My first Scimitar oryx

[TackDriver284]

Woke up at 4 am to brew some coffee for the 2 hour drive. I loaded the gear in the truck, along with 3 ice chests. Kissed my wife goodbye and stopped at a Watermill outlet to fill three of the ice chests almost to the top since some ice will melt by the time I load them with meat. Arrived at the gate of the 2,000 acre ranch two hours away, and I was greeted by the ranch manager, followed him into the ranch and to the ranch house. We carried conversation for a while while I loaded up the buggy with my gear and my loaded my 300 Win Mag with 3 rounds of Barnes TTSX filled with 78 grains of RL 25. Put two extra rounds in my pocket. Slid on the seat on the buggy and we took a drive at the crack of dawn to the hunting spot. There were several different species of game loitering in the fields and brush. There were some fallow deer, axis, blackbuck and oryx. We passed some feeders and box blinds, but we chose to do a little safari instead. We came across a herd of female oryx and there was a lone bull oryx in the mix. We scouted the herd since females do have horns like the males, but the females have thinner horns while the males are more thicker horned. I ranged the male at 200 yards, but he was moving around the females too much, I did not want to risk a through and through shot and wound a female oryx. They scurried off in the brush and we left the area to let them relax hoping they would come back out, close to half an hour later, they popped out on the opposite side of the brush about a quarter mile away, but the male did not appear. After 15 minutes, the lone bull strolled out of the brush and walked away to greet the females, and I got off the buggy, kneeled behind the buggy and rested the 300 WM on the rear gate, flipped up the lens caps and I could not even see anything because the rifle was sweating so bad with fogged up lens. I realized that the rifle was in the cold house and in the case, and with the AC on in the truck for those two hours, once I took the rifle out at camp, the humid air with the 85 degree heat was not so nice on the cold rifle that condensation set in quickly. I had to wipe the lens on three different occasions only to lose the scimitar bull two times, we lost him about 5 times total because he was pretty spooked. After a while, we saw him at the edge of the brushline, he stood broadside and I set up the shooting sticks next to the fence post. I guessed the range to be around 180 yards, so made 2 clicks on the elevation dial on the ATACR 5-25, took careful aim straight up the front leg, one third up the body, and he shifted a little to the right, so I repositioned the crosshairs to the inside of the front leg to get into the boiler room, squeezed the trigger lightly, and let her fly. The 180 Barnes TTXS leaving the muzzle at 3240 fps hit it like a cement truck, the bullet founds its mark on the front leg bone, it stumbled, and turned to make a short dash on its short legs, dragging just the right shoulder because it was already broken. It piled up about 50 yards. I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked the man above for the bountiful harvest to feed my family. A front loader was brought in to load the oryx in, and headed to camp. We weighed it on a scale, and it was right at 355 lbs and roughly 4 years old.
The guide caped the scimitar oryx, I decided to have it shoulder mounted on a pedestal placed on a corner table. The horns measured at 34 inches, one horn tip was slightly damaged but my taxidermist says he will fix it when I texted him. The horns are uneven, he will even it out as well. The Barnes was never recovered! It only shed one petal and it was found on the exit side hide right at the crease of the left shoulder. We had the meat quartered, washed and allowed them to cool off about 30 minutes before placing them in the ice chests with the drain plugs loose. Tipped the guide very well for his services and thanked him, stopped at the store to put 5 more bags to layer on top of the meat. Drove to meet the taxidermist to drop off the cape, we discussed what I wanted and gave me a very reasonable price to shoulder mount it on a table pedestal, with part of the rear hide of the oryx as a table rug, pedestal on top of it. It will be facing ahead with its horns towering above it in the corner of the living room. It seemed nicer than wall mounts where you have two options, either face left or right because the horns will hit the wall if facing ahead.
Arrived at home, unloaded the chests with the help of a friend and rested them on 4x4's with drain plugs loose to sit for 24 hours until the drain plugs showed clear water dripping. The right shoulder was trashed pretty bad, the Barnes hit the top part of the humerous bone, shattering it into hundreds of tiny pieces creating shrapnel that obliterated the lungs, but the Barnes impact was a little high over the heart, and exited through the left side. I am not sure why it hit high, it could have been from all the condensation that built up inside the bore. I had to cut out the bad part of the right shoulder, was able to salvage about 30% of it. I don't feel bad about the meat loss, that scimitar oryx is tough like a nilgai, a very strong animal and I respect the power it endured during that short run after being hit by two tons of energy. Most of the meat was grinded and I made a ratio of 70 /30 oryx to beef brisket with the trimmings. We made some oryx burgers last night, oh boy, it tasted so good. My wife says " this tastes better than the nilgai I shot" , because it has no gamey flavor. We made 130 pounds of ground with ratio of 70 /30, plus backstraps, shank meat for soup and loins. We still have plenty of steaks, sausage and cubes from the previous nilgai so we opted out to make steaks. Those two days of processing was tiring, but worth it. Hopefully get some axis does during the cooler months later in the year or the beginning of 2027.
Since the oryx meat was delicious, I may decide to get another one in place of nilgai. The taste is beyond the moon.