’04 Mulie story and pic

Evening Fellas >> Monday night, my dad and I ran up to a piece of land that we love to hunt owned by extended family. Wonderful possibilities at this place with Antelope, Whitetail and Mulies of real good size available at any given time.

My dad got his 4x4 Mulie opening day (Sunday) evening here and we were sat up in the same place to see what might move this evening.

Deer were moving almost immediately. Does and smaller bucks. Whitetails; Mulies. Things were active.

We'd been sitting for 45 minutes or so when Dad noticed a small Mulie buck running our way, over a mile out. He covered the distance quickly. Must have been pretty badly spooked by something. He ducked down into a shallow valley no more then 550 yds. ahead of us. We had completely glassed this spot, sure there wasn't anything there. Least we thought we were sure. As the smaller buck came out our side, he had rustled up another buck. We honestly have no idea where this thing was laying.

We could see that he was an even 5x5 (counting scoreable eye-guards). Heavy and relatively high and wide, with weak front forks. He had two very small stickers on the back left fork. Compared to the smaller buck, he looked huge, but we really didn't put much stock into this comparison, as the other buck was only a tiny 3x3. At first, I guessed the buck in the low 140's, but the longer I looked at him, the score in my mind got larger and larger.

For the next two hours, we watched as he fed in front of us. At times as close as 375 yds, meandering back and forth in the creek bed he was feeding in. No shot could be taken, cause he was on posted "No Hunting" lands. We had to wait (and hope) that he'd cross the creek and come up our way as evening fell. This has been the mode of operation for as long as we've hunted this land, but sometimes, the big ones don't always play by these rules.

1/2 hour or so before dark, you could tell  he was getting antsey, looking for a place to cross the creek.  We felt good. Bad thing was, the creek he was looking to cross had cut itself a deep bottom as it flowed, leaving sides that were to steep for this buck to care to try and climb down. So he moved back ... and back ... and farther back. He finally found a place he liked to cross, but this put him a lot farther down-range from us then we needed for a quality shot. We saw where he was going to come across "legal" lands. There was going to be an opportunity for a bit of a stalk, but he was wasting no time moving across, so I had to move much faster then I would have liked.

I got myself to a high-point on a fence line, laying on my stomach, looking down on him. He was angleing away from me as he crossed these lands. Feeding all the while. Most of the time, with his back-side directly at me. No good shots and I was starting to worry.

I watched him feed, using the time to catch my breath.  I came to the conclusion he had no intentions of heading back my way so I would have to settle on a "quartering away" angle.  I put the Leica 1200 Scan on him and it read back 324 ... 325 ... 327. I was using my Laredo 7mm RUM for this particular hunt and a new load worked up over the summer with Retumbo and Noslers 160 gr. AccuBond bullet. I'd used this for the 615 yd. hit on rockchuck I'd reported earlier over on the varminting page, so I was pretty comfortable with the load. I'd rezeroed things for big game purposes, and with this, I knew I was right around 4" low at 350 yds., so I held just a tick high, aiming for the off side shoulder. This put impact 1/2 way between the on-side shoulder and hind-quarter. Not the perfect shot but I felt getting to the lungs with this angle would be easy. So I waited for him to stop a moment and squeezed.

He ran 20 yds. and fell.

Cleaning him out, we saw that the bullet entered right where it should have. As it traveled through, it shredded lung. I didn't spend a lot of time looking for an exit hole, as night was coming on and we wanted to get him home. Again, I was hoping the bullet had come to rest in the animal so it could be retreived and it's final expanded form seen.  Back home and inspecting things a bit more closely, the bullet did exit. It missed the off shoulder bone and simply zipped right through. Honestly, I don't think the shoulder bone would have stopped it. These bonded core bullets seem to be extremely rugged and with all the accuracy and ballistic prowess of the Ballistic Tips, they're just a great, great bullet.

One sticker on his back fork measured 1 2/8", so officially, he's a 6x5.  His outside spread measured 24 3/8".  His bases are as heavy as any Mulie I've shot (4 6/8" right and left).  Gross measurement ended up totalling 154 1/8", green.  Even with the lack of scoring from the front forks, I was real happy with him :

The hunt was exciting, it was a quick kill, I've a nice trophy and there's a load of meat in the freezer.

That's the story and I'm sticking to it !!!  Later.  >>  klallen

Klallen, fantastic story and pic .Excellent shot and I expected nothing less from you not taking a shot while he was on somebody elses place.Heck of a hunt, when we eatin supper.

Gene

Beautiful buck Korey.  Seems like the river/creek agri fields are the places to hunt for mulies.  Your buck was doing the same river crossing task as mine.

Want to trade that 7 RUM for a barrel worn 308?

BEAR

Thanks guys !!!

"You been gone awhile thought maybe ya done left us for greener pastures"

TIKKA, I'd never leave this place.  You guys are like family    .

"when we eatin supper"

TIMBER, tell ya what.  Next time you find yourself in MT, let me know.  Wife cooks up a mean steak or roast dinner and has a great stroganoff dish she makes with venison cubes.  Pour it over noodles or rice     ...     definitely one of my favorites.  Anyway, you pick the meal ya want and we'll get it cooked up for ya.

"Those accubonds are building quite a reputation amongst deer down here as well"

MACCA, I've yet to run into a deer with the mass to keep one of these bullets in.  There hasn't been a lot, with the newness of the bullet, but I desperately want to see their expanded form, but they keep zipping through.  Guess I'll have to step up to elk sized game for that.

"Want to trade that 7 RUM for a barrel worn 308?"

Emmmmmmm, no thanks, BEAR.    I've grown rather fond of this .284 RUM.  Doozey of a cartridge, for sure.

Gentleman, I hope all your hunts turn out well for ya.  I've read the success stories of those who've already connected.  Congrats.  Looking forward to seeing stories and pics from the rest of ya who have hunts yet to come this year.

Take care.  >>  klallen

Rebarrel to an '06     ...     that is a good one, DAKOTA.

As far as a trade, I dare say I'll never rid myself of this Laredo.  I've a love / hate thing going on with it.

The "love" issues are all on display in the above story.  I love the feel of the rifle and the cartridge it's chambered in and what that cartridge has to offer me in the field.

My "hate" issues all stem from the smithing I had done to it in the conversion from 7mm STW to 7mm RUM and the trade that I entered into with the smith to get the work done.  Some things that I wasn't to keen on detecting back then are now coming back to upset me     ...     scratched barrel, muzzle brake fit, finding out later that work promised was never done, finding out later work done was not done by the smith but a gal who should NOT be doing the work, chambering issues, not labeled correctly     ...     just small stuff that I noticed early that I thought I could live with leading to larger things found.  Needless to say, that smith will never see any more of my work or get a kind word when I'm asked of my opinion of him.

Bottom line is, as it sits, I can get 3 "VERY" accurate firings from a case, then they're toast.  And not toast because of pressure issues.  As a varminter, this upset me a great deal, as the volume of shooting was substantial.  I don't have the $$$ at this time to do what is needed to get this rifle exactly where I would like it so I was forced to move the rifle back into the big game arena.  As such, I loaded up 50 virgins with the load the rifle likes.  Under typical big game use and with other things in the safe being used as well, I'll never get through these and the 2 more firings per case.  Sad that I have to do this, but until I can correct the problem, it's the only solution I could come up with that keeps the rifle in the shooting rotation.  It does functions well on big game, so maybe I'll just keep it as is, serving as a constant reminder only to deal with those smiths you have complete and total confidence in.  A good lesson learned, I suppose.  >>  klallen