Fallow Deer with the 300 whisper

[d-mon]

Hi,
Merry Christmas to all of you.
I finished the year quite well as i harvested my first fallow deer with a 300 whisper yesterday morning.

I went stalking early morning with a friend of mine on an open farm on the east coast of the north island of New Zealand.
We spotted 3 deer in a field. One of them was a male, still in velvet.
I carefully planned my stalk, as the wind was very dodgy and blowing in all kind of directions. After a 20 min stalk I managed to get within a 100yrds from the animals. I had only a small window of view on the deer, having two big fern trees covering most of its body.
I took aim behind the shoulder, and squeeze the trigger when everything looked right. After the loud crack of the shot I did not hear the classic "thump" of the bullet hitting the boiler room. Animals started the escape to the nearest bush.
My friend who was spotting the whole scene from 200yards away, did not believe that my bullet had connected with the deer.
After inspection of the ground, where the animals went and not being able to find any blood trace we concluded that I had missed, probably due to a big flinch and not "following through" after the shot.

We decided to carry on for another opportunity...

To be continued...

ND

[Rikky Lee]

Bad luck. What was the load btw??

[d-mon]

So we carried on.
After another 30 minutes of wandering we found another fallow, but this time it was a hind grazing peacefully.We decided to spare her as at this time of year she might have a fawn or be about give birth to one.
We then crossed the next paddock. As we did so, we suddenly realised that a deer had been watching us all along. He was at about 90 yards.
I slowly raise my rifle to prepare for the shot but I was moving to much. I asked my friend to stand up so that I could rest on his shoulder.
I then take a good aim, and trying not to repeat the mistake of the earlier time of the morning gently squeezed the trigger.

This time I heard the clear sound of the impact. The deer turned around and walked a few steps before collapsing.
After examination of the corpse, I noticed that the bullet went completly through. Bullet entrance hole behind the shoulder and exit hole on the other side were about the same size.

To be continued...
ND

[d-mon]

So, after this long story I will go through the technical details that most of you would like to know:

I used a 300whisper rifle that I built a few years ago. It is based on a Cz fox action that I blue printed and rebarrelled with a Border Barrel tube with a 1 in 8" twist.(http://www.border-barrels.com/)
The barrel is 16" long.
The suppressor is made locally here in NZ, and performs reasonably well.
The load that I used to take the deer above consists of a 125gr ballistic tip pushed by 16.5gr of VV N110, and primed with a federal small rifle match primer.
The bullet exit at about 2300fps. I had tried some loads with 17gr but some cases seemed a bit harder to extract. So again, this 16.5 gr load is safe in my rifle but might not be in yours...
This load groups in a 2" circle at 120yards. It might not be impressive by today's benchrest standards but I have not tried any other load development either.
I also shoot a 240gr MK with 9 gr of VV N110 that consistently groups in 2" at 200yards.
The only issue I have here is that the supersonic round shoots 2Mils up and 1/2 mil right of where the subsonic round shoots. So to avoid being confused I always zero for one load or the other depending if I am going hunting or plinking.

On this particular hunt, I decided to go with the supersonic load because :
1-I was hunting deer for the first time with the whisper
2- I had no idea how the subsonic round would have performed on deer
3- I did not know the terrain and how hard it would be to track an eventually wounded animal
4-I was invited by a friend for the first time there, and did not want to leave a bad impression in case things turned into custard.

Now for the terminal performances of the bullet:

I shot the fallow sideway. The bullet entered the left side just behind the shoulder and exited on the opposite side midway in the rib cage.
After further investigation I noticed that the diameter of expansion went about to 3" into the meat,next to the shoulder blade, and then the rest of the cavity through lungs and the the other side was about an inch in diameter.

My conclusions so fare are that:
1-this load is adequate for fallow deer (as long as you do not flinch and place your shot well)
2-penetration through the rib cage is good. Also I am not sure how it would have performed if the bullet had gone through the shoulder blade.
3- destruction of tissues was sufficient to provide a fast kill.

Of course, shooting only one animal is nowhere enough to establish any definite conclusion about the performances of this particular load, but I thought that this experience could help the whisper community a little bit more.


Nicolas .

[Spook]

Nicolas...Pics?

[Rikky Lee]

Your comments on the 125 BT echo my experience but also reflect why I am playing with the 130 grain Barnes X.

Look forward to the results of the 240 SMK next time!

[d-mon]

Hello Spook,
Sorry, I did not have my camera with me that day.

ND

[Spook]

Originally Posted by d-mon

Hello Spook,
Sorry, I did not have my camera with me that day.

ND

Well if you ever get the urge to put up some pics of where you hunt.... always wanted to go to NZ.