A Buck Too Far.

[Drift]

Christmas Eve day. Temp-high 80 low 60. I was meat hunting on the Rafter T Ranch using a Rem Grendel with a 18"barrel and a Minox 1.5x8 scope and factory SST ammo.
I was up 30+ feet in a pine tree. A spike buck walked out at>350 yards. The grass/palmettos were 4 feet high. I took the shot as he faced me .. and he ran right at my stand piling up 80 yards from me. I could see him down there from up in my stand..still.. it took 45 min to find him on the ground.
A quick necroscopy showed the bullet had entered the brisket @ midline (4 inches below point of aim-rifle was zeroed to be 2.5 inches high @100) penetrated about 7 inches and cleaved the heart in half. The aorta, vena cava and pulmonary arteries were torn...but otherwise very little damage.
My point is.. if he had run in any other direction but tword me I would not have recovered him. Even with perfect bullet placement and performance, the shot was too far for the conditions...The buck was too far for the conditions of ethical recovery. I will not make that mistake again.
Merry Christmas

[Von Gruff]

Glad you were able to recover the animal but speaking of recovery, did you find the bullet? What was its end game state??

[Kilco]

I know it sounds foolish, but sometimes these things just happen.. I understand your concern regarding the ethical killing distance, BUT for example... last fall I took a 203 pound 9 pointer at 380 yards with my 22" JP 6.5 Grendel. DRT. A d I mean DRT. Not a step. High shoulder placement. My brother hunted the same clover field aftee i tagged out with his 6.5-257 Weatherby pushing a 130gr HVLD 3400 fps. Good placement, and his buck ran 100 yards before piling up deep in the brush. Was a long recovery.

As I said, sometimes these things just happen, and I hope you don't give up on your Grendel at that specific range. Glad you got the recovery though.

[howl]

That's fifty to a hundred yards farther than I'd want to try it; depending on conditions. When I push the envelope like that, I prefer a neck shot. The neck is not so demanding of bullet performance. However, if the cover was so bad for tracking, would you have been able to find it easily had it dropped on the spot from such a shot?

Anyhow, how you likin' that 1.5-8x? I have considered passing off a VX3 1.75-6x in favor of that one.

[Drift]

I did not recover the bullet. (twas dark and hot and buggy by the time I got around to cleaning it) The heart was turned inside out but the lungs were untouched, so he could have been farther away and the bullet slower than I estimated.
As for the scope.."Best scope I ever hunted with". I'd buy another if I could find one for sale.