Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting last day of TN deer season yesterday...

So yesterday was the last day of deer season in TN (on private lands). I have been wanting to hunt my 95 year old German combo gun for several years (it's born on date is 1927). The rifle barrel is a 6.5x52r, commonly known as a 25-35 Win in the US. I handload the Hornady 110 grain FTX bullet on top of 26.5 grains of CFE 223 and a CCI 200 primer for ~ 2200 fps. I took this photo in the tree stand before sunset. Right after sunset I had 7 deer come right toward me, picked out a nice doe and downed her at around 40 yards which was just to the right of the fallen tree on the right edge of the photo. Rifle, scope, and bullet performed perfectly! The old Zeiss 4x scope with the #4 reticle worked like a champ in the dark woods after sunset. Top of the heart shot, deer ran maybe 30 yards. I had a Browning X-bolt 30-06 in the stand also, but using this old classic has been a goal for a while, it made the hunt that much more special. Unfortunately I didn't get a good photo of the deer because we spent a fair amount of time recovering 3 other deer my friend dropped out in the fields (west TN area has 3 does a day limit as we are overrun with deer). He said there were over 20 deer in the two fields he was hunting. Last day of the season is a meat mission for him. By the time we got back to my deer it was pitch dark and we were tired and in a hurry. We dropped the deer off with a family a few miles away, they were ecstatic for all the meat they were getting.

I wrote about this gun here a few years ago. Bought it locally at an estate auction, it needed some work. Did not have a scope or mounts, stock needed repair and refinishing. I bought the Zeiss Jena scope from a member here and refinished it. Did some mounting measurements and bought a couple sets of claw mounts from eBay Germany. I used a mount from each set and hand fitted them to the rifle for a 100% solid and repeatable fit (at least 8 hours worth of work if I remember). Another member here gave me dozens of reloading articles for the round, many decades old but there was a newer one where the author worked up loads using the new-ish Hornady FTX bullet and CFE-223 powder. I have a fair amount of this powder and really liked the results I was getting with various charges I settled on a moderate charge as I don't want to drive this old gun very hard. No need to. It was a fun project getting this rifle working, now I finally got it bloody a few years later!