As of yesterday evening, I have officially taken a deer with everything from a .22cal to a .50cal centerfire cartridge!
I used my new .500 S&W barrel from MGM on my Encore Pistol to take a management doe with a 440gr WFN-GC bullet from Matt's Bullets.
This is my Mouse Fart Load using 12gr of Trail Boss at 895 fps. Not my most accurate load (which came back to bit me) but, I had the loads and wanted to try them for science before I loaded up full bore ammo. Accuracy is about 3" at 50 yards and I thought that good enough if I kept the shot under 75 yards. I am here to tell you...........if you think "hitting a paper plate" or "Minute of Deer" is acceptable hunting accuracy..........well..........we must agree to disagree.
Anyway.........I set up in a pasture blind and put out some corn to get the deer inside of 75 yards.
Deer started to come out and before I knew it, I had about 20-30 of them around me out to 100 yards or so.
Here is a button buck standing at 67 yards and about my max distance I was going to be willing to shoot.
I glassed around, trying to pick the most mature doe and finally had her at 54 yards. Started the video and aimed in on her as she stood broadside. Resting on the sand bag, I had a perfectly stable platform. Aiming high on the shoulder to put a round through her scapula, I sent the bullet on it's way..........and could have sworn I saw the bullet in flight!!! On impact, the doe's back legs folded and she dropped to the ground! Wait! That's not where I was aiming!!! I could see the entrance wound towards the back half of her ribs and a tad higher than I wanted. But, she fell over anyway and began spinning around on the ground. Thinking, I was going to need another round.........I started digging through my pockets. Another crap!!! I'd left my other ammo in my truck! For a minute, I thought I was going to be chasing down a deer with my knife. But, she only made two rotations on the ground and lay still.........expired. Seems the shot was good enough after all.
Science to follow.
