300 Whisper Owners... Please sound off!

[patwa]

I just finished putting my second 300-221 together. It all started when I wanted to build a rifle my daughter could shoot. I wanted something that would not have too much kick and that round in an AR sounded like a good combination. I started experimenting with loads for hunting, and found some good accurate loads with 125 gr ballistic tips and 19gr H110, 3/4 inch at a hundred. I really liked the low recoil and good accuracy. Some were asking about reports on how effective it is hunting deer, and I got to take it out last season deer hunting. It turned out my little girl was not ready to shoot yet, but I took the rifle out to test it out. I shot four deer including a 180 lb axis, and they all dropped where they were shot. The distances were 70 to 110 yards. Needless to say, I was impressed. I had been hunting with an '06 for years, and it was a nice change to kill a deer without blowing a big hole and ruining a lot of meat. I took the rifle out again for turkey season this year. The first day, I killed a piglet, and walking back to the camp saw some corsican sheep. I got a good rest and shot. The nice thing about the round is that with the low recoil, I kept sight of the sheep and saw it get hit. I checked the distance later and it was over 150 yards. It had walked about 20 feet and was dead from a heart shot when I got there. The next day, I shot another pig, about 70 lbs, and again it dropped where shot. It was nice that almost no meat was lost due to the shot. We do get some large pigs that show up on occasion, and it will be interesting to see how it performs on the larger animals.