Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots 1885 in 7 RM and Axis down!

My wife and I have been trying to take an axis or two for the last couple of weeks without much success. We were after a couple of really nice bucks that were travelling together with some does. One buck is huge. He's darker horned than any axis I've eve seen, very wide and tall with deep forks. When we finally go the opportunity two weeks ago, my wife didn't have a shot due to the brush and I missed the HUGE buck at 367 yards with my 6.5 Swede.

The next time we went, that HUGE buck came out and walked away from me at about 400 yards. I bailed out of the blind and got within 50 yards of him before he figured me out an hauled arse outta there.

We went back Friday morning, and this time I had my 1885 Single Shot in 7 mag in the event a longer shot happened again. About 7:30 AM two does came out of the brush and milled around before eventually giving me a shot. The 145 grain Speer Grand Slam rolled that doe at 190 yards.

Friday evening my wife decided she wanted to try another stand. Previously she and I were in stands that were a little over 500 yards apart and we could watch a lot of territory. Well, since she decided to move to different stand I decided I'd move to her blind.

It was miserably hot Friday afternoon. 95 degrees and I could not get enough air in the blind. And what I did get was hot air out of the west. I felt like Steve McQueen being sent to the "the cooler". Then the wind stopped. I was afraid I was going to sweat out when the good Lord provided a stiff northwest wind and everything got better.

It was getting near time to get out of the blind and the only thing that had come to the feeder was a porcupine. We had not been seeing deer at the feeders and chose to sit in blinds that had feeders, but also overlooked a couple of large canyons on the property.

Before getting down I decided I'd take one more look at the area where the axis had been coming out of the canyon. To my surprise I saw spots through the brush and fairly long antlers, but it was getting hard to tell. I poked my 7 mag out the window and turned the scope back down to 3. He finally moved through and out into the open and I saw another one behind him. A doe. The buck wasn't wasting any time and kept moving left to right at about 160 yards. I leveled the crosshairs on him and squeezed of another handload. I saw him drop, then get up and took about two steps before collapsing.

I knew he was the HUGE one, but recognized this one as one of his running buddies. I didn't measure him, but figure hes around 30", maybe a tad more. The HUGE one is pushing 34" for sure. The body on this buck was the largest I've ever seen.

All in all, it was a good day. Got to spend time outdoors with my sweety, doing one of the things we like to do and got some great venison for the freezer.

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Great story.

Pictures?

DF

I don't know why the pic didn't post the first time.

Nice one.

From what I've heard, Axis meat is about as good as at gets.

DF

It's excellent table fare. Much better than whitetail. In fact, I haven't eaten a whitetail in the last 30+ years until this year. I've had nothing in the freezer but west Texas mule deer and axis deer for that long. I ran out of axis at the end of last year and put two whitetail bucks in the freezer just because I wasn't able to get back after the axis. And, with this Covid crap I wasn't sure when I would be able to have time to hunt them. My wife and I have nearly eaten up those two whitetails and these two were made into a lot of smoked sausage and summer sausage in addition to the usual cuts of meat.

Dub how much do they weight / meat wise

Live weight can be as much as 200 lbs. they say and I think this one was every bit of that. I didn't have access to scales or I would have weighed him live wight and dressed out. He was the biggest bodied axis buck I've ever killed. I'm not sure what the meat weight will be for either the doe or the buck. The doe was made into tenderized cutlets, backstraps cut into filets, tenderloins whole, summer sausage and the rest burger with some brisket mixed in. I had some smoked sausage made out of the buck with the rest butchered in like fashion to the doe.

I'll get a bunch more meat than if I had killed a whitetail I know that!

Dub that is good. down here a doe is 90 /110 lb on the live wt. big buck 150 lb is a monster. on wt deer . i hunt meat thanks for the info . if they were around here they would be in trouble

Nice buck... We did not get back down to hunt Axis this year due to this crazy virus!!

Excellent rifle choice Dub. John Browning would be proud!

Will be making my first trip after Axis this June in Texas. Thinking about using my .30/06, 165gr bullets. Sound okay ?

That combination will definitely get the job done. I've killed most of mine with an AR and 64 grain Winchester Ranger ammunition. But, that was over a feeder and the range was less than 100 yards. I killed my biggest with a .243 while driving through the pasture filling feeders. I don't know where you're hunting or whether it's spot and stalk or over a feeder, but that combination will work just fine. I used my 7 RM and 145 grain Speer Grand Slams this time because the axis were holed up in a canyon until last light and the tower blind was a long way from where they were travelling. I missed a huge buck with my 6.5 Swede at 367 yards a week or so before this hunt so I decided I needed to make a change. Plus, it was great to break out the old 1885 for a change.

Not much better to be had.

That is a hunt I'd like to do sooner than later. The virus put me off this year. I have the time and the rifles just need to get it done.
Congrats on a nice deer.