He was broadside so I placed the mil on his head putting the crosshairs right on his ass. I figured if my wind reading was correct I'd get either a head or shoulder shot and that if I was wrong I'd mess up his back half. I had a the bags set up good and was holding steady. I squeezed the trigger and got back onto target. After the first few shots I had gotten accustomed to watching him run around like a confused baby. This time there was nothing. After a moment I saw what I was looking for. We made the 350 plus yard walk and Matt gave me a fist bump as we approaced the chuck. I flipped the chuck over with my foot expecting to see an exit hole but saw nothing. I got down and examined it and it took me a minute to figure out where exactly the shot had went. There was blood coming out of both ears and the mouth. The shot entered about an inch under its left ear and exited out the right cheek just beside the front teeth.

[img]http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z422/sharpshooter3935/0607111848.jpg[/img]
Entry about an inch under the ear.

[img]http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z422/sharpshooter3935/Ghog76mm360yds060711.jpg[/img]
Exit out the cheek.

Ok, those aren't all the stories of this past week, but I'm up to 7 chucks with this rifle plus Matts and I've only been out about 5 times so far. I'm working on getting a better rangfinder and upgrading the scope here over the next few months. Until then I'll just have to do things the hard way and hopefully with some better spotting help maybe I'll get my 500 yard kill here soon.

That's all for this one. Thanks for reading, or at least looking at the pics lol.