Getting ready for pronghorn!

[taylorce1]

I've been getting ready for pronghorn, which opens on Saturday. I've been working on my Daughter's .250 Savage which I've ignored the last few years with starting a new job, moving to a new house, and shattering my leg. I've finally found a decent load that I think will serve my daughter well if she decides to use it instead of her .300 Savage.

I used IMR 8208 XBR, which wasn't my first powder of choice but it's what I had the most to test with. I tried 87 grain Speer SP and the rifle hated it, so I went to the 90 grain Sierra Gameking BTSP. The groups started to perk up and I'll revisit the load after hunting season.

On the other hand my old 6X47 Rem is shooting pretty well still. I took it out of the stock and did some relief work on the trigger guard that started to rub the trigger assembly. I've been holding off buying a new stock for this rifle, but it's about time I start thinking on a new one. Once the rifle settled back in at 100 yards, I took it to 309 yards and shot a decent five shot group. I had wanted to shoot prone off my bi-pod but the weeds were too tall, so I had to shoot off the bench and was unable to properly load my bi-pod.

 

[Worc]

Nice shooting taylorce1. I'm getting ready for a prong hunt next month near Douglas, WY. Part of our shooting preps have been with a 10" steel plate at 300 yards place in front of a little brush so that only 3/4 of it shows. Fun making that thing dance. I'll be using a .308 win with 150 gr SST's

 

[taylorce1]

That load should work well. I'm shooting a 70 grain bullet at an average speed of 3009 fps, It's been working well on pronghorn for me for the last six years. It's amazing what such a little cartridge can do.

 

[kraigwy]

Our season starts Sat also. Been out to check and saw over 1000 critters.

They are really picking up this years after a couple of mild winters.

You might want to find some taller bi-pods, there are no benches out there but there is tall grass.

You also need heavy britches because you WILL set or kneel in prickly pear, its the law when it comes to antelope hunting.

Thought I live less then 15 miles from where I hunt, I still go out the night before and set up a tent, I like camping on the prairie. A million stars and coyotes sing you to sleep.

Good luck on your hunt.

 

[huntinaz]

Good luck, tip one over big guy.

 

[Colorado Redneck]

Next Tuesday I will hunt in the Pawnee Buttes area for a goat. All out of points so it will be for a doe. The first 2 days of goat season are similar to "Black Friday" with bunches of hunters out to take in some of the fun. By Tuesday the critters have calmed a bit, and there is rarely more than a very few hunters about. If Tuesday doesnt produce, then Wednesday I'll go again. October is the best month of the year IMHO.

 

[hooligan1]

Well good luck to you, Taylorce1 and everyone else taking to the field today.
May all your shots hit the intended targets...
I'm going on a little trip to buy another mauser!!

 

[Jack O'Conner]

My favorite antelope rifle is a .243 shooting the 95 grain SST bullet. I zero the rifle to hit 3 inches high at 100 yards.

Good hunting to you.

Jack

 

[Colorado Redneck]

Jack--I also sight a 243 for 275 yard zero. The way things turn out make me wonder if a 200 yard zero would be more appropiate. Today a couple of younger bucks and a doe pronghorn presented an opportunity at maybe 175 yds. I aimed for the point if the shoulder on the doe (quartering to me) and touched it off. She fell like a grand piano dropped on her. As usual, the shooter failed to take trajectory into account and the bullet hit high in the shoulder. It hit on the shoulder bones, expanded violently and ripped that shoulder wide open. Didnt lose much meat, but made me think about where to zero.
(I lied in the earlier post--just couldnt wait till Tuesday! )

 

[taylorce1]

I didn't have any luck on Saturday as I still move too slow to get into position fast enough to get a shot. I guess I'm not as recovered as I hoped for from last seasons broken leg.

However, my daughter got her first pronghorn ever! She shot a small buck that we were watching believe it or not from the community building parking lot in the small town I went to school in. My families fields and pasture backs right up to the community building and local K-12 school, since my grandfather donated the land to build both on before my father was born.

My daughter and I were running late because I had worked late the night before. When we made the hook up with my hunting buddies they were watching a buck from the parking lot. He was grazing away from us toward the North and my small home town was just to the west of him. I glassed him and realized he was on the small side, but knew he was where we could get a shot on him. I told my daughter he was small, but if she wanted we could get in position to make a shot.

She said she wanted to try so we put on our orange, and loaded back in the pickup and drove through town. We stopped about 200 yards past the property line of the last house in town, got over the fence. She got in a kneeling positon on shooting sticks and loaded her trusty .300 Savage with her 125 grain BT ammo. We only had to wait a couple of minutes before the little buck fed around to where she could shoot, but she asked if she could wait until he got more towards straight east so she wouldn't be shooting back towards the road to the south. I told her to do what she was comfortable with, so she waited.

When the little buck was straight east and put his head down to browse at the grass, my daughter took the shot. I was watching through my binos and saw the buck go down instantly. I was a textbook broadside shot straight through the lungs with about a half dollar sized exit wound. The trusty .300 Savage just made its 7th one shot kill on big game at the hands its skilled 13 year old owner.

My daughters first ever pronghorn hunt was over less than 1.5 hours after we left the house. All there was left to do was tag it and take pictures. I was one proud papa to say the least, for my daughter is showing a maturity in hunting that I don't see in a lot of adult hunters these days. She always is conscious of her surroundings, and if she's unsure of the shot she won't take it. She says her greatest fear is wounding an animal an having it suffer.

The rest of the hunting party wasn't as fortunate as my daughter in finding easy pronghorns on Saturday. However, we did spot a large herd of pronghorn that afternoon that we couldn't connect with. My buddies did connect with that same herd on Sunday morning and filled their tags with decent representations of the species.

My buddy on the right killed his second ever pronghorn and his second biggest. He still swears they're bigger out in Colorado than the ones he hunts in Southeast Missouri where he's from.

If I get a chance I'm going to slip out and try to fill my doe tag sometime this week. I'll use the .250 Savage that my daughter wouldn't, she just can't put down that .300 Savage. Of course with her track record, who can blame her.

 

[MarkCO]

We have two Pronghorn tags starting Saturday.

 

[Wyosmith]

That's cool!
I also started with a 300 Savage way back when, ----- in the dark ages, ---------------when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

I never had a bad thing to say about how well it killed deer. I never wounded one, and I never took 2 shots.

I did however whine about it's kick.

It was a per-war Savage 99 and was the lightest one they cataloged. My dad got it in 1946 right after he got home from the Navy. To me, at the time a 112 pound kid, it seemed to kick like a mad mule. 150 grains bullets seemed bad enough, but the 180s were terrible. My dad did not reload ammo in the 60s, so I had to use what the factory's loaded.

Your 125 Gr load would have probably made me like that rifle a lot better.

 

[taylorce1]

That's cool!
I also started with a 300 Savage way back when, ----- in the dark ages, ---------------when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

I never had a bad thing to say about how well it killed deer. I never wounded one, and I never took 2 shots.

I did however whine about it's kick.

It was a per-war Savage 99 and was the lightest one they cataloged. My dad got it in 1946 right after he got home from the Navy. To me, at the time a 112 pound kid, it seemed to kick like a mad mule. 150 grains bullets seemed bad enough, but the 180s were terrible. My dad did not reload ammo in the 60s, so I had to use what the factory's loaded.

Your 125 Gr load would have probably made me like that rifle a lot better.

The load she's using is a factory load, 125 grain NBT Double Tap. Of course they didn't exist back when you started. It does an average of 3023 fps from her rifle, so it isn't much lighter recoil. She's 5'10" and 145 lbs so she can soak up a little recoil but she doesn't like to. I'm going to try a 130 grain TTSX load for elk for her this year.

She asked for a .308 Win, but I found this 700 Remington Classic and it only cost me a 700 Remington in .35 Whelen to get. First deer she shot with it and she was hooked. I don't think she'll ever shoot anything else for big game and she has that .250 Savage custom rifle I bought her.