Day One:
On Wednesday afternoon my 16 year old daughter dropped her fifth big game animal, a nice whitetail buck. So far she has expended five rounds and has taken five animals with the MOA Maximum specialty handgun in the last four years. This is the first animal she has killed with the 6.5-284 barrel. Range was between 245-250 yards. After we went over and admired him for awhile she told me she wanted to get a doe next and back our stand up. I said, "How about where I was shooting the steel the other day?" and she thought that would be fun. So tommorrow after school she will be set up for a doe with the 6mm-284 XP. She took some pics with her digital camera. She made the shot right @ 5PM. It was a nice 3x4 buck. She took a spike last year at almost the same spot with the 260 Rem barrel. Yes, I am proud and happy. It is more fun than pulling the trigger myself.
Day Two:
Well, we were out again this afternoon and my daughter invited one of her friends from the youth group to come along. The only bad thing about our postion was that we were looking almost directly into the sun which caused quite a glare (I have a fix for that, next time ). Of course, after the sun went so low that wasn't an issue, and no whitetail anywhere. Just about when it was getting time to consider packing up a whitetail came out of the cover at about 310 yards and slowly began making it's way south along the fence line. When it got to the feeder it was right at 350 yards (I set-up a little closer than I had intended) For a short time Kristen couldn't shoot because a leg of the feeder was right in front of the area that she wanted to insert a bullet. Wind was from 1 to 1.5 mph with the Kestrel. I told her to put it right between the 2nd and third plex (6-24 30mm Burris Black Diamond,Side Focus with Ballistic Mil-Dot Reticle). Kristen had never shot the 6-284 XP-100 Center-Grip (no brake) or used a rifle scope on a handgun, but I knew with out a shadow of a doubt that this rig was "on" at this range. I also have a lot of faith in Kristen's shooting abilities whether it is with a Harris Bi-pod or tripod rest. She was using a Harris BR Bi-pod (pod-loc) with a small leather bag under the pistol grip. Finally, the doe took another step and I told her to take the shot when she was ready. I was glassing through my binocs at the shot. This is also the first time for me not to give last minute coaching on shooting form. I didn't hear a meat report, but I could tell from the way the animal acted that it had been hit. It jumped the fence into some light cover and out of sight. After the shot Kristen put her head down and I knew what had happened, she had been kissed by the scope
She is okay, but she will remember it for awhile. She even asked me if she was far enough away from it before she shot, and I said, "yes." The kicker was, as I have reflected on it, is that her type of grip and the way she held it is different/less than mine and therefore that distance is not safe for her. In the low light situation she said she couldn't back off any further and see good enough to shoot. She told me even if she thought she might get smacked that she would have decided to take the shot. She wanted that deer. When we got to the the doe we found out it wasn't a doe (surprise ) but a small buck that had one antler broke off at the core and the other one also broke off but a tad higher. In Kansas we have antlerless tags that you can take a doe or buck as long as it meets the requirements. The shot placement was perfect. It punched a hole through the middle top half of the heart. The "antlerless" deer was about 20 yards away from the feeder. Even though she is very happy about her longest deer shot ever, she made it clear that next year all game would be taken with the MOA.
Now I need to see if I can get some time to get me a deer :-D
