Kirby,
Thanks for contributing and I would agree with your comments.
This bear was the first kill with your APS 300WM. How I ended up in the alders with the bear 6-8 yards away is a longer story involving me slamming on the brakes to avoid killing a large cow moose with my SUV which caused my new rifle to roll onto the floorboard and jar the scope enough to alter the scope's zero enough to miss the vitals at 425 yds. Otherwise my bear would have been toast on the first shot.
Anyhow..., as such things go, before I know it I'm in the alders trailing the bear in fading light. 1 1/2 hours later after sneaking 150 yds through the thick stuff I find my way to its bed, which ended up being about three jumps in front of my nose in the thick stuff. As I was moving my head around try to get a better look at the black fur in front of my face I finally made out the head of the bear and she was doing the same thing I was... bobbing her head around trying to get a better look at me through the brush. A little unnerving to say the least. I didn't intend to test the 210 Berger VLD at such close range, but those were the the cards I was dealt on this particular hunt. Certainly an unusually close range finishing shot and I thought others would be interested in the point blank range performance of the 30 cal 210 Berger VLD. The reason I didn't comment on the performance of the initial shot at 425 yds was because that errant shot hit the bear in the jaw and lower throat area, and wasn't a solid enough hit to be worthy of discussion. Several days later I confirmed the rifles zero was off in the direction that resulted in the jaw shot bear, and I had to re-zero the scope.
By the way, this APS rifle will shoot less than 1/2 moa easy to at least 600 yds with these 210 VLDs. Still getting familiar with the gun and its potential with these Bergers and some other bullets.
Paul
Paul,
Did the shot to the jaw knock the bear woozy or even unconcious for a perior of time? The reason I ask is because I was shooting a buck one year while in a soybean field and he had a horse fly annoying him. When he (buck) stopped walking, I slowly squeezed the trigger of the Steyr SSG .308 and at the time of trigger break, the buck had slung his head around to knock the fly off his side. Crack wen the rifle and down went the buck. I was very proud of the 300 yard off-hand sitting shot until first one leg kicked and then another and then all four and it looked as though he was getting up.
Knowing that I had a good hold and had made the shot that I aimed, I did not shooter another. I then quickly clicked my tree climber down the tree and then jumped off the last few feet of elevation. I then ran full blast (perpendicular to the planted rows of course) over to the deer. When I got there, all I could see were the whites of his eyes and he was severly agitated. I did notice that I did not see any blood and that he had torn up a 10' x 10' area of beans in his attempts to right himself.
So, since there was not any blood or obvious wound, I had to either (a) slit the throat or (b) coupe de gras a shot into the neck. Well being a strapping 30- something, I decided to Rambo it with the knife...... Bad choice, he threw me over into the beans and got dirt all over and into my prized rifle. I then pulled out the bolt and beat the barrel on the side of my leg to get the compacted dirt out and then cleaned it the rest of the way by inserting some soybean stems to get the grit out. When that was done, needless to say he got to meet another Mr. Nosler Ballistic tip.
After I recovered myself and got all the dirt off and looked around to ensure no one saw me get by butt whipped, I examined the deer. What I found was the point of impact of the first bullet. As the deer licked himself to shoo the fly, the junction of his G1 and the main beam eclipsed my aiming point and intercepted the bullet. He was first knocked out and then went completely foolish after he was out cold for a short period of time.
I am glad you did not make the mistakes that I did if you had gotten up on him in an unconcious state without a mortal wound.
Another story on lack of bullet performance.... In 2004, I was testing and experimenting the the Lost River Bullets and they shot like laser beams. I thought I had found the "holy grail" of bullets.
Well, to make a long story short, three pass-throughs without recovering the game expeditiously and even with a minor blood trail from each, I decided to give the LR bullets one more try. I was sitting up in the 26' elevated 8' x 8' covered shooting platform and a buck walked out at exactly 400 yards. I took careful aim at his neck and launched the shot. The buck kareened over backwards and fell into the ditch. I called the next name on the venison list and told him to come pick up his deer. I then egressed the shooting nest and meandered down to the "certain kill". What I found was a little hair and a few drops of blood............. NO DEER. The next morning I and the team of searchers looked high and low for the beast and did not find anything at all. We felt sick about it and canned the idea of ever using the LR bullets again. We switched to accubonds and then proceeded onto Colorado for our unsuccessul Elk/mule deer hunt.
Two days after we returned (6 weeks from the time I shot the deer), I was getting ready to check the zero on the rifle before departing to Missouri on another hunt. I was just getting ready to climb down and put up targets when a buck started walking towards me at about 800 yards. When he go to the 400 yard point, he turned broadside and I checked the zero on his lungs. I got the deer and we examined closely and noticed a wound in the neck area. Yes, it was the same buck and he had a healed up wound in his neck. He escaped the LR but succumed to the Accubond. So, complete penetration is not always the best situation. The accubond fractured on the entrance (on a rib) but did not exit. Muzzle velocity was right at 3400 FPS with the 180 grain accubond.
James
