Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 3 Guys, 3 Goats and a Wyoming weekend

Brain, Marc and I headed across the border for a weekend speed goat adventure. We decided to take our varmint AR setups. Marc numbered three .223 shells and we drew our shooting order. Brian was first, I was on deck and Marc was in the hole. It took us about 10 minutes to find the first good buck. He was on the opposite side of a winding creek. After a super stealthy stalk I lasered him at 601 yards and called a minute of wind. Brian dialed up the yardage on his custom turret and I told him to send it. The buck spun around and I called for a follow up shot. The buck dropped like a rock. Two seconds and two great hits with the 70 grain VLD's. Both bullets zipped right through the buck.

Next up, my turn. We spent about two hours looking over dozens of goats and found another worthy candidate. This time we had an irrigation ditch volunteering to host my buddy Kelsey and myself in what Kelsey called some serious skull dragging utilizing the micro terrain features. I don't even know what that means but it made me laugh. After about an hour of zigging, zagging, glassing and deliberating we made it about 260 yards from my buck. He didn't totally follow the script that I mentally designed, as I wanted a totally broadside shot. Instead he turned around and showed some indecision and gave me a quartering towards me shot. I slid the 70 grainer right into the boiler room and toppled him directly. Upon examining buck number two, the little VLD passed through the quartering shot as well. Two hours and two good bucks.

Now it's up to Marc: Marc likes to look at every animal on the mountain, name them all and make a list of pro's and con's for each buck. He is serious! We looked at hundreds of goats and had a blast doing it. When he found the one that he thought would look the best on his wall it was game on. We put a monster stalk on this buck and finally closed the distance. Brian and I held back and worked in line with the buck and Marc circled around. Marc got to a good vantage point that was 348 yards from his target. Brian and I couldn't see the buck initially as he was 200 yards in front of us but to low to see. A few minutes later we heard a "whack" and heard the sonic crack of the suppressed 70 grain bullet. Moments later the buck trotted out and stopped with a little wobble. Next we see the dirt on the backside of him and heard a a second "whack" right after the buck dropped. His second shot was just a hair over 500 yards and he too had both bullets pass through the antelope.

Great antelope! Way to get it done quickly. Congrats!

Nice going! When you say the 70gr VLD "zipped through" Do you mean there was no expansion?

Great story, fun detail and some nice looking goats. I'll bet you guys are a blast to hunt with!

Looks like a fun weekend, congrats.

Congrats on the goats.

Well done! Interesting, and effective, rifles!

I think you need a different bullet for a single shot/kill myself....:)
Nice goats you all ended up with in that short time also.

We definitely have field tested these rifle/ bullet combos this year. The setups accounted for 5 goats that weekend, a number of deer and a whole bunch of coyotes, fox, and other assorted predators this fall. With an AR the follow up shot often times happens even if it's not mandatory. I have another 7 to 8k VLD's that I plan on putting to good use.

Very well done all the a around!

Gotta say I was relieved when I opened the thread, I thought the title was describing a sequel to Brokeback Mountain

What load are you running.?

601 yards with a .223... Nice shooting.

Grand, we are using 24.3 grains if Varget.
LBP, we had good conditions for the shot. That is, however, pushing the limits of what we are comfortable with using a 223. Bullet selection is critical in my opinion also. This setup worked well for big game this year. We have
around 50 predators with this setup this year also and it lacks in the expansion dept sometimes.

Nicely done gents

Bones, are you running a crimp on those loads?

Grand, no crimp on any of our rifle loads. We have all of our ammo professionally loaded to our specs.