Well, I went out scouting tonight with Abner (one of our two four year olds) for his first deer hunt, which he's been begging to do all fall. I had zero intentions of filling my tag just yet, as I wanted to get my 19 year old daughter to fill hers first. We're in a new spot and I just wanted to sit for the evening. A nice 6 point with loooong tines, but lacks brow tines hung up at about 225 and his vitals were barely visible over the crest of a rise in the field, so I didn't feel like it was any more than a marginal shot opportunity at best. Something spooked the sentry doe that was on top of the hill and they melted back into the trees. I'm a meat hunter first and foremost - the first adult deer gets my tag - and my wife really likes it when we fill tags before Christmas. I was texting Grace photos I digiscoped through my Swarovski 10x42 binocular and she told me to fill my tag. "A deer in the garage is better than a deer that you could have shot," to quote her. This deer is larger than I thought she was when I pulled the trigger. I knew she was an adult, but I struggled to get her in the vehicle solo. Also the fattest deer I've gutted in a loooonnnngggg time. Rolls of fat in the abdominal cavity and kidneys were buried in fat. She looks a little shorter than she is because she was folded a bit in the vehicle and I had to go in for a Zoom meeting 10 minutes after I got home, so rigor was setting in by the time we took these photos. We will be in the same blind early tomorrow morning and I suspect we'll fill her tag.
I purchased this XP-100 last winter after Grace told me that she had claimed the TC Encore in .357 Maximum that we've been sharing for the last three seasons. "This one is mine now. You can go buy another one." So with the changes to Iowa's cartridge restrictions, bottleneck cartridges from .355" to .500" are fair game. So I got this XP in .350 Rem Mag when it came up for sale on another board. I topped it with a Burris 2-7x32 Electro Dot handgun scope and worked up a load with the Speer 180 gr. FP of 57 gr. of XBR8208 that yields 2400 fps. I wasn't sure if the bullet would hold up at higher velocity - we've used it in the Max for a few years now with great success. Performance was flawless and it didn't come apart on impact. Exit isn't a whole lot bigger than the entrance. I shot it a few inches higher than I planned, but got both lungs through the center, but pretty much every speck of blood remained in the chest cavity. We trailed it by jellied pieces of lung tissue and she only went about 25 yards before piling up. I do have some 200 gr. Hornady Interlock I might work up a load for, but I'm pleased as punch with the performance of this bullet out of the .350 Rem Mag. We hunt from portable ground blind and use a tripod with a bag as the front rest and a monopod with a padded flat surface I made up for it on the pistol grip for rest to make fine adjustments to elevation and stabilize the pistol well. It works really well, but is a bit cumbersome to setup and especially to move if we need to shoot from a different window. Wish us luck tomorrow morning - we're heading out before sunup and taking Lydia, our nine year old, on her first real deer hunt. We're in southeastern Iowa and hunting a couple miles west of the Mississippi River.
I purchased this XP-100 last winter after Grace told me that she had claimed the TC Encore in .357 Maximum that we've been sharing for the last three seasons. "This one is mine now. You can go buy another one." So with the changes to Iowa's cartridge restrictions, bottleneck cartridges from .355" to .500" are fair game. So I got this XP in .350 Rem Mag when it came up for sale on another board. I topped it with a Burris 2-7x32 Electro Dot handgun scope and worked up a load with the Speer 180 gr. FP of 57 gr. of XBR8208 that yields 2400 fps. I wasn't sure if the bullet would hold up at higher velocity - we've used it in the Max for a few years now with great success. Performance was flawless and it didn't come apart on impact. Exit isn't a whole lot bigger than the entrance. I shot it a few inches higher than I planned, but got both lungs through the center, but pretty much every speck of blood remained in the chest cavity. We trailed it by jellied pieces of lung tissue and she only went about 25 yards before piling up. I do have some 200 gr. Hornady Interlock I might work up a load for, but I'm pleased as punch with the performance of this bullet out of the .350 Rem Mag. We hunt from portable ground blind and use a tripod with a bag as the front rest and a monopod with a padded flat surface I made up for it on the pistol grip for rest to make fine adjustments to elevation and stabilize the pistol well. It works really well, but is a bit cumbersome to setup and especially to move if we need to shoot from a different window. Wish us luck tomorrow morning - we're heading out before sunup and taking Lydia, our nine year old, on her first real deer hunt. We're in southeastern Iowa and hunting a couple miles west of the Mississippi River.
