Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer hunting with iron sights?

I am curious if anyone has hunted/does hunt a deer or deer-seized critter with military rifle, without a scope, with battle sights. I know many WW2 vets hunted with battle sights. Where I was born and raised (the other side of Atlantic), Mosin 7.62x54 is the ultimate hunting rifle for anything from mountain goat and boar to brown bear. They don't have any scopes. I am itching to take ine of my mausers or M44 carbine. I only wish the gun season was longer here. It is only 2 weeks in PA...

Killed two deer in the past several years with WWII battle rifles and their original sights: VZ 24 and a US Rem 03.

Neither of the former owners had any problems killing deer with either rifle over the previous 50 years. The VZ belonged to my dad (war trophy), the O3 belonged to one of his brothers.

I killed my biggest deer ever, a 140 class 8 point, with a 1943 K98 with iron sights this past year. It was at about 125 yards and it was easy.

I've never hunted big game with a rifle that did not have a scope. However, I've killed many a squirrel and rabbit using iron sights. People used rifles to hunt successfully for about two hundred years before scopes were common. Don't see why, if you practice to become competent, you couldn't do it today.

KC

I've killed several deer with an 03A3 with issue sights. No problem for me up to 200 yes. It is now because my eyes are not what they were. Most old folks eyes aren't.

Still find a 30 carbine handy on a four wheeler chasing hogs. Don't want to get a good rifle mucked up in the mud and brush but still want something that will work everytime.

BCR

Never used anything really old. My cousin used a Moisin Nagant for years though.

I've used M1A and AR15 a fair amount and have used the MN for hogs.

I haven't used battle sights, but I have been carrying a Marlin 1894 in 44 mag with a Williams peep, and its minute of deer out to 100 yards. Which has been plenty good in the rotten thick brush I have hunted the past two seasons.

Lee Enfield 303 Brit with original mil sights gets out and about the hunting fields each year.

I've killed a few dozen deer with various military rifles ('98 Mausers, '95 Mausers, '94 Swede Mausers, and .30 Carbine). They work as well as any open sight rifle at reasonable range, but the sights tend to be a bit less refined with rather thick front blades.

The best example I know of was a member of our hunting club. He served in Korea and purchased a Garand through the NRA in the mid-50's because, "I used it in the war and it just seemed to hit harder on men than a .30-30 did on deer.....figured deer and men are about the same size so it ought to work for hunting too."

From about 1955 until 2002 (when he died) this was his only deer rifle. Carried it in a dashboard rifle rack in his 1950's vintage jeep and both the rifle and jeep looked like they never got cleaned.....but both always worked. That hunter took probably 65 deer in the 45 years he carried that Garand, so yeah, I'd say a military rifle would do quite well!!

until my eyes went, I was 'irons only'. Now I have a scope on every deer rifle.

Not military, but I use two rifles a lot during the season, both are levers equipped with receiver sights.

TexasRick:

The only rifle with iron sights that I really like are those on an M14. I suspect that the sites on a Garand are about the same. But my eyes are also getting old and I no longer can focus on the rear sight. So now even my rim fires have scopes.

KC

My girlfriend took her one and only deer, a 220 pound 10 point with an old .222 with iron sights. I think the distance was 40-50 yards or so, it didn't run very far. Quite a first! Not a military rifle although

I have iron sights on a M98 35 Whelen and sevral other rifles.

Adds a little challenge if you are 62.

Have not used a mauser or M44, but I have taken plenty of deer with iron sights - Enfield, Cetme, and SKS come to mind. Here's a story -

I took my 3rd and 4th deer in 1997 with a Chinese made SKS using semi jacketed lead point ammo made in Germany and China respectively. Those bullets cost 9 cents each. On the opening day of NY�s southern zone regular deer season I had a tag for one antlered deer and one antlerless deer. I left my home before dawn and decided to hunt just a few hundred yards behind the house as the sun rose. I was hoping to catch deer passing along a deer trail that linked feeding and bedding areas. I stood between two maple trees leaning against the down hill tree and hoping that the other would block me from the sight of any deer uphill on the trail. The sun rose behind me turning the dark to grey and tingeing the sky with pink. I heard fat grey squirrels come down from their nests to search the fallen leaves for acorns and watched them play. One worked his way toward me, climbed a tree about 5 yards away and ran along a branch a few yards over head and into the tree I was leaning against. I saw a partridge hen fly down and feed through my field of vision. Both moved off to my left. My plan was to watch this trail during sunrise, then slowly work my way uphill and southward in an attempt to drive deer to my hunting companions if I didn�t see any. As the morning wore on I continued to hear the squirrels and partridge off to my left but paid little attention as I had seen the small animals already. But when I decided to move I worked my way in that direction walking quietly and cautiously along over the stone wall and from rock to rock to minimize the noise of my foot steps. I had travelled about 50 yards when I heard footsteps ahead of me. Well I thought � it�s waaaay too noisy to be deer but I�ll take a look to see what it is.

Peering down hill I saw not one, but TWO deer. The fork horned buck was following tight behind a doe. He must have heard, smelled, or sensed me because he looked back over his shoulder just as I settled the SKS�s hooded front site post into the V notch of the rear sight on his shoulders. They were +/- 70 yards away from me and about 20 feet down slope. The buck swung his head forward and launched himself into a bound that should have carried him safely out of sight safely behind thick brush � except that his lady friend was squarely in front of his chest mere inches away. He rebounded off her butt and twisted sideways bringing his front shoulder out of alignment with her hind quarters. That was the opening I had been waiting for. She was no longer in the bullet�s path. I sent the 123 grain projectile high into his left side, just over his heart. The bullet angled down and through the offside leg at the elbow.

Stunned by the noise and impact of the buck from behind, the doe wasn�t sure what was going on. I let her go. Somehow it just seemed greedy to drop them both. The buck fell about 5 yards away and was still breathing when I walked up to him for the coup de grace.

On the last day of the same season. I hunted up to the top of the hill and on to the adjacent property. I had attempted stalks on deer bedding at the top of the hill several times since opening morning without success. Each time they went down the hill on the far side as I approached and into thick pines where I could not see them. This time I followed them after I jumped them and tracked them into a stand of pines too thick for me to crawl through. I gambled that they were still in the thick growth and circled the grove to wait for them to emerge. I took a position inside a group of tall straight hardwood trees. It was a park like setting without undergrowth so from behind a large tree 50 yards away I had an unobstructed view of the pine thicket.

I waited patiently. I waited impatiently. I counted all 317 trees within sight. And then I waited longer.

Finally three does emerged from the pines and fed into view browsing on low growth just 50 yards away through the hardwoods. It was the last day of the season and I had a doe tag to fill. Which one should I take? I resolved to take the first one that offered an unobstructed shot. They fed bunched up for several yards until at about 75 yards one of them stepped away from the others offering the opportunity to squeeze a shot between two trees and through her heart. At the sound of the shot she leapt into the air and hit the ground dead. She folded on the spot with the single shot entering through the near side (knocking out an inch sized chunk of rib), then passed through the heart and exited between the ribs of the far side. She collapsed so suddenly that the other does looked at her curiously but did not flee until I began to walk toward them and shooed them away.

When I dressed the doe I found that the bullet had passed cleanly through her heat and the chunk of rib had slashed through the center of the heart horizontally cutting through all four chambers. When I opened her chest cavity warm blood literally poured out. Before I had finished field dressing her a rustle in the leaves and movement caught my eye as a snow white ermine flowed over the brown leaves like liquid silk drawn to the scent of blood. The little carnivore came within 5 yards before it spotted me, reversed direction and disappeared like white furred lightening. That was a very special moment. I felt like I had been visited by a woodland nymph. The memory is even more special because those stately park-like hardwoods were logged off the next spring. I probably had the last hunt of anyone in those old trees.

The SKS with iron sites certainly proved itself as a capable deer rifle with that double harvest season.

a mk4 #1 smle with winchesters 180 pp load did well for the youngest and i on an antlerless hunt a couple of years ago in bad rainy weather...

it was the only rifle we had that we wished to take out in the weather that day...

I've killed a few bucks with irons. Have a specialized, custom sighted, heavy cover elk rifle with irons. I still hunt small game, especially squirrels, with iron sighted guns.
The military rifles I've played with can have anything from very good irons, that means easily seen and used, to some really bad, that means hard to see and use. If I were to consider hunting with one, I'd consider that first. You must be able to clearly see both the sights and the target.
If I had a fine old classic military rifle that I want to hunt, I'd serious look for something that I could add w/o reducing it's worth. Alot of my shooting friends put pistol or scout type scopes on their Mauser with the mounts that fit into the rear sight for that reason. Those setups shoot alot better than you'd think. E

I hunt a lot with iron sights, mostly on big bore rifles but also with my 25-35 SRC, 30-30 SRC and my Win. 95 SRC in 30-06..I hunted a bit with a milsurp Mauser in 7x57 as a kid growing up on a ranch in the Big Bend of Texas..I like iron sights up to 200 yards, then a scope is consideralby better IMO...

It has been 7 or 8 years since I carried Dad's 98 Mauser 8mm into the deer woods. I shot a few deer with it just as a novelty. The sights are too fuzzy now. Dad sent the rifle home during World II and when he returned to stateside he killed a lot of deer with it to feed his family. Later, in the 1950s he began using U.S. commercial rifles and never considered selling the old 98.

Not quite stock sights, but I've shot deer with a sporterized (by a previous owner) Krag with a Williams peep sight. I've toted a Garand hunting several times. I still think the Garand has fine handling and fine "as issued" sights.

Speaking of irons, for several years I've also used a Win 94 375 with a Williams peep sight that I nicknamed first "the flying Winchester" for its quickness and later "Charlie Brown" for the luck I had with it. I saw and/or shot at my best deer with it but never connected. I was really down after missing both a doe and nice buck; the next week the front sight fell out on the way to the lease!