To me, a rifle such as this one is at its best equipped with good iron sights. In its former life as a .30-30 I'd equipped the rifle with a vintage Redfield peep and XS front featuring a white stripe. It works well and I couldn't see fit to change things. The only suitable bullets on hand were 300gr Beartooth WFNs and Hornady 300gr XTPs. I'd already researched loads and had ammo loaded. Off to the range! Range day was a mixed bag. Good news: The rifle is accurate with various loads. I shot it at 75 and four shot groups were close to touching with both bullets. Bad news: I couldn't get the chrony to read. Velocity is surely over 2000fps but beyond that I cannot say until I get to the range again.The newest issue of Handloader had a Pet Loads write up by Brian Pearce. Based on his data I settled on H322 for the 300 grainers. Later this year I will try some heavy cast bullets and 300gr A-frames.

I'm suspicious that 2000+ fps will be a bit much for the Hornady to have great penetration. Therefore, when I went sneaking through the woods a few days ago the WFNs were standing by. I got into some great sign at about 200 feet of elevation above the beach and slowed down. After a bit a big bodied deer stood up out of its bed at 15 yards, ran out to 30, and then turned around to see what got his attention. Bad for him, he stopped with enough of his chest exposed for me to get a bullet into him at a pretty steep quartering away angle. With one jump he was out of sight. Let me tell you, a WFN at this velocity leaves a blood trail. I found him piled up about forty yards away. The bullet drove through a very full stomach, holed the lungs and took off the top of the heart. The exit wound was easily 1.5". As he fell.........Capital I say!

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