Need a math person !

[Crockett]

This is just to satisfy my curosity. In 1966 I went on a mule deer hunt in South Dakota on the Trask Ranch near Wall. I used an old .270 with 130 grn handloads 62/h4831 (O'Connors load) out of a 22" bbl at 3150. Sighted in 3" high at 100.
Mark Trask saw a nice buck hearding some does across the river and up a ridge. He had to be 4 pts to be a shooter. Mark couldn"t tell through his spotting scope but told me to shoot. I got in a sit and cut loose. Held what appeared 3 feet over the antlers and just back of the foreleg. At the shoot the buck fell in his tracks ! Mike said he had never saw anyone hit a buck that far (just luck) When we got to the buck he was a three point, Mike threw his hat down and was worried about his did getting him for letting me shoot a 3 pt. He said he thought I couldn"t hit it so told me to shoot.
We never found a hole in that buck but he was dead as a door nail.
Later in the week I shot another at abnout the same distance ! No range finders back then. Just out of curosity, how far do you recon that buck was !
Mike spent a long night skinning and boning deer for clients, we took the first buck to Wall, Sd and swaped it for jerkey.

 

[TimRB]

Nevermind

Tim

 

[rcmodel]

We never found a hole in that buck but he was dead as a door nail.

SO, if you missed it completely, did he die laughing at you, or what?

rc

 

[ChronoCube]

I used the Remington Shoot! program to give this a shot. (no pun intended)

- 130-grain .270 SP
- Sights adjusted to shoot 2.97 inches high at 100 yards, 265 yard zero
- Shoots 3 feet low at 500 yards, 5.5 feet low at 600 yards.

So the shot was probably in the middle somewhere, ~550 yards.

 

[cracked butt]

*mutters something to himself about slob hunters*

 

[rcmodel]

But, if there was no bullet hole in the buck, how do you know where the bullet went?

rc

 

[matrem]

"how far do you recon that buck was !"
I'm guessing ..WAY too far..But since you "didn't" actually hit it,consider that "free" venison!

 

[Gottahaveone]

SO, if you missed it completely, did he die laughing at you, or what?

Maybe the sonic crack from the close miss startled him so bad he had a heart attack. Or maybe he was feeling co-operative and decided to give the hunter credit for trying and just fell over dead.
You never know with deer......

 

[rcmodel]

Boy I don't know about the venison?

Could have died from Wasting Disease, or Mad Cow or something!

rc

 

[proven]

not my idea of a responsible shot, but to each his own.

 

[matrem]

"Boy I don't know about the venison?"
Good point!!
Hope he had a good time,and more importantly learned (40 plus yrs ago,maybe "learns" is a better word ?) something.

 

[Art Eatman]

3" high at 100 yrds, and a guesstimated five feet of drop? 550 yards seems as near as makes no nevermind..

 

[ChronoCube]

Don't look at me, I haven't shot at that distance. I'm just crunching numbers for him.

 

[Guns and more]

From a math standpoint.
take a bullet and drop it from the height you shot. How long did it take to hit the ground? 1 sec?
What was the muzzle velocity of your gun? 1000 ft/sec?
So in one sec, that bullet dropped 4ft. (if you shot horizontally.)
in 1000 ft. Your shot was 100 (yds?) So your bullet dropped 1/3 of 4' or about 18". (in round numbers)

But................................................why? Never mind.

 

[littlelefty]

You need more than a math person. You need a market representative and patent on the ability to kill a deer without leaving a hole in the hide

 

[Deer Hunter]

Wasting disease wouldn't affect the meat. It's the same as BSE, just in mule deer. It's caused by prions in the deer's central nerve system.

The meat would have been just fine.

 

[Crockett]

I thought you might have a sense of humor and some common sense. The guide told me to shoot, personally I would have not taken the shot. I think I spined him even though no one could find much evidence. around 550 is probably a good guess. Now with much older eyes I probably couldn"t see the thing. Oh, I was using a weaver K3 scope ! Sorry if I made a bunch of you guys mad. Heck of a way to start on a new forum. Proven, you need to relak, when you hit your 70"s maybe a whippersnapper like you will . Thanks for the decent answers .

 

[Japle]

3 feet over the antlers would be 4 1/2 - 5 ft of drop to hit him. Got to be over 600 yds with that load.

Question: If your buddy couldn't see the antlers through his spotting scope, how did you know how far you were holding over them?

I've hunted deer and pronghorns in SD for 8 seasons (pronghorns were by drawing - I hunted them 4 years). The longest shot I saw was 360 yds (by yours truley) and that only required holding at the top of the back.

Holding 3 ft over the horns makes a good story, but ..........

 

[matrem]

I'm not at all against shooting at game from "extreme" range. IMO though, the ethical way is to know (or at least have an educated guess) the distance to the animal & to know what gravity / wind will do to your projectile at that distance.
NOT the other way around, as seems to be the case in your circumstance.

 

[HOLY DIVER]

i've herd some kool storys in my day but this has to top them all...how the heck does a deer fall over dead with out being shot.....

 

[telomerase]

No range finders back then.

There were range finders in 1966. You just forgot to bring your tank.

Wasting disease wouldn't affect the meat. It's the same as BSE, just in mule deer. It's caused by prions in the deer's central nerve system.

The prions spread from nerve to nerve... do you know something that keeps them out of peripheral nerves in the meat?

 

[John828]

I think there should have been an autopsy, but of course we're talking about the .270 Winchester loaded with one of Jack O'Connor's loads and most of us know how he felt about this cartridge. I think it is safe to say that the Muley fell dead due to the reputation of the .270. Despite all the ballistics junkies out there, some underpowered calibers just have the reputation of being meat getters. For example, the workhorse thutty-thutty takes game and has taken game for so many years that it is a complete joke. I think you might even be able to dry fire a Marlin 336 and enjoy some deer chili a few days later.


rant over.

We never found a hole in that buck but he was dead as a door nail.

Sprockett are you really asking me to believe this?

 

[proven]

. Proven, you need to relak, when you hit your 70"s maybe a whippersnapper like you will .

i don't think i'll "relak" about an irresponsible shot no matter how old i get. you took an irresponsible shot. your spotter was irresponsible as well. being in your 70s doesn't give you carte blanche to stupidity. this sounds like some poor excuse for a campfire tall-tale.

 

[rangerruck]

i also think more like 600 plus yds. a 270, if you look at ballistic tables you find in the back of magazines sometimes, will tell you that a 270 is one of your top 10 flatest shooting carts., among non wildcat , normal rounds.
most of the tables show 200 yds zeros, and then drop at 300 400 and 500 yds. Typically, no matter which load you are using with a 270, the drop is between 38 and 45 inches at 500 yds, assuming no scope, and very little rise at 100 yds.
The shot itself proly nicked him in a top shot, across the top of his spine, and left no hole or trail, and the wound closed up a bit on you, before you got there to him. so somewhere, in the top of his neck or back, especially in the top of his neck, where there is more hair and fat, you wouldn't see anything worth noticing.

 

[Deer Hunter]

The prions spread from nerve to nerve... do you know something that keeps them out of peripheral nerves in the meat?

Yes,

in CWD, the prions are be in the lymphatic system and recent researchers have insisted that the disease is also present in the skeletal muscle, but the disease is not transferable to humans. The CDC does not have a single account of CWD or Variant Cruxfield Jacobs disease in humans that has been caused by CWD. While some essays on the topic insist that humans are at risk of "catching" the disease from handling or consuming infected skeletal tissue, nothing backs up their claims. CWD only affects cervids.

CWD is just a TSE of cervids, which include mule deer, elk, white tail, and moose. Eating the meat of an animal with CWD will not give you the disease. The TSE has not made the jump from cervid to human.