My wife is Colombian, where she was never exposed to hunting growing up or once she got here to the U.S.A. Even though she had been in the US for over 25 years she was still never exposed to outdoors.
When I ran into a deal on a 1957 Colombian 98 mauser and got the idea to build a rifle on the action for her. With the 6.5 craze I wanted something that would feed well in a action designed to run 30-06...so 6.5-06 it would be!
Got it built with a 26" stainless #5.5 Douglas barrel with a Hawk Hill muzzle brake. I plan to set it in a mesquite stock, but it's in a Archangel stock for now.
Worked up a couple loads and within a few trips she is ringing steel at 400yds without too much effort.
Its been a while since I had been on a deer lease. But with in the a few months of getting the 6.5-06 up and running a long time friend calls needing a member on his lease.
So I get on the lease and start working on the wife about her shooting a deer. Surprisingly she was pretty much game for it even though I had not hunted since we meet 6 years ago. She had no idea what to expect.
We went to the new lease to set up a feeder and clean up a shooting lane down the road that leads to the feeder. It has a box blind off to the south and the road comes in from the east. The box blind is useless with our summer south wind. But as winter sets in it would be ideal with the north winds of winter.
She can't join me on opening weekend because of lease rules, so I go mainly to see what the bucks look like in our area. I didn't get a trail camera up and running until the weekend my wife could join me at the lease. So we had no clue what to expect.
As luck would have it the wind is out of the south so we are stuck sitting on the main road leading to the blind. Because of the distance I give her my freshest build...a 264wm on a Savage action.
Remember no outdoor experience at all. We fish together some at times, but this was her first trip into "the woods". She did ok, her patients level is pretty short and we get no signal on the cell phone to occupy her time. So I use that time to train her on how to aim at the live deer in front of us.
Late in the day of first deer season she has a small buck walked out in the road where she can see it. Her finger was on the trigger right away. I quickly got her attention and told her it was not legal that we had to wait for older buck. We are hunting in a 13" spread county.
That was her first clue to me that she would pull trigger on a deer if I give her the green light.
At 5:07 she ask me in Spanish when is the boyfriend going show up? I remind her of what I do. I tell myself he will be here in the next 5 minutes....every 5 minutes I repeat him being here in the next 5 minutes.
At about 5:15pm she punches me in the left shoulder and she is motoin "antlers" over her head , so I quickly turn my attention to the feeder. Sure enough a big 8 is walking up to the feeder and turns broad side.
She is on him, but all she gets is a click! The ammo I had loaded was some primed brass I had bought from a member here...up until this moment all had fired fine. I don't noramlly trust pre-primed brass but because it was my hunting rifle I took the risk.
But now because we were on the road not in the blind she was shooting 264wm and not her 6.5-06. We are sit ting 307 yards from the feeder. I know that's not the best idea to do to a first time hunter, but she had been doing just fine at on steel plates a up to 400 yards at the range.
I clear the dud and give her the rifle back. She quickly settles back in behind the 264. Earlier I had reminded her to slowly tighten the tension on her trigger finger until the gun went off.
Well her shot was dead on! She hit the point of the shoulder and he never moved when the 130gr Nosler Accu-Bond hit him!
Her first day, her first shot, at the first big buck she has ever seen, she drops the hammer on him, a big 8pt at 307yds!
I had never told her about about buck fever but it set in. But it was so funny to hear her discribe how she thought she was going to have a heart attack and how she couldn't breath.
When we got back to camp the fellow lease members started calling her a Colombian Sniper. Later in the evenING we got a vist from the local game wardens and after they inspected her license and heard her story they ask if she was a Colombian Sniper!
When I ran into a deal on a 1957 Colombian 98 mauser and got the idea to build a rifle on the action for her. With the 6.5 craze I wanted something that would feed well in a action designed to run 30-06...so 6.5-06 it would be!
Got it built with a 26" stainless #5.5 Douglas barrel with a Hawk Hill muzzle brake. I plan to set it in a mesquite stock, but it's in a Archangel stock for now.
Worked up a couple loads and within a few trips she is ringing steel at 400yds without too much effort.
Its been a while since I had been on a deer lease. But with in the a few months of getting the 6.5-06 up and running a long time friend calls needing a member on his lease.
So I get on the lease and start working on the wife about her shooting a deer. Surprisingly she was pretty much game for it even though I had not hunted since we meet 6 years ago. She had no idea what to expect.
We went to the new lease to set up a feeder and clean up a shooting lane down the road that leads to the feeder. It has a box blind off to the south and the road comes in from the east. The box blind is useless with our summer south wind. But as winter sets in it would be ideal with the north winds of winter.
She can't join me on opening weekend because of lease rules, so I go mainly to see what the bucks look like in our area. I didn't get a trail camera up and running until the weekend my wife could join me at the lease. So we had no clue what to expect.
As luck would have it the wind is out of the south so we are stuck sitting on the main road leading to the blind. Because of the distance I give her my freshest build...a 264wm on a Savage action.
Remember no outdoor experience at all. We fish together some at times, but this was her first trip into "the woods". She did ok, her patients level is pretty short and we get no signal on the cell phone to occupy her time. So I use that time to train her on how to aim at the live deer in front of us.
Late in the day of first deer season she has a small buck walked out in the road where she can see it. Her finger was on the trigger right away. I quickly got her attention and told her it was not legal that we had to wait for older buck. We are hunting in a 13" spread county.
That was her first clue to me that she would pull trigger on a deer if I give her the green light.
At 5:07 she ask me in Spanish when is the boyfriend going show up? I remind her of what I do. I tell myself he will be here in the next 5 minutes....every 5 minutes I repeat him being here in the next 5 minutes.
At about 5:15pm she punches me in the left shoulder and she is motoin "antlers" over her head , so I quickly turn my attention to the feeder. Sure enough a big 8 is walking up to the feeder and turns broad side.
She is on him, but all she gets is a click! The ammo I had loaded was some primed brass I had bought from a member here...up until this moment all had fired fine. I don't noramlly trust pre-primed brass but because it was my hunting rifle I took the risk.
But now because we were on the road not in the blind she was shooting 264wm and not her 6.5-06. We are sit ting 307 yards from the feeder. I know that's not the best idea to do to a first time hunter, but she had been doing just fine at on steel plates a up to 400 yards at the range.
I clear the dud and give her the rifle back. She quickly settles back in behind the 264. Earlier I had reminded her to slowly tighten the tension on her trigger finger until the gun went off.
Well her shot was dead on! She hit the point of the shoulder and he never moved when the 130gr Nosler Accu-Bond hit him!
Her first day, her first shot, at the first big buck she has ever seen, she drops the hammer on him, a big 8pt at 307yds!
I had never told her about about buck fever but it set in. But it was so funny to hear her discribe how she thought she was going to have a heart attack and how she couldn't breath.
When we got back to camp the fellow lease members started calling her a Colombian Sniper. Later in the evenING we got a vist from the local game wardens and after they inspected her license and heard her story they ask if she was a Colombian Sniper!
