We hunt Iowa's Late Muzzleloader season which permits the use of handguns during the season. Grace (19 y/o) and I have shared my TC Encore .357 Max for several years and last year Grace told me "This is mine now. Sell my shotgun and go buy yourself a pistol." So I stumbled on to an XP-100 in .350 Remington Mag, center grip, custom bull barrel and custom laminate stock. Topped it with a Burris 2-7x Electro Dot handgun scope and worked up some loads for it.
The .357 Max is using 30 gr. AA1680 behind a Speer 180 gr. FP and the .350 Rem Mag is using 57 gr. XBR 8208 behind the same Speer bullet. 2000 fps and 2400 fps, respectively.
I went scouting last night, but didn't pass up the opportunity to shoot a big doe at 189 yards to break in the .350 Rem Mag. One of our 4 year old sons, Abner, (they're twins - Ezra being the other) joined me last night. He had a great time and even got to find my deer for me.
Tonight our 9 year old daughter, Lydia, wanted to hunt. And so did Abner. So we all huddled into the Barrett Pentacore blind and made it work. We had a flock of 28 turkeys work within 15 yards of the blind. Then the deer started showing up. This particular field has a rise in the middle and the backside runs down to a small slough and then timber. The deer like to hang out on the backside and they have to work up over the rise for us to get a shot. There were four that we could see backs and heads of, then they all started coming over the rise being pushed by this buck. They all settled in to feed on our side of the rise and the buck finally ended up at 75 yards, broadside, before Grace punched his ticket. She's shot several deer and this is her biggest buck and the first one she's ever gotten to see do the death sprint and then crash 100 yards later. Both deer were double-lunged and neither bullet stayed in the animal. Some day I'd like to catch one of these Speers, but we've shot 7 deer with them now and haven't caught a single one.
I was very happy to have part of my family with me hunting tonight and my wife is very happy that we're done hunting before Christmas.
The .357 Max is using 30 gr. AA1680 behind a Speer 180 gr. FP and the .350 Rem Mag is using 57 gr. XBR 8208 behind the same Speer bullet. 2000 fps and 2400 fps, respectively.
I went scouting last night, but didn't pass up the opportunity to shoot a big doe at 189 yards to break in the .350 Rem Mag. One of our 4 year old sons, Abner, (they're twins - Ezra being the other) joined me last night. He had a great time and even got to find my deer for me.
Tonight our 9 year old daughter, Lydia, wanted to hunt. And so did Abner. So we all huddled into the Barrett Pentacore blind and made it work. We had a flock of 28 turkeys work within 15 yards of the blind. Then the deer started showing up. This particular field has a rise in the middle and the backside runs down to a small slough and then timber. The deer like to hang out on the backside and they have to work up over the rise for us to get a shot. There were four that we could see backs and heads of, then they all started coming over the rise being pushed by this buck. They all settled in to feed on our side of the rise and the buck finally ended up at 75 yards, broadside, before Grace punched his ticket. She's shot several deer and this is her biggest buck and the first one she's ever gotten to see do the death sprint and then crash 100 yards later. Both deer were double-lunged and neither bullet stayed in the animal. Some day I'd like to catch one of these Speers, but we've shot 7 deer with them now and haven't caught a single one.
I was very happy to have part of my family with me hunting tonight and my wife is very happy that we're done hunting before Christmas.
