I got the chance to join a group of guys the have been hunting some of the Frank Church Wilderness for the last three years. I wasn't sure what to expect, but from the sounds of things it was a hunt like nothing I had done before. We were camping in wall tents, getting up early riding quads for an hour each morning then hunting from there. Sounded like fun so I jumped on the opportunity to join their camp.
I stayed near Boise at my In laws house, only to get woken up at 4:30 in the morning to the neighbor telling me that he just chased a kid out of my truck parked out front. I walked out to check everything out and sure enough, he had got into the cab. My XD40, about 200 rounds, my flashlights, and some cash were all missing. We got ahold of the local PD. Within a hour they had ran the guy down, he resisted and escaped, but they managed to pull his backpack off. Thankfully it had my pistol in it! Talk about lucky.
I figured I was up early so I took off towards camp. Got to camp a little after 1:00. So I started unloading my things. I grabbed the snow shovel and cleared paths to all the tents, and fire place, got some fires going and made myself at home. While I was waiting for everybody else to show up, I took out some tape and cut a thin strip and put it around the bottom of my elevation turret. I ran my ballistics program and made marks on the tape for yardages. The idea was a poor mans CDS turret. Hoped it would save me time in the field (it worked great!).
The first day out we were getting into buck left and right. I was told that a 160 buck on this hunt was a pretty good buck. We passed on several, and saw one that we wanted to go after. He got over the ridge and into some STEEP/dark timber. The bucks were chasing pretty hard so we figured that he would be back out sometime and we didn't want to run the risk of bumping him.
About mid day we split up and went a few different directions. We were heading up a trail when I spotted some movement in a draw up ahead of us. It didn't take long to see that the buck that was pushing the does was a shooter. We cut the distance as fast as we could. I got set up on a nice rock 475 yards below the deer. The guys that were with me were getting pretty excited so it was hard to not get excited myself. I ranged the buck at 475, figured it was a pretty steep incline so I dialed for 450 on my duct tape CDS dial and settled in for a shot. It was at that point that I first got a good look at him. He was quartering towards me with his nose stuck out after a doe. I put the crosshair right on the point of his shoulder and let a 150 ABLR fly. I recovered from the shot only to hear a bunch of hooping and hollering and no buck in sight. We hiked up to his location (ok I almost had to crawl. Going from a flat 800 feet to a almost vertical 8,000 feet was hard!) only to find him still trying to escape. One more round did the trick there. The first one still hit a bit high, because of the steep angle of the shot it entered a few inches higher than I was aiming and exited just behind the spine on the far side. I was very impressed with what that little 150 ABLR was able to do to that buck.
After some photos we caped/carved him up and packed him out. We ended up getting four bucks last week. One was a little bigger than mine and the other two a little smaller.
He ended up green/campfire scoring around 172". I am thrilled with him!
Looking for some more bucks.
280AI that did the work.
Watching the biggest buck that we found.
And a Pretty 280 AI case stuffed with a 150 ABLR.
On a side note. I had a bit of a personal revelation on this hunt. I grew up hunting on a farm head shooting deer so that we didn't waste any meat. So when I figured out that I wasn't going to be able to head shoot everything I wanted bullets that did the least amount of damage. I have kept a very closed mind to shooting big game animals with frangible bullets mostly because of meat damage. Two thing in the last few weeks have made me change my mind a little.
1: The way my buck reacted to being hit with what I would call a frangible bullet. There really wasn't that much damage done to any vitals, or even the spine for that matter, but he acted like he got hit by a truck!
2: The guys that we were hunting with lost a buck the week before to a STW and a 160 AB. It was a 450 yard shot with some very good shooters. At the shot the buck took a few steps and wobbled over. The three people that where there are all experienced guides, and all concurred that through the spotting scope that the buck had been shot in the heart. Rifles got put away, packs got lightened, and 20 minutes later that buck was confirmed through the spotting scope to still be laying there. When they got there, he was gone. They followed a major blood trail for over a mile before it quit bleeding and turned up the hill. They were never able to locate him. This story is kind of what has got me changing my mind a little. Maybe a bit more shock/fragmentation would have been just enough to really kill the critter. That's when it hit me, a little meat loss from a bigger delivered shock/fragmentation will waste some meat, but not nearly the amount of meat that gets wasted if a critter gets away from you.
I'm really impressed with the ABLR. I have seen it on a few elk, and a few bucks this year. Every single bullet that has been recovered (about 50%) has looked exactly the same. Go take a look at the bullet test section on this forum, all the recovered ABLR that I have seen in the field, looked exactly like the one we have been recovering from the jugs. And all the stories that I have heard from people that have taken game with them, have been VERY impressed. I WISH NOSLER WOULD HURRY UP AND COME OUT WITH A .338 VERSION!!!!!!
P.S. I Love the crap out of my 280 AI!
I stayed near Boise at my In laws house, only to get woken up at 4:30 in the morning to the neighbor telling me that he just chased a kid out of my truck parked out front. I walked out to check everything out and sure enough, he had got into the cab. My XD40, about 200 rounds, my flashlights, and some cash were all missing. We got ahold of the local PD. Within a hour they had ran the guy down, he resisted and escaped, but they managed to pull his backpack off. Thankfully it had my pistol in it! Talk about lucky.
I figured I was up early so I took off towards camp. Got to camp a little after 1:00. So I started unloading my things. I grabbed the snow shovel and cleared paths to all the tents, and fire place, got some fires going and made myself at home. While I was waiting for everybody else to show up, I took out some tape and cut a thin strip and put it around the bottom of my elevation turret. I ran my ballistics program and made marks on the tape for yardages. The idea was a poor mans CDS turret. Hoped it would save me time in the field (it worked great!).
The first day out we were getting into buck left and right. I was told that a 160 buck on this hunt was a pretty good buck. We passed on several, and saw one that we wanted to go after. He got over the ridge and into some STEEP/dark timber. The bucks were chasing pretty hard so we figured that he would be back out sometime and we didn't want to run the risk of bumping him.
About mid day we split up and went a few different directions. We were heading up a trail when I spotted some movement in a draw up ahead of us. It didn't take long to see that the buck that was pushing the does was a shooter. We cut the distance as fast as we could. I got set up on a nice rock 475 yards below the deer. The guys that were with me were getting pretty excited so it was hard to not get excited myself. I ranged the buck at 475, figured it was a pretty steep incline so I dialed for 450 on my duct tape CDS dial and settled in for a shot. It was at that point that I first got a good look at him. He was quartering towards me with his nose stuck out after a doe. I put the crosshair right on the point of his shoulder and let a 150 ABLR fly. I recovered from the shot only to hear a bunch of hooping and hollering and no buck in sight. We hiked up to his location (ok I almost had to crawl. Going from a flat 800 feet to a almost vertical 8,000 feet was hard!) only to find him still trying to escape. One more round did the trick there. The first one still hit a bit high, because of the steep angle of the shot it entered a few inches higher than I was aiming and exited just behind the spine on the far side. I was very impressed with what that little 150 ABLR was able to do to that buck.
After some photos we caped/carved him up and packed him out. We ended up getting four bucks last week. One was a little bigger than mine and the other two a little smaller.
He ended up green/campfire scoring around 172". I am thrilled with him!
Looking for some more bucks.
280AI that did the work.
Watching the biggest buck that we found.
And a Pretty 280 AI case stuffed with a 150 ABLR.
On a side note. I had a bit of a personal revelation on this hunt. I grew up hunting on a farm head shooting deer so that we didn't waste any meat. So when I figured out that I wasn't going to be able to head shoot everything I wanted bullets that did the least amount of damage. I have kept a very closed mind to shooting big game animals with frangible bullets mostly because of meat damage. Two thing in the last few weeks have made me change my mind a little.
1: The way my buck reacted to being hit with what I would call a frangible bullet. There really wasn't that much damage done to any vitals, or even the spine for that matter, but he acted like he got hit by a truck!
2: The guys that we were hunting with lost a buck the week before to a STW and a 160 AB. It was a 450 yard shot with some very good shooters. At the shot the buck took a few steps and wobbled over. The three people that where there are all experienced guides, and all concurred that through the spotting scope that the buck had been shot in the heart. Rifles got put away, packs got lightened, and 20 minutes later that buck was confirmed through the spotting scope to still be laying there. When they got there, he was gone. They followed a major blood trail for over a mile before it quit bleeding and turned up the hill. They were never able to locate him. This story is kind of what has got me changing my mind a little. Maybe a bit more shock/fragmentation would have been just enough to really kill the critter. That's when it hit me, a little meat loss from a bigger delivered shock/fragmentation will waste some meat, but not nearly the amount of meat that gets wasted if a critter gets away from you.
I'm really impressed with the ABLR. I have seen it on a few elk, and a few bucks this year. Every single bullet that has been recovered (about 50%) has looked exactly the same. Go take a look at the bullet test section on this forum, all the recovered ABLR that I have seen in the field, looked exactly like the one we have been recovering from the jugs. And all the stories that I have heard from people that have taken game with them, have been VERY impressed. I WISH NOSLER WOULD HURRY UP AND COME OUT WITH A .338 VERSION!!!!!!
P.S. I Love the crap out of my 280 AI!
I'm kind of like you as well, I have always picked bullets that don't damage a lot of meat. The ABLR so far seems to have quite a few DRT's to their credit, I still plan on using them especially where long shots are the rule.
