remingtonman_25_06
Handloader
- Nov 17, 2005
- 2,807
- 402
Opening weekend I went with my buddy up to the starkey unit. I was more worried about how my bullets are going to perform more then anything, so I let him use my rifle. I am using 168g vld's at 3000fps out of a rem 700 7 mag. Shoots pretty good out to 700 yards and I knew it would be a deer killer out to that distance if need be. Things started off pretty slow opening morning. We spent the majority glassing canyons. We saw only a couple does. Saturday evening my buddy took us over to a different canyon to overlook. Immediately I spotted about 4-5 deer across the little draw from us. There was 2 little forked horns. Since being we weren't seeing anything, my friend jumped on the opportunity. I ranged them at 178 yards. My buddy flipped the legs down on the harris bipod and settled in. He waited for the buck to turn broadside then "boom" wacked that sucker right behind the shoulder. The deer kicked, ran up the hill about 5 yards, then tumbled down about 10 yards. The 168g VLD berger passed completely through, leaving abouta 2 inch exit hole. Everything inbetween was completely shredded. From where we were sitting, we could see blood spraying out that exit hole like old faithfull, I've never seen anything like it, a blind man coulda foudn the 2 foot wide blood trail. Entrance was right behind the shoulder, exit was right behind shoulder and a little low, as you can see it still worked very well. All in all, I was happy with the performnace of the 168g VLD. I am still waiting for my buck. All I have seen is a couple small forks, I"m holding out for that monster!!! By the way, the other member is my new puppy. She is an Alaskan Mallamute. Just got her 2 weeks ago, she is adorable and had a blast her first time up in the mountains.
