So I'm new here, hi everyone. I joined a short while ago, month or so, but this is my first post. Well today I first hand developed a whole new respect for the 5.56 cartridge. I'm an huge deer hunter here in North Alabama and over the years introduced the tradition to many of my friends. Unfortunately, out of all my friends, I'm the poor one. I wasn't born into a 7 figure funding so I'm just Mr. Blue Collar and miss out on all their North and North-West hunting trips. Over the years I've been asked at least half a dozen times, "What's the best caliber for bear defense on my Alaskan hunt?". I've replied many times "the largest caliber you can fire effectively and repeatedly, but you cant go wrong with a 12ga packed with slugs". Talks never went any further beyond that. Well today, I nailed an 8 point with my bow but he took off and I lost the blood trail. Decided to head in a stop pressuring him, let him lay down and bleed and I'd find him after breakfast. Since it was a nice day, I figured I'd bring my dog Squash with me for some fresh air and exercise while we looked for my deer. We have a couple of coyote packs that roam all throughout the area, seen as many as 9 together on the trail cam by my feeder, so I always carry my AR with me when I'm scouting or setting up stands and such in the early season. Well on our walk Squash starts going berserk. He's having a total fit and sounds raging mad. I catch up to where he's freaking out and there he is, one of our neighbors bulls has gotten through the fence and is in our woods. I don't know bovine species but I know exactly what this bull was... big, black, and filled with 10 gallons of hate and anger all packaged under what seemed to be 12 foot long horns. As I started to back away and tried to call Squash the bull shifted his attention from my half lab half pitbull mix to me and got even angrier. At the moment he started his full charge I lifted my rifle, found my target through my EOtech and let my Geissele trigger work. The huge bull went to the ground and kicked for a few moments before exhaling deeply and died. After the fact, and later counting the remaining 24 rounds in my mag, I realized I had brought that big bull down with 6 62gr M855's. Of course me and my brother visited our neighbor and explained what happened which he understood and even apologized for (sort of), but today I developed a completely new respect for 5.56 and it's abilities. We looked him over as our neighbor was on his way with his tractor to get it and counted 5 holes. Two in his chest, two in roughly his windpipe area and one in the joint of his right front shoulder. While I would never advocate (thesaurus help please) travelling into the bush under gunned, I can say that with my comfort level and efficiency with my AR I probably wouldn't carry anything else anywhere with me after this experience.
M&P 15 (not a sport)
EOtech 512
Geissele SSA-E trigger
VLTOR AEBK5 stock and buffer kit (what recoil)
BCM 13" KMR
Magpul grip and fore grip
M&P 15 (not a sport)
EOtech 512
Geissele SSA-E trigger
VLTOR AEBK5 stock and buffer kit (what recoil)
BCM 13" KMR
Magpul grip and fore grip