Mule Deer with Winchester M70 Featherweight! - 12/01/08
I was discouraged.
In three days of hard do-it-yourself mule deer hunting, I�d not seen a single buck. That was unusual for the area, an area I�d hunted often. Sure, a fair number of does and fawns were in evidence. Each day I�d glass up small bands of does and their offspring as they feed through the sagebrush and bedded in the rimrock. But the bucks were eluding me. I�d even begun to wonder if this wide-open sagebrush country held any bucks at all this year.
Hunting open-country mule deer is always challenging. Deer numbers are typically low and the animals are widely scattered. The trick, I�ve found, is often just to locate a good vantage point and sit, watch and glass for hours on end. Here�s a photo from a recent open-country mule deer hunt where I�m doing just that. It will give you a fair idea of just how open this sort of treeless deer country can be.
![[Linked Image]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/WyomingAntelope2006017.jpg)
Since I�m not blessed with a tremendous amount of patience, and because I love to hike, I must honestly admit that I�m typically good for maybe one or two hours at any one vantage point. Then the irresistible urge to see what�s over the next ridge beckons, and I�m off on yet another long ramble, checking the canyons, peeking over the ridgetops and slipping along the open rims. Sitting and glassing are the smart ways to hunt this terrain. But hiking the country is more fun. I try to blend the two techniques to create satisfying sagebrush days.
Being an incurable hunting-equipment nut, I also try to use such unhurried, solo hunts to wring out new gear. Some months back, in the Free Classifieds� section of the 24 Hour Campfire forums, I noticed a used Winchester Model 70 Featherweight in .280 Remington. That posting struck a cord with me. I�d had that exact rifle once, it had been stolen out of my truck and I�d always wanted another.
After a good deal of back and forth communication with the owner, and some negotiating, I purchased the rifle.
The good news was that the rifle had good wood, was controlled round feed and had been well taken care of over the years. It had been made sometime in the early 1990s. The bad news was that I quickly discovered that it would not feed reliably from the left side of the magazine box. When the bolt was operated smartly, the back end of the cartridges on the left side of the box often failed to pop up high enough to fully engage the CRF bolt head. As the bolt was moved forward, the front end of the cartridges tipped upward and to the right, jamming them in the raceway. If I operated the bolt slowly, things went as advertised. But when I tried to quickly chamber a new round from the left side of the magazine, things went haywire.
When such hunting-rifle foibles occur, a guy has two choices. He can bitch and complain to his friends or he can fix the darn thing. I did a little of both, eventually dropping the rifle off at a favorite gunsmith for work on the feeding issue. I also requested that the gunsmith lighten and polish the trigger pull.
That work was completed in about one month (why does everything done by a gunsmith take about one month?) and at minimal cost. My gunsmith ended up twisting - he said straightening - the magazine box a tiny bit and adding a stiffer follower spring. Every cartridge did now feed fine. I suspect that the stiffer spring was the main reason. The original spring had been relatively weak.
The trigger was also much better, breaking cleanly at about 3 pounds. I set the rifle up with Talley lightweight mounts and a Leupold VX-III 2.5-8 scope.
![[Linked Image]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/WinchesterM70Featherweight280019.jpg)
Open sagebrush country is no place for a maybe rifle. A good rifle for the open sage is reasonably flat-shooting and accurate out to at least 300 yards and maybe a bit more. It also helps if it�s reasonable portable, as open-country mule deer treks often take you far from your camp or truck. Typically, I leave my vehicle or camp at dawn and don�t return until after dark. In between, I cover lots of miles and a too-heavy rifle can become a real pain.
My Winchester M70 Featherweight, with Talley Lightweight One-Piece Mounts (2 oz.) and Leupold 2.5-8 scope (11 oz.), weighed exactly 8 pounds. That�s not too bad for a good looking wood-stocked hunting rifle. Because I hunt with a Kifaru backpack and use the pack�s GunBearer System to carry my rifle, I didn�t bother to fit the Featherweight with a carry sling.
I�ve always wondered who designed the stock for the post-64 Winchester Model 70 Featherweights. Many have called it one of the classiest hunting-rifle stocks ever offered.
![[Linked Image]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/WinchesterM70Featherweight280003.jpg)
It features elegant swirl-pattern checkering on the grip, as well as on the fore-end.
![[Linked Image]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/WinchesterM70Featherweight280020.jpg)
There�s also a Schnabel-style fore-end to reduce weight and add flair.
![[Linked Image]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/WinchesterM70Featherweight280025.jpg)
And a simple, straight butt that�s pure American classic.
![[Linked Image]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/WinchesterM70Featherweight280005.jpg)
The combination of all of those things is both striking and classy.
After its trip to the gunsmith, my Featherweight feed cartridges perfectly and shot with pleasing accuracy up close and way out there. In fact, it became one of my pet rifle projects throughout last summer. At the range, I discovered that it favored 150-grain Nosler Partitions in standard off-the-shelf Federal ammunition. It shot that load well (averaging 1.5 inches at 100 yards), and I dialed the rifle in to hit approximately 2 inches high at 100 yards. That put it right on at 200 yards, just 2 inches low at 250 yards and around 6 to 7 inches low at 300 yards. Given the fact that the chest of a good desert mule deer buck is typically 16 to 18 inches from top to bottom, I believed I�d be able to hold pretty much right on out to 250 yards and then on his backline at 300 yards.
This is just one of my better 100-yard practice targets, made by shooting prone and off of my Kifaru pack. Good rifle.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/WinchesterM70Featherweight280035.jpg [/img]
My forth day in the open sagebrush dawned clear and cool. A flannel shirt and fleece jacket felt good in the predawn, but I knew that by midmorning I�d be down to my T-shirt as the sun rose and the temperature climbed into the low 70s.
By 8 a.m., I�d shed the jacket and was walking a rocky rim above a deep cut canyon miles from my truck. Something, maybe a slight glint all the way across the canyon and to my right, caught my eye. I slowly raised my binoculars and what I saw took my breath away. Finally, a buck!
He was feeding in the rocks and sage about 800 yards away. But even at that distance, he looked big.
The best approach I could see was to drop back off the rim and out of sight, circle far to my right in the sagebrush and then slip down a rocky draw on my side of the canyon to a rounded point directly opposite his position. I needed to move quickly in order to get there while he was still out and feeding.
When I reached that point, 20 minutes later, he was gone. Damn!
I sat, got comfortable and started taking the canyon apart with my Leica Geovid BRF 10x42 binoculars. Ten nervous minutes later, I found him again as he fed up out of a steep, rocky cut. He was in heavy sage, but feeding unaware. The shot was makeable.
The binoculars, with their built in laser rangefinder, reported the line-of-sight distance to the buck to be exactly 326 yards. But the angle was downward, and I knew I�d have to compensate for that. It seemed to me that if I held for just a bit less than 300 yards, things would work out fine. (Sidenote: I had three different rifles set up for hunting in Wyoming and Colorado this past fall. Here�s the laminated cheat sheet on those rifles that I had prepared beforehand, had tucked in my shirt pocket and referred to just before the shot.)
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/Wyoming2008186.jpg [/img]
Initially, the buck was feeding and mostly facing toward me. I wanted him broadside. I settled into a comfortable prone position and steadied the rifle over my Kifaru SpikeCamp pack. �Come on buck, just turn,� I silently pleaded.
When he finally did turn, it was to walk back down into the cut from which he�d appeared. For one fleeting instant, he was broadside. The crosshairs found the spot I wanted straight up from his front shoulder and just below his spine. I squeezed the trigger.
As I rocked with the recoil, I though I saw him stumble. But I couldn�t be sure. Then he was gone and into the rocky cut. From that deep cut, he could go anywhere and I might not see him again. I lay there, watching the canyon intently and trying to convince myself that I�d made the shot. Ten long minutes pasted.
Finally, I stood, shouldered my pack and began working my way down into the canyon. It took some time to reach the bottom and climb up the other side. At the spot where the buck had stood, there were splayed tracks in the loose sand and kicked over rocks. I followed the tracks into the cut. Twenty yards into the cut, a small stone was dotted with red. A bit further, blood had splashed a boulder. Ten steps more and there he lay, crumbed in the very bottom of the cut and cleanly shot through the center of both shoulders.
That steep-sided cut was deep enough that the morning sun had not yet reached its bottom. I propped him up with rocks and quickly took a few photos before that happened.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/Wyoming2008190.jpg [/img]
This buck was fat and healthy, and one of the biggest bodied open-country mule deer I�ve ever taken. Years ago, Bear Archery offered a cloth measuring tape that wrapped around an attached little card with a chart on it. The idea was to measure a deer all the way around the chest just behind his front legs and then read the deer�s live weight and dressed weight on the chart. The concept worked surprisingly well.
I unraveled one of those little tapes and, with considerable effort, managed to slip it under the buck, and then measured the circumference of his chest � 51 inches. What did the chart say? Well, guess what? The chart stopped at 46 inches, which it said delivered a live weight of 213 pounds and a dressed weight of 168 pounds. This deer was bigger. Extrapolating from the chart, 51 inches translates into a live weight of approximately 253 pounds and a dressed weight of 203 pounds. Big desert mule deer.
With the sun now a bit higher and reaching into the cut, I took more photos.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/Wyoming2008225.jpg [/img]
Eventually, I set to work in the sandy bottom of that rocky cut, boning the buck out completely. When I was finished, a small mountain of red meat stared back at me, as did the 25-inch-wide antlers. The sheer bulk of the meat pile was impressive.
Two easy-going round trips and five hours later, I finally had everything to my truck and in coolers. The rack rode nicely on my Kifaru pack on the last trip out.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/TimberlineX/Wyoming2008239.jpg [/img]
Do-it-yourself western hunting is fun. Elk are majestic, antelope are exciting and big open-country mule deer are always cool.
And so is a classy Winchester Model 70 Featherweight purchased from the Free Classifieds� section of 24 Hour Campfire!
____________
OK, enough of my hunting tale, here�s a theoretical QUESTION for you.
If it were you, what rifle, cartridge, scope and bullet would you want to make that shot?
It is 326 yards to that feeding buck, from one side of the canyon to another, and at a downward angle. There was NO chance of getting closer. You are miles from your vehicle. You have plenty of time to set up prone, but have to shoot quickly when the fleeting broadside opportunity finally comes. There will be just ONE shot.
I used a Winchester Model 70 Featherweight in .280 Remington. The rifle was wearing a Leupold VX-III 2.5-8 scope and I was shooting 150-grain Nolser Partitions.
What rifle setup would you prefer to have resting over your pack in that open-country mule deer situation?
Your input is requested. Obviously, a lot of different hunting-rifle setups would work.
In three days of hard do-it-yourself mule deer hunting, I�d not seen a single buck. That was unusual for the area, an area I�d hunted often. Sure, a fair number of does and fawns were in evidence. Each day I�d glass up small bands of does and their offspring as they feed through the sagebrush and bedded in the rimrock. But the bucks were eluding me. I�d even begun to wonder if this wide-open sagebrush country held any bucks at all this year.
Hunting open-country mule deer is always challenging. Deer numbers are typically low and the animals are widely scattered. The trick, I�ve found, is often just to locate a good vantage point and sit, watch and glass for hours on end. Here�s a photo from a recent open-country mule deer hunt where I�m doing just that. It will give you a fair idea of just how open this sort of treeless deer country can be.
Since I�m not blessed with a tremendous amount of patience, and because I love to hike, I must honestly admit that I�m typically good for maybe one or two hours at any one vantage point. Then the irresistible urge to see what�s over the next ridge beckons, and I�m off on yet another long ramble, checking the canyons, peeking over the ridgetops and slipping along the open rims. Sitting and glassing are the smart ways to hunt this terrain. But hiking the country is more fun. I try to blend the two techniques to create satisfying sagebrush days.
Being an incurable hunting-equipment nut, I also try to use such unhurried, solo hunts to wring out new gear. Some months back, in the Free Classifieds� section of the 24 Hour Campfire forums, I noticed a used Winchester Model 70 Featherweight in .280 Remington. That posting struck a cord with me. I�d had that exact rifle once, it had been stolen out of my truck and I�d always wanted another.
After a good deal of back and forth communication with the owner, and some negotiating, I purchased the rifle.
The good news was that the rifle had good wood, was controlled round feed and had been well taken care of over the years. It had been made sometime in the early 1990s. The bad news was that I quickly discovered that it would not feed reliably from the left side of the magazine box. When the bolt was operated smartly, the back end of the cartridges on the left side of the box often failed to pop up high enough to fully engage the CRF bolt head. As the bolt was moved forward, the front end of the cartridges tipped upward and to the right, jamming them in the raceway. If I operated the bolt slowly, things went as advertised. But when I tried to quickly chamber a new round from the left side of the magazine, things went haywire.
When such hunting-rifle foibles occur, a guy has two choices. He can bitch and complain to his friends or he can fix the darn thing. I did a little of both, eventually dropping the rifle off at a favorite gunsmith for work on the feeding issue. I also requested that the gunsmith lighten and polish the trigger pull.
That work was completed in about one month (why does everything done by a gunsmith take about one month?) and at minimal cost. My gunsmith ended up twisting - he said straightening - the magazine box a tiny bit and adding a stiffer follower spring. Every cartridge did now feed fine. I suspect that the stiffer spring was the main reason. The original spring had been relatively weak.
The trigger was also much better, breaking cleanly at about 3 pounds. I set the rifle up with Talley lightweight mounts and a Leupold VX-III 2.5-8 scope.
Open sagebrush country is no place for a maybe rifle. A good rifle for the open sage is reasonably flat-shooting and accurate out to at least 300 yards and maybe a bit more. It also helps if it�s reasonable portable, as open-country mule deer treks often take you far from your camp or truck. Typically, I leave my vehicle or camp at dawn and don�t return until after dark. In between, I cover lots of miles and a too-heavy rifle can become a real pain.
My Winchester M70 Featherweight, with Talley Lightweight One-Piece Mounts (2 oz.) and Leupold 2.5-8 scope (11 oz.), weighed exactly 8 pounds. That�s not too bad for a good looking wood-stocked hunting rifle. Because I hunt with a Kifaru backpack and use the pack�s GunBearer System to carry my rifle, I didn�t bother to fit the Featherweight with a carry sling.
I�ve always wondered who designed the stock for the post-64 Winchester Model 70 Featherweights. Many have called it one of the classiest hunting-rifle stocks ever offered.
It features elegant swirl-pattern checkering on the grip, as well as on the fore-end.
There�s also a Schnabel-style fore-end to reduce weight and add flair.
And a simple, straight butt that�s pure American classic.
The combination of all of those things is both striking and classy.
After its trip to the gunsmith, my Featherweight feed cartridges perfectly and shot with pleasing accuracy up close and way out there. In fact, it became one of my pet rifle projects throughout last summer. At the range, I discovered that it favored 150-grain Nosler Partitions in standard off-the-shelf Federal ammunition. It shot that load well (averaging 1.5 inches at 100 yards), and I dialed the rifle in to hit approximately 2 inches high at 100 yards. That put it right on at 200 yards, just 2 inches low at 250 yards and around 6 to 7 inches low at 300 yards. Given the fact that the chest of a good desert mule deer buck is typically 16 to 18 inches from top to bottom, I believed I�d be able to hold pretty much right on out to 250 yards and then on his backline at 300 yards.
This is just one of my better 100-yard practice targets, made by shooting prone and off of my Kifaru pack. Good rifle.
[img]http:/
My forth day in the open sagebrush dawned clear and cool. A flannel shirt and fleece jacket felt good in the predawn, but I knew that by midmorning I�d be down to my T-shirt as the sun rose and the temperature climbed into the low 70s.
By 8 a.m., I�d shed the jacket and was walking a rocky rim above a deep cut canyon miles from my truck. Something, maybe a slight glint all the way across the canyon and to my right, caught my eye. I slowly raised my binoculars and what I saw took my breath away. Finally, a buck!
He was feeding in the rocks and sage about 800 yards away. But even at that distance, he looked big.
The best approach I could see was to drop back off the rim and out of sight, circle far to my right in the sagebrush and then slip down a rocky draw on my side of the canyon to a rounded point directly opposite his position. I needed to move quickly in order to get there while he was still out and feeding.
When I reached that point, 20 minutes later, he was gone. Damn!
I sat, got comfortable and started taking the canyon apart with my Leica Geovid BRF 10x42 binoculars. Ten nervous minutes later, I found him again as he fed up out of a steep, rocky cut. He was in heavy sage, but feeding unaware. The shot was makeable.
The binoculars, with their built in laser rangefinder, reported the line-of-sight distance to the buck to be exactly 326 yards. But the angle was downward, and I knew I�d have to compensate for that. It seemed to me that if I held for just a bit less than 300 yards, things would work out fine. (Sidenote: I had three different rifles set up for hunting in Wyoming and Colorado this past fall. Here�s the laminated cheat sheet on those rifles that I had prepared beforehand, had tucked in my shirt pocket and referred to just before the shot.)
[img]http:/
Initially, the buck was feeding and mostly facing toward me. I wanted him broadside. I settled into a comfortable prone position and steadied the rifle over my Kifaru SpikeCamp pack. �Come on buck, just turn,� I silently pleaded.
When he finally did turn, it was to walk back down into the cut from which he�d appeared. For one fleeting instant, he was broadside. The crosshairs found the spot I wanted straight up from his front shoulder and just below his spine. I squeezed the trigger.
As I rocked with the recoil, I though I saw him stumble. But I couldn�t be sure. Then he was gone and into the rocky cut. From that deep cut, he could go anywhere and I might not see him again. I lay there, watching the canyon intently and trying to convince myself that I�d made the shot. Ten long minutes pasted.
Finally, I stood, shouldered my pack and began working my way down into the canyon. It took some time to reach the bottom and climb up the other side. At the spot where the buck had stood, there were splayed tracks in the loose sand and kicked over rocks. I followed the tracks into the cut. Twenty yards into the cut, a small stone was dotted with red. A bit further, blood had splashed a boulder. Ten steps more and there he lay, crumbed in the very bottom of the cut and cleanly shot through the center of both shoulders.
That steep-sided cut was deep enough that the morning sun had not yet reached its bottom. I propped him up with rocks and quickly took a few photos before that happened.
[img]http:/
This buck was fat and healthy, and one of the biggest bodied open-country mule deer I�ve ever taken. Years ago, Bear Archery offered a cloth measuring tape that wrapped around an attached little card with a chart on it. The idea was to measure a deer all the way around the chest just behind his front legs and then read the deer�s live weight and dressed weight on the chart. The concept worked surprisingly well.
I unraveled one of those little tapes and, with considerable effort, managed to slip it under the buck, and then measured the circumference of his chest � 51 inches. What did the chart say? Well, guess what? The chart stopped at 46 inches, which it said delivered a live weight of 213 pounds and a dressed weight of 168 pounds. This deer was bigger. Extrapolating from the chart, 51 inches translates into a live weight of approximately 253 pounds and a dressed weight of 203 pounds. Big desert mule deer.
With the sun now a bit higher and reaching into the cut, I took more photos.
[img]http:/
Eventually, I set to work in the sandy bottom of that rocky cut, boning the buck out completely. When I was finished, a small mountain of red meat stared back at me, as did the 25-inch-wide antlers. The sheer bulk of the meat pile was impressive.
Two easy-going round trips and five hours later, I finally had everything to my truck and in coolers. The rack rode nicely on my Kifaru pack on the last trip out.
[img]http:/
Do-it-yourself western hunting is fun. Elk are majestic, antelope are exciting and big open-country mule deer are always cool.
And so is a classy Winchester Model 70 Featherweight purchased from the Free Classifieds� section of 24 Hour Campfire!
____________
OK, enough of my hunting tale, here�s a theoretical QUESTION for you.
If it were you, what rifle, cartridge, scope and bullet would you want to make that shot?
It is 326 yards to that feeding buck, from one side of the canyon to another, and at a downward angle. There was NO chance of getting closer. You are miles from your vehicle. You have plenty of time to set up prone, but have to shoot quickly when the fleeting broadside opportunity finally comes. There will be just ONE shot.
I used a Winchester Model 70 Featherweight in .280 Remington. The rifle was wearing a Leupold VX-III 2.5-8 scope and I was shooting 150-grain Nolser Partitions.
What rifle setup would you prefer to have resting over your pack in that open-country mule deer situation?
Your input is requested. Obviously, a lot of different hunting-rifle setups would work.
![[Linked Image]](http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q38/gunsmithlc/PICT0027.jpg)
) but being as I am trying to be nice I won't say that.
![[Linked Image]](http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr33/muskynut_123/HPIM0302.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr33/muskynut_123/HPIM0299.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr33/muskynut_123/HPIM0296.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/P6280206.JPG)