Bighorn Ram. Take the shot?

[Guy Miner]

You've drawn your "once-in-a-lifetime" tag for a bighorn ram in Washington State. Hunted the Cascades hard all week, and eventually get on these guys. You're carrying your __________ rifle.

These are the best rams you've seen all week, and your hunt is done in one more day. They seem frozen in place and have spotted you. The heavily vegetated creek bed is only a few yards away from them, with abundant concealment for these rams.

Glassing reveals that the ram in back is a little better, with slightly longer horns.

Are they big enough for you? They're legal here in Washington.

Range 330 yards.

Wind is left to right at roughly 10 mph.

You've got a good position and could shoot from sitting if you wish, but prone won't work due to intervening high grass & brush.

Do you go home and eat tag soup? Do you take the shot? With what? Where's your aimpoint? How do you steady the rifle for this literally Once In A Lifetime shot?

Guy

 

[Kodiak]

I shoot the ram nearest the camera. My rifle is a .300wsm firing a 180 gr. Nos Part. sighted to hit dead-on at 300 yds. Ten MPH breeze?, no problem, hold on the front edge of the left foreleg, about 1/2 way up the body, using a very nice Nightforce vari-x set on 22 powder resting on sitting-style x-stix that I have practiced with all year ..... and squeeze.

Of course, being a non-resident, most likely I would never draw the lic. :wink: .

 

[Elkman]

Sitting is not my best position especially at 330, I would be low crawling toward a tree or rock or something for a better rest. By then they will be gone or the better of the two will be open. Either way I have a couple of hundred yards leeway on the shot.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Rear ram is not large enough, may not be legal. I don't like either one of them. They do not have the horn maturity that I would want. I will pass. I would be shooting my custom stocked Mauser, 7mm Rem Mag with 160 Partitions.

 

[bbearhntr]

Once in a lifetime............................................................................................................I am waiting for the front ram to step out of the way of the rear ram while trying to control my breathing as I am resting my 270WSM over my day pack in the prone position....................................................still waiting........................................

 

[JD338]

I would take the front ram with a shot on the point of the on shoulder. M700 Custom 280 AI with a 140 gr AB at 3150 fps. Scope is a VX-3 3.5-10x40mm with a CDS dial.

JD338

 

[SJB358]

I would be nestled up in my sling, cradled as tightly as I could get with the my Model 70 270WSM, shooting 150 grain PT's at 3130.. Zeroed at 300 yards. Not sure which ram would get the good news till I was actually on the ground and could see my angles and what the sheep were doing. Either way, I would use a center body hold, forward of the shoulder to dope a few inches of drift, and press trigger.

Cool scenario Guy.. These are pretty cool!

 

[PJGunner]

Be some damned expensive tag soup but I think I'd pass. :shock: Rifle would have been my M70 .270 Win. with the 150 gr. Sierra Game King, a 3x9 Leupy for the scope.
Paul B.

 

[runtohunt]

Would not take the shot as they are standing in the pic. I am afraid that I would have a pass through and injure the rear ram. I would have to wait until both rams were clear of each other. Once they were clear, if they cleared each other, I would shoot the one that provided the best opportunity providing that they are both legal to shoot. Any of the rifles that I own would make a clean kill, but the ultra light 257 Weatherby with 100 grain TTSX would get the nod. Sighted in for 300 yards, I would plan for 6" of drift.

 

[C.Smith]

I would be using my 7mag but I'm pretty sure I would pass at that distance. I would be to afraid of hitting to far back and hitting both animals.

Corey

 

[Guest]

Again, neat pics.
Cool idea too.
7 mag is the gun but I'm not shooting. Don't know if it's me getting older but no offense to anyone, those aren't what I see in my mind on the wall.
I really enjoy hunting but it seems I pass a lot more than shoot. Just knowing I could make the shot makes it easier to not shoot. Don't know if any of that makes sense or not?
Dewey

 

[Guy Miner]

Glad you guys enjoyed the thread. I like thinking about stuff like this, and love the input from all our members. Great stuff, and it's interesting seeing what people decide - based on their own knowledge & experience.

Particularly enjoyed the input from our experienced sheep hunters, educating us on what a "good" ram really looks like. Thanks! These rams look pretty good to me, but I know they're not the big bruiser rams that serious sheep hunters seek. Sure was cool getting the opportunity to take the photo though - I was less than 20 yards from them when I photographed them. Sadly, no tag!

A few thoughts from little ol' me, for whatever they're worth:

Shooting my favorite mid-range hunting rifle, a .25-06 Rem 700 CDL with a 6x scope and 115 gr Nosler Ballistic Tips at a modest, but very accurate 3120 fps - I'd see the point of impact 2.3" below my 300 yard zero, and interestingly 9.2" of wind drift!

That might surprise people who haven't done a bit of shooting at longer ranges. Yes, 8 - 12" of wind drift at 300 yards is about right for "normal" cartridges. Trajectory isn't nearly the issue that windage is at longer ranges. Trajectory is easy to compensate for, wind is hard to judge and difficult to deal with. A high BC bullet at good velocity helps, but just decreases the problem instead of solving it.

I love to have a good rangefinder in such a situation. My eyes can't reliably tell me if a target is 250 or 350 yards away in the field. Maybe my estimate would be close, maybe it wouldn't. If I know the range, I can figure out my holdover and hold-off, or my elevation & windage correction. Also, I can tell when it's just too far. For me and my rifle, 330 yards is not too far. I've made clean, one-shot kills with that .25-06 a hundred yards beyond what we're talking here.

Anything the hunter can do to stabilize his rifle at this range is a great idea. Sling. Resting on a backpack. Whatever... Just get steady! Hold hard. Aim small.

In Washington, it truly is a "Once In a Lifetime" tag - draw the tag once, and you're done. Doesn't matter if you succeed in your hunt or not. You drew the tag, better make the best of it. It normally takes at least ten years of applying to simply draw the tag.

If I had drawn that tag, and this was the best shot opportunity I'd seen in a week of hunting... Doggone, I'd be tempted!

Several hunters here pointed out the probability of the bullet penetrating completely through, and striking the ram behind. It's certainly possible, and that alone would give me pause. I'd like to wait until they separated and I got a better chance to take one or the other. I know I can hit the front ram in the vitals and put him down. What I'm afraid of is hitting the one behind him too, and going to jail! Or at least to court. Even my little 115 gr Nosler Ballistic Tips have completely penetrated big strong mule deer. If I was using Partitions, or a heavier cartridge/bullet combo, penetration would be even more likely.

So, that's why I inserted the problems:

330 yards is quite a distance in the field, for most hunters.

The wind adds to the ballistic problem of actually making a good hit.

A bullet fired into the front ram may very well strike the ram behind.

The rams in the photo may not qualify as a true trophy in the eyes of some, though they are legal in Washington.

The tag is difficult to draw and is truly once-in-a-lifetime. Ram or no ram, you're done forever at the end of this hunt.

I added some factors into the problem that might give a fellow pause to think - but many of these are the same problems that hunters solve season after season.

Regards, Guy

 

[Oldtrader3]

The yardage, 330 yards, is a pretty long shot for many hunters. My issue here was not being able to see the horns from the side and judge whether they were below the jaw line or not. In most states that have sheep licenses, that is a show stopper. These sheep are nice rams but I can not tell if they are legal or not. Even if they are legal, they are not real trophy sized rams, the bases are not large enough.

The DFG puts tremendous pressure on sheep hunters with this tag of a lifetime political nonsensical stuff. It would be much more ethical to let a hunter pass on an immature ram and still be eligible to draw another tag in the future, starting back with no preference points.

I just decided when I was a lot younger, that I was going to go hunt only deer and elk every year, this is back when the seasons were 2 months long! I stopped worrying about points and trophy nonsensical hoops to jump through which state game departments put up for these special hunts. I stopped applying for them, went back to work and quit worrying about state game politics. Little did I know at that time that the State of Washington was going to screw up the elk herds and ruin mule deer hunting for everybody! Now the seasons are so short and the choices of what you can shoot are so limited that I would rather save my money and go to Wyoming or Montana to hunt.

Washington politicians cooked their own goose for hunting seasons and game years ago! When I was young here in the 1960's, I could hunt elk (Bulls, actual branched Bulls, real elk!) for three months a year, now it is spikes for 10 days! What a comedown. This is how politicians run everything, run it to ruin!

 

[sask boy]

Well I never entered this post because I have never hunted these beautiful animals. If I could I would wait until this fall & using my 280AI. I would confirm they were legal & then I would wait for the animals to separate & take the better of the two.
I would use the new 168gr. ABLR.
Blessings,
Dan

 

[jason miller]

This thread is pretty much wrapped up, but I just now found it. The front ram could probably be taken with a shot aiming for the offside shoulder while hopefully not finding the rear ram on a pass through. If it were a truly "once in a lifetime" shot opportunity, I would probably take the shot at that front ram- especially for what that tag probably costs. But if they weren't too terribly alarmed, which I would hope would be the case from 330 yards, I would wait for the rams to separate and take whichever shot were best. If not for being the theoretical last day of a once in a lifetime tag, I would probably pass. Neither of those rams look that big to my untrained eye. And when it comes down to it, I'm not really that interested in sheep hunting and would probably never be in that situation to start with.

 

[35 Whelen]

8) Well this is actually an easy one for me. As if I were hunting sheep and came onto these two, my rifle would already be zeroed for 300 yds for this open country hunt,so the distance isnt going
to be an issue and I would probably be fiddling with the wind in the back of my mind to hold into it a tad. I would be shooting a Nosler AccuBond in 165gr in front of 52gr of 4064 at just over 2900fps from an 06. And I would hold about 3-4" to the right, of the "rear sheeps jaw" and about 3" down on the "front sheeps spine". I have no doubt that the bullet would pass right thru the 1st sheep kidneys and wind up hitting the rear sheep in the front pocket in the chest and lodge into the far side of the outside shoulder coming to a rest and kill both sheep easily...................... simple as that! We could then examine the horns in person and see which one I wanted to tag and leave the smaller one for mother nature to take care of
STOP........................... I am just KIDDING..............
I probably would NOT shoot either one of them, as I dont really feel they have lived long enough to be a real trophy, as I have one now with massive bases, and most certainly wouldnt want to take another sheep that is much smaller than the one we already have on the wall. :mrgreen:

 

[mcseal2]

I'd probably have to take the front ram under those circumstances IF my crosshairs were steady enough when I got set up on my Rapid Pivot bipod. I'd be using my 264WM shooting 140gr Berger VLD handloads. From my experience at that range the chance of my bullet exiting would be very minimal. I'd hold to the front of the shoulder as far as I felt comfortable to make sure. I'd dial the Vortex 4-16x to 325yds on the elevation dial and hold 1.3 MOA for wind using the MOA hash marks on the horizontal crosshair. Since the lines on the horizontal crosshair are in 2 MOA increments I'd have to make that call. If there wasn't time for all that I'd have to pass, that's to far to be sure with such a small target to make a clean hit for me otherwise.

I've shot enough to have a good idea how steady my crosshairs need to be to make a shot. I've been fortunate enough to stay cool and make shots on some incredible deer, and shot game and yotes much closer and much farther. I've taken all but one of the deer with this same rifle and have total confidence in it. If I got lined up and decided the crosshairs were wobbling a shade to much I'd wait until they didn't before shooting.

Interestingly if I was shooting my favorite bullet the AccuBond I'd likely have to pass. This particular rifle is the only one I switched to Bergers in because they group considerably better. With my accubonds I'd be more worried about overpenetration if I made a mistake. The Bergers stay in broadside antelope at that range, they'd stay in a ram also especially with the shoulder shot. If my rifle likes the new LRAB and I switch bullets I'd have to wait until they separated.