2017 WTF's UP CHUCK
- Thread starter "J"
- Start date
Never saw an adult all day... They were all between 75-125 yard shots... Not chip shots but not difficult ones either...
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Strange. I shot a young one in the yard the other day. First one I've ever seen in the 12 years of living here. The basset was barking at it and it was standing up on its hind feet with its paws up standing it's ground. It caught a 177 pellet in the nugget from the ole Daisy powermaster.
lol... I've always wanted too drop one with a pellet gun.. Haven't had the opportunity yet...
Yesterday's encounter was one for the books.... Spent about 3 hours glassing the fields at a farm I deer hunt... Had a doe sneak up behind me and snort about 20-30' away... Scared the crap out me lol... Turned around and it was a long necked mature doe that turned and trotted off thru a wheat field.... I put her at the top of my hit list.... Retribution for that move will come her way lmao....
Had a mature bald eagle just sitting on the ground in the shade on the edge of a thicket.... Just chilling and looking around... First time I've seen one doing that without eating on anything.... Weird to say the least.... A couple of bucks walked outta the thicket and it flew off.... The bucks looked like eh came right from where it was sitting....
Enjoyed the view and was just glassing when I put them down and look too my left and a smaller (last year's) groundhog walked outta the wheat field the bitch of a doe trotted into.... She was 20 yards from me, looked my way and kept walking out in front of me... Craziest thing I've ever seen ground hog hunting.... She was low too the ground just walking when I picked up the .243 and aimed at the ground just behind her right front shoulder and squeezed it off, she flew into air about a foot and that was it lol... 25 yard shot... One for the books that was lol.... Hung around for about another half hour and that was it for the afternoon.... All in all a great time out....
I bought the .243 over 20 years ago with the intent of it being an all around catch all gun, small and big game with some range too it... Have been pleased with my choice so far....
Hortontoter
Senior Member
Sounds like you had a good time J. I've owned three .243's in my lifetime. My first was a used Savage 99E lever action. I upgraded to a new Ruger 77V, but that gun proved to be a mistake. Even though it had the varmint barrel that gun wouldn't group any type of handloads I tried in it. I traded it for a used Remington 700 ADL in 1976. This gun proved to be the gun I was hoping for. Dime sized groups at 100 yards were a piece of cake. I finally had a gun worthy of some fine tuning. I had the trigger lightened and the travel was removed. This gun has a trigger that makes it a gun you don't want to wear gloves with when deer hunting. Topped with a 6-18X Redfield scope shooting 87 grain Speer boat tailed hollow points pushed by 46 grains of IMR 4350 made this a great groundhog gun. Today it just sits in the safe as I prefer rimfires today.
Dick, I have the ruger 77 field grade, I was too cheap too spring for the varmit barrel at the time and really wasn't impressed with it with the added weight... I dialed it in with factory loads to get 1-1.25" groups at 100 yards, then a couple years ago I got a set of dies for my buddies hornady and we played around and got sub 1" groups with it... I've got the leupold vari x on it in 4x12 and I'm happy with it but have been thinking about rescoping it here in the near future....