Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB's Wyoming buck

JB,
A 30-06? 180 grain bullet? The Norma Oryx is a conventional cup and core isn't it? 2700 fps muzzle velocity? Factory load? 3x9 scope? Just what kind of a rifle looney do you claim to be? Well at least you used a NULA and not a plain jane 700 sps or vaguard. Seriously, that is a great looking buck. Congratulations. It's also great to read that you can still take game with something as traditional as a 30-06 with factory 180gr ammo and a 3-9 scope. Now if you really wanted to impress that buck, a 257 STW in a pre 64 Model 70 with a 28" Pac-Nor barrel, McSwirley stock and a 6-24 Niteforce scope shooting handloaded 100 grain TTSX's should do it. No holdover for at least 400 yards.

JLM,

I lived in Lander for a year, back in the early 1970's. I wanted to stay there, but other circumstances prevented it. How's the hunting aroun there these days? I also used to fish the heck out of things in that area, mostly all the forks of the Popo Agie and the mountain lakes in the Winds.

Yeah, it was kind of a test with the Trijicon. I just got it this past summer, and mounted it on the NULA to see how it would do. The first test was of a bunch of handloads with some newer powders, and the scope worked just fine. I also liked the reticle (plex-type crosshair with a glow-dot in the middle, and some longer-range dots below) so just left the scope on there for the hunt. It worked well enough that I probably won't put another scope on the NULA anytime soon. It's a good scope, and should be, since it was made in the same factory that makes the Bushnell Elites and several other fine scopes.

But to be honest there are a lot of good scopes--and bullets, etc. What often happensis that somebody sends me a new scope or bullet to test. Soo I mount the scope on a certain rifle and shoot the heck out of it, both at targets and at game. Or I work up a load with the new bullet and shoot some "media" and then some animals.

If everything works out all right (and it usually does, though sometimes it doesn't) that scope will tend to stay on that rifle until there's a reason to take it off, such as another scope to test. And that bullet/load will be that rifle's bullet/load, until it's time to test something else.

As a bullet for-instance, when Nosler AccuBonds first came out I also had a brand-new Merkel single-shot .308 that needed to be hunted. So I got some 150 AccuBonds and with 46 grains or so of Varget the rifle shot well under an inch, at 2900 fps. I took it up to the Northwest Territories and killed a nice caribou and a wolverine. The rifle/bullet/load worked perfectly, so that's what I've used in the Merkel ever since. It continues to work just fine, and until there's a reason to switch that will be the load for that rifle.

In general what all this testing has told me is that there's a bunch of good stuff out there! Which is why I often get a chuckle out of the Campfire "discussions" about scopes, bullets, rifles, cartridges, etc., where everybody has an opinion on what is absolutely the only perfect scope, bullet, rifle, cartridge etc.

ar15a292f,

The Norma Oryx is a very good bonded-core bullet.

My .257 Weatherby (factory walnut-stocked Vanguard, 24" barrel) with its 6x42 Leupold and 100-grain TTSX's also allows no-holdover shooting to 400, and 2" groups at that range. But I admit it ain't as sexy as the rifle and scope you describe.

I actually do tend to use the .30-06 with 180 factory loads for a lot of testing. That's because whenever anybody brings out a new factory load, they always bring out a 180-grain .30-06 load. I have also hunted with the 2700 fps, 180-grain .30-06 load long enough that I absolutely know the trajectory. I've killed enough game with it out to 400+ now that I don't feel handicapped at all.

In fact one year I deliberately took a Remington 700 with a 3-9x scope and handloads with the 180 Nosler Partition to South Africa, just to prove that the average guy doesn't need anything more. And I happened to kill a pile of springbok on a cull shoot, plus a gemsbok, plus a big kudu at just about the same range as the mule deer in Wyoming. One shot literally dropped the kudu in its tracks. This wasn't surprising since the shot was at a steep uphill angle and not only took out a carotid artery but the spine and the far shoulder. We found the Partition perfectly expanded under the hide toward the top of the shoulder.

Have done much the same thing out to 450 or so with the .30-06 and various 180's on other large beasts. Which is why I also get a chuckle out of those who claim the .30-06 with 180's just ain't enough.

Well I'll be damned

It's still pretty good around here, allthou the Elk population seems to be on the downswing somewhat. Less tags being issued for the Red Desert Elk hunt for instance. I suspect it has something to do with the introduction of that pesky grey wolf..snicker....and a fairly long drought as well.

My brother in law and I both got fairly decent deer this year out by Hudson actually. His was a rather large whitetail and I shot a decent Muley, good enough to eat anyway. Hell the mulies have been bedding down just down the block from me in my neighbors yard!

Check this out, should give you an idea:

http://www.wyomingoutdoorsradio.com/hunting_2008.htm

There are archives from past years on there as well. There are still some monsters out there. They get missed by the guys that like to whiz by on their quads and prefer to hunt by just kind of stumbling into something decent ...chuckle....

Back when I lived in Lander there weren't any elk in the Red Desert to speak of....

That's a great website!

In my experience there nearly always are a few big bucks in any area, unless there is literally no place for them to hide--in which case they never live to be old bucks, or leave when they do. But after 3-4 seasons of patterning hunters they can be darned hard to find!

I spent a night in Lander on my way home from the muley hunt. It keeps getting bigger but then most places except small farm towns do. When I lived there (in 1973-74) there was great brown trout fishing right in town.

John,

Just came here. Very nice mule deer. Heavy, and thick through to the ends. Just the kind you want to take as you do wonder if he just "slipped over the rise" a year ago and is on his way down.

A friend is like you and has mule deer on the mind and would rather hunt a mountain mulie than about anything else. I have just about enough pref points for a Shiras in Wyo so I am going to apply for one of those and we'll put in as a party for mulies.

Where we would go is not generally known as a "mulie area", having few deer but some old buggers I guess. That's what we'd look for.

I like the the toasted almond color of those horns-very nice!


Gdv

Ahh Browns. Jeap, every day after school I'd roam the banks in City Park and pull them out of the Popo. Then I moved in 88 to Laramie for school, and by the time I got back our long drought had started. The river has never really been quite the same, allthou there are still some good spots up the Sinks if you look hard enough.

In fact it got SO dry around here, there were times where you could literally WALK across Frye Lake! Same thing with Boysen, you'd drive over the causeway and see bare ground and weeds, NO water. We are slowly recovering thou.

And ya, its gotten bigger, allthou the population is actually down from what it was in say 1980. They closed the steel mill up at Atlantic City back then and literally overnight a bunch of my friends just MOVED out of here. They have been replaced by wolves and Californians.....hehehehe.....

I need to pick up a copy of your reloading DVD sometime methinks and check it out!

Cheers!

JB,
I didn't know that the Norma Oryx was a bonded core bullet. Thanks for the update. I prefer the Swift A-Frame, but it is not a fanatical preference. We are blessed with a huge selection of good bullets today, and they all work well. As you say, more important is the nut behind the trigger. As for the rifle I described, that was just something I fictously cobled together from components I have read about on the Campfire forums. I have no experience with any of those components, but they sure sounded great.
Stan