Hi,
Recently posted this in another international forum.
My very recent Red Deer, March 31. A somewhat rough hunt, abrubt part of the Andes. Full rut, some 8 deers roaring out of sight. Suddendly this one appears at 300 meters below us. Shoot at 250 meters aprox, (red circle) broke the spinal cord but the deer fall 50 meters downhill stopping in an almost imposible place...! Took 2 hours to clean the "trap" and get the meat, legs, shoulders and backstraps.
Rifle BRNO ZKK 600 9,3x62 Zeiss Victory 1,5-6x42 Ret 4. My own reloads with SAKO cases, R15 and RWS H-Mantel 258 grs at 2650 p/s. Cero at 200 m. Deadly! As usual, the bullet pass but leaving an impressive inside damage.
The knife outstanding!!! Bark River 1,25 Lt CruWear. Field dressing without any touch to the blade. Better than expected.

The cartridge and the knife.

Great free-range stag!

Of course, am not surprised with the performance of the 9,3x62. With bullets in the 250-grain range loaded to .30-06 pressures, it's pretty easy to make shots out to 400+ yards--just as it is with the .30-06 with 180s at similar velocities.

John

Question on the knife. You stated a Bark River. Is that a Bark River knife & tool out of Bark River Michigan?

Great pics! Great caliber! Thanks for the information on the rifle, bullet, powder, etc.......

Rugged terrain. Fat bullets poke big holes going in and bigger ones through the important parts. When I’ve pulled out my 35 Whelen or 350 Magnum some of my friends have accused me of using pre-expanded bullets.

Congrats on a very nice stag. I can only wish…😁

Hi MD,

Thank you. I use your own published loads in my 9,3. I get almost exactly their muzzle velocity without any pressure issue and stellar performance on game at any sane hunting distance! The cartridge and specially the rifle are my favorites right now!
By the way, my big game rifles are 7x57, 30-06, 9,3x62 and 375 H&H. I use 200 meters zero for All of them. As they have practically the same trajectory with their common loads, is easy for me to use alternatively any of them without any "click" in my head...

Hi brinky,

Yes it is.

OK! One of the reasons I'm pretty fond of all those rounds.

How big do Red Deer get?

Hi Don,

A mature male free range Red Deer down here can reach 250 kg (550 lbs) live weight. Even more in the best ranges.

Best!

PH

Very well done! Good critter in some great looking country!

I’m originally from that part of Michigan and those guys at Bark River are very good at what they do. If I remember correctly the guys that started the company were originally the top craftsman from Marble Arms who also made fantastic knives back in the day. They left when Marbles started shipping some of their stuff off over seas to be made as they didn’t agree with having their name associated with foreign junk. I have a couple of the old MarbleArms knives and they are amazingly sharp. You can tune the edge up on your jeans they sharpen so well. I’ve had buddies who have handed them back to me after making a single cut and tell me “ that f’n thing is too sharp for me.” I’m looking to get a Bark River as a back up one of these days. Good to see someone else that appreciates them.

Hi PH,
That is a nice free range stag.
I noticed it doesn't have the top crowns which are usual on a typical red stag. Is that common to have single top tines or main beams down there?
10 pointer maybe?
John

Agreed. Great looking animal and beautiful country. That would definitely be a bucket list hunt. Your hand loads are very close to my 35 Whelen loads. My go to is a 250 grain at 2650fps. I get the same velocity and performance from either a Speer SP Hot Cor or Hornady Interlock be it a SP or RN. Same charge of RL15 and same POI.

Hi AGW,

This a so called "eternal 10 points". Means it will be 10 points forever without a crown. But...this is not "carved in stone"!! Some times a young would be "eternal 10 point" can explode and be a good 12 or 14 with crown. This one is a rather young (not too young..) and a big 10 points. I pressume would have been a true eternal 10 points....

Hi brinky,

Your 35 Whelen loads match my 9,3x62 ones!
About BRKT knives I always liked most of their models. Specially the Bravo Lt 1 and 1,25, more the last, with 4 mm blade thickness and 5"(127 mm) blade lenght. Two year ago I found in one of the USA knives big sellers a Bravo 1,25 lt CruWear steel with full convex grind blade! I bought it. A year later the knife arrived home. I use it, lightly, processing lambs. But the true test was with this Red Deer!!! Pass the test with flying colours!!!

Best!

PH

Nicely done

Waidmannsheil ! 🌿📯!!!!! Very nice animal!!!

Congratulations

I understand. There are some really nice 10 pointers taken, very even too and will long main beams. Sometimes you may find a small 10 where the top tines are an even fork and there can be a small nipple on the back side where a third tine will begin on the next rack to form the crown. Have seen them on younger stags and seen larger older stags that have the fork but not that nipple to form the 3rd tine and crown. "Forever 10" is a good name for it. Haven't heard that one before.

For those that don't know, there is a hollow in the center of the crown about the size of your thumb joint. It was called a dram and became a measurement for black powder volume and or whiskey, as you preferred. Hence the saying "to quoff a dram of whiskey", which was a custom after the hunt.

Or before, as you please........

Congrats on a great hunt. Very nice animal, gun and knife. That would be a bucket list hunt for me. I don't know if it will ever happen, but I can still dream.

Thank you J.

Hi AGW,

Good...! First time to me "to quoff a dram of whiskey" !! Nice ...!

Bravo!