lancetkenyon

Within 3/8" on gross and net. Not bad from a photo! True bruiser of a buck.

No way I would have passed him either. The character is amazing. Congrats on a unique bruiser.

Between last night and this morning, I got to do all of my case prep. I resized all 209 pieces, trimmed to .0075 under max length (2.0320" to 2.0325") according to the 2.040" per the reamer specs, uniformed all the primer pockets, de-burred flash holes, chamfered inside and outsides of case necks, and tumbled for a couple hours. This morning, I weight sorted all the Remington brass. I had brass that had variations from 160.6 grains to 164.7 grains. With about 87% within a 2 grain range from 162.2 to 164.2 grains, I will load these for my normal loads, and keep the other 28 for sighting in. Trimmed length. (No, that is not a split case, just a scratch. I checked under my daughter's microscope) Weight sorted brass I also weighed 100 Berger 140gr. VLD Hunting bullets. Amazingly, all were within .1 grain of the advertised weight. From 139.9 grains to 140.1 grains over 100 bullets. Primed all the brass with some Federal Gold Medal Match LR primers. Blue are lighter than my 162.2 to 164.2 range, red are heavier (heavier brass content=less case volume). I will start loading a few for a ladder test sometime this week as time allows.

On the recent hunt with my daughter in her quest for her first elk, we hiked a ton. Way up on top of a hill in a small bowl, we found the remains of an elk that had perished there, sometime a while ago before the fire. While looking at the bones, I found a set of front lower leg bones, with one hoof, nearby each other. It was a great opportunity to teach my daughter about life, pain, and how modern medicine vs. nature works. It was also a lesson about the tenacity of animals to cling to life. How they can endure disabling breaks and go on living. How many of us hunters can say the same, by letting nature take it's course and heal without modern medicine? It gives me great respect for the game we pursue to realize how much they have to endure to make it in the wild. I hope, in all we do, that we strive as ethical hunters to take game cleanly out of respect for the animals we chase. I realize sometimes game cannot be recovered, but we as sportsmen should make every effort to retrieve the game we shoot. Also, realize that not all game that is hit poorly die. Some will recover and continue on. Here are the photos of the leg bones we found. I know I would not want to have to endure a bone knitting itself without a cast.

Brown Santa visited on Christmas Eve, delivering me a new 20MOA Picatinny base, 34mm rings, and a scope level. I also hear my scope payment was processed, and it should be in the mail as early as yesterday. Plus, I talked with my smith yesterday, and we went over all the final designs of the build. He is starting the action work today.

Where are they tight? I am more of a lace-up boot guy, but I do have a few pair of pull-ons. What I do when a boot is too tight and I need it stretched quickly, get them wet and wear them until they are dried. Or you can take them to a boot maker, and they can stretch them too. Ariats are decent boots, I have 2 pair of Ariat work boots. Unless you just don't like them, it might be worth looking into stretching them.

Barrel is off and in my possession. Tentatively wanted by another member.

Bump for the after Christmas crowd.

Nothing wrong with a bolt action .223 over an AR for varmint hunting. You shouldn't need a second shot anyway!!! Make the first one count.

Because it takes time to publish articles, and get all of the facts and your ducks in a row for a possible world record animal to be brought to light. Drying time to get an official score, maybe getting more than one official P&Y scorer to verify what you think you have, etc. Good luck to John in the panel scoring, AZ might get the world record title! I am surprised it has not leaked before now. Good job to all involved for keeping a lid on the story this long.

Being a mule deer hunter, and reading the post before I looked at the photo (and thinking about the comments of seeing the buck while elk hunting).....I was thinking...OK, a 129" 3 point muley. Nice deer but nothing to go crazy over. Then I looked at the photo......WOW. Amazing Coues. Congrats to the hunter, now I see why you were so pumped.

My 12 year old daughter and I were scouting for her elk hunt on Thanksgiving which started the next day. I plan on hunting New Years Day for sure.

You can call Chris Krueger @ Krueger's Creations in Phoenix. I talked to him 2 weeks ago, and I believe he has a tanned medium 17-18" neck desert mule deer cape. 623-582-0237 Quick question, why did you not keep the cape from the deer?

John McClendon. I believe he is a guide in AZ, and an awesome one too. Coming out of "Mohave County", I would bet it is a Strip buck. Congrats to John. Beast of a typical. I have also laid eyes on a possible #2 P&Y velvet Coues from this year. Good year for AZ deer and hunters. And some people think the quality of game is declining in AZ....

I am building a 6.5 SLR, very similar to the .260 Rem ballistic-wise. I plan on shooting out to 1300+ at steel, and looking at the projected ballistics, I would have no issues shooting at deer out to 1K providing conditions are perfect. The 140 Berger VLDs have incredible BCs for the weight. I am also planning on another build in a year or two for my daughter, looking at a 6 CM, 6x47L, or similar, more for shooting LR and some medium game hunting. I sure wish Berger would come out with a 125-130 .257 VLD. Then I would just sling those out of my .25-06 Ackley.

I guess I will start one for my 12 year old daughter, Taylor. She just started her big game hunting career in 2014. Javelina-1 Bull elk-1

Red, white & blue Santa delivered me a package last night.... You can see the 6.5 SLR modified case is formed off a .243 Win case Normal .243 Win case next to the 6.5 SLR modified case Of course, even though it was late and I had to work today, I had to go size at least 3 cases....I guess I will be prepping cases over the holidays!!! The 3 on the left are new 6.5 SLR vs. .243 Win case on right.

Nice! Love an accurate rifle.

I don't know about that. Even at $45/box, it would take quite a while to save money with reloading. I have loaded probably 10K rounds, and I might be breaking even about now....but my savings go into other upgrades (don't tell my wife). To the OP: Just because components are slightly cheaper, the equipment is a lot of money to get into. Press, dies, trimmer, and scale are all necessities. Add the cost of the niceties, trickler, powder throw, plates, case prep tools, high end seating dies, hand primer, etc., and the costs go up and up. Plus, high end components are not cheap either. Bench rest primers, powder, quality bullets, higher quality brass are all getting up there. I would think around $400+ for 200 rounds to start out just in components. A savings of $50, but add the cost of equipment, and it skyrockets. Add the cost of your time to load if you really want to. You can take about $200 off that initial price after you shoot the first 200 rounds by reusing the brass. But unless you shoot a LOT, it will take a while to go through 200 rounds of .257 Roberts. But cost is not why hand loaders get into it. It is the ability to tune loads for velocity and accuracy, ensure precise measurements are made in powder charges, seating depths, case prep, etc. Even with match grade ammo (which costs more than standard if/when it is available), a decent hand loader can get better results from a finicky gun by trying numerous powders, weights, bullets, seating depth, primers, etc.. But again, with trying 4 different powders, it get pricey really quick. I would say loading for my AR is about on cost with cheap factory ammo if not more. But I don't see factory 55FMJ giving me 1/4MOA accuracy with the way it is made. You would not believe the lack of quality control in super high mass produced stuff. I pulled apart 200 factory military rounds. Seating depth was different up to .120" alone, and powder charges were off by over 1 full grain with a 25gr. base average (24.0gr. to 26.1 grains). My varmint loads are thrown, and I check every 5-10 rounds on a beam scale. I would say they are all within 1/10 of a grain. My 69SMKs are individually weighed, and it shows. As others have said, hand loading is relaxing, and the pride in working up a super accurate load is worth the effort. Knowing you have a consistent cartridge is money in the bank.

I will buy my family's licenses on Dec. 31st. Wife, two daughters, my brother, and myself. I would buy my Dad's but he doesn't hunt anymore. Bums me out. I had a LOT of great times hunting with him.

PM returned.

Sold

MIke.....you know that New Year's Resolution we were discussing? It ain't 2015 yet, so hurry up!!!

I don't know if I would say it has been a GREAT year so far..... More like a PHENOMINAL YEAR OF A LIFETIME!!! Amazing animals. Good luck on the Coues hunt.

Nothing looked HUGE to me either, but 2 mature pigs. The one that wandered off screen, and the one in the back would be the two I would try for. The two front pigs looked younger, but still adults. Old boars have longer snouts, and you can sometimes see the cutters on them. The pigs my daughter and I took this year were both old boars out of two different herds (out of three herds we scouted) on the same hillside. One had almost no teeth left, so was getting up there in years. You can definitely tell a size difference between an old boar and a young adult when they are together.