Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Antelope bullet

Far too much importance is given to B.C. and gear these days, and not near enough to hunting skills. Use dirty belt buckles and they will do so much more for your ability to hunt then new gear or slick bullets.

I average 4 antelope a year here in Wyoming and so does my wife, so just the 2 of us get to shoot 8 per year as an average. Some years less and a few years more, but 6-8 per year is common.

Add to these the 10-20 per season that I will be along on hunts with friends who come to hunt with us, and you'll understand I get to see a lot of antelope shot. This started for me in 1994 here in Wyoming.. so that's 26 years now. In a ten year period I get to either kill, or see killed, about 225 to maybe 250 pronghorns. If I were to say an average of even 3 for me per year (actually too low ) over the 26 years I have been doing this in Wyoming , and then if I estimate a low-ball number of goats I see shot every year at 12, that would be 15-18 antelope total killed per year X 26 years. So the low-end figure is 390 ==and I know it's actually a bit higher. My own kills are probably about 3-4 per year as an average so that would come to 78 at the low end.

So ---of these numbers, the questions I'd ask and answer for the readers benefit is:

How many have I see killed at 500 yards and farther in the last 26 years? Answer: 3
How many were killed over 600? Answer: 1. (Which took the man 7 shots total)

How many have I personally killed over 500 yards? Answer: None.
How many have I personally killed over 400 yards? Answer: 3 and maybe 4.

The question I think is far more significant is to ask: How many I have killed under 50 yards. That would be about 20-25.
How many under 20 yards? Answer; 4

I have killed several antelope with handguns, all of which were revolvers with issue sights.

last year I killed my buck at 35-37 yards using iron sights and one doe at 12 yards. Here is the buck.
IMG_20190918_192827625 by Steve Zihn, on [bleep]
Here is the rifle I killed the doe with, (but this is obviously not that doe.) I didn't have a camera with me for that hunt. This is a small buck from the year before and it too was killed with an iron sighted rifle at about 165 yards. 2018 #1 Ant. Buck by Steve Zihn, on [bleep]
Both those rifles use only with Round Nose Bullets by the way.................

So the idea that you need some new wiz-bang uber-tec do-dad, be it a new bullet, new scope, bi-pod, wind gauge or what ever, may all be helpful as learning tools ---but none of that helps you HUNT. It may help someone shoot to a degree , but even that degree of help is WAY less helpful then the advertisers would try to tell you. Gear doesn't make skill!

I have a 460 yard range 10 steps out my front door ,and I am only 15 minutes from a range I can fire to 1400 yards. I like long range shooting and I go out to have fun doing that fairly often, But that is not hunting.

If you are even questioning your ability to place your shot perfectly, due to wind, range, angels, or anything else, get your belt buckle in the dirt and get closer. Big Game is not your enemy. Respect them enough to hunt them, instead of simply shooting them (or shooting at them, shooting them poorly....... and so on)