Not much of a story really. Firearms opener here in Indiana and I was in a stand with my new rifle chambered for the .358 Hoosier. I have been looking forward to building and hunting with this Indiana legal CF rifle for a very long time and finally, today it was game on!
The morning was uneventful with no deer seen up until 11:30 AM. A couple of times it was so slow that I nearly talked myself into getting down from the stand but that little voice in the back of my mind kept saying "Better stay put, you know better than to be getting down from your stand on opening day". Man am I glad I listened to that voice. Just after 11:30 AM I heard a noise directly behind me. I turned and spotted him at about 60 yards in some very thick briers. My first thought was that this was a horse not a Deer then he moved his head and I saw antlers and I knew right then I would take the shot if presented to me. He was on high alert and cautiously walked out of the briers and into the more open woods a few steps to the edge of the ridge I was stationed on. When he stopped to survey the bottoms below I settled the cross-hairs and let him have it. At the report, he bucked and immediately ran 30 feet or so down the side of the steep ridge and piled up at the bottom. The 180 grain Barnes TTSX did a complete pass-through at the shoulder and made soup of the lungs. He weighed in at 208 pounds field dressed, the biggest bodied deer ever for me!
I want to say thanks to Alan Brown at A.J. Brown Arms for the build and to cedarthicket for helping me work through my first wildcat build.
The rifle started life as a Marlin XS7 chambered for 7mm-08. A.J. Brown put the Shilen barrel on it and got it all set up. The stock is from Boyd's, it is the Prairie Hunter laminate model with stippling. The round is a Winchester commercial .308 resized to .358 Hoosier with the Barnes 180 grain TTSX over 39.5 grains of Reloader7.
The morning was uneventful with no deer seen up until 11:30 AM. A couple of times it was so slow that I nearly talked myself into getting down from the stand but that little voice in the back of my mind kept saying "Better stay put, you know better than to be getting down from your stand on opening day". Man am I glad I listened to that voice. Just after 11:30 AM I heard a noise directly behind me. I turned and spotted him at about 60 yards in some very thick briers. My first thought was that this was a horse not a Deer then he moved his head and I saw antlers and I knew right then I would take the shot if presented to me. He was on high alert and cautiously walked out of the briers and into the more open woods a few steps to the edge of the ridge I was stationed on. When he stopped to survey the bottoms below I settled the cross-hairs and let him have it. At the report, he bucked and immediately ran 30 feet or so down the side of the steep ridge and piled up at the bottom. The 180 grain Barnes TTSX did a complete pass-through at the shoulder and made soup of the lungs. He weighed in at 208 pounds field dressed, the biggest bodied deer ever for me!
I want to say thanks to Alan Brown at A.J. Brown Arms for the build and to cedarthicket for helping me work through my first wildcat build.
The rifle started life as a Marlin XS7 chambered for 7mm-08. A.J. Brown put the Shilen barrel on it and got it all set up. The stock is from Boyd's, it is the Prairie Hunter laminate model with stippling. The round is a Winchester commercial .308 resized to .358 Hoosier with the Barnes 180 grain TTSX over 39.5 grains of Reloader7.
