Thanks everybody! Here's the more detailed story: Well, sat. morning we headed to the blind in the rain. My son could hardly sleep the night before! We were in a woods with thick canopy, so we sat for quite along time before he could see well enough to shoot. I was just starting to question whether we were going to see anything (9:00) when I caught sight of a doe with a fawn coming in from our right. They took a while coming in because the doe was wary of the ground blind, but the fawn walked right past us at 15 yds. while the doe hung up at about 35 yds. She was angling hard towards us eyeballing the blind, but he had the rifle up and waiting for her to turn. I had to keep reminding him to take a deep breath and relax because he was visibly shaking by this point. FINALLY, she turn and offered a broadside shot for him. He took one last deep breath and slowly let it out, then squeezed it off. She took off, and when she turned hard and I saw her stumble I knew he hit her. They ran off into the brush. He looked at me, shivering, and said that he thought he hit her well and that he was COLD! I told him that happens. We got out he found the blood trail and followed it 30 yds to his first deer! He couldn't have hit her any better, the practice paid off. I couldn't be any prouder!
By the way, for those that handload for the .44, his load was 9 gr. unique with a 200 gr. Nosler JHP. Estimate it around 1200 fps at the muzzle. It performed excellently at that range. Busted ribs on both entrance and exit while really shredding the lungs! He cloverleafs them at 50 yds of of shooting sticks.
