ARTrooper

In wisconsin, the main calibers I am seeing used to take deer are .308 of coarse, plus .300 blk (subs and supers) and 6.5 grendel for the ar15. Are you shooting 🦖 with a 450 bushmaster? Lol. I have also taken at least 8 deer with .300 blk 125 gr nosler ballistic tips, 6 deer with .260 rem 120 gr nosler ballistic tips, and now 1 deer with 6mm arc 103 gr hornady eld-x. sadly the 6mm arc kill wasn’t as quick as I like because it dumped all its energy so quick, it didn’t exit. Lungs were hit real good but as soon as the entry hole got plugged, it didn’t belled out very fast since it was bleeding internally, and there wasn’t much of a blood trail at all. I think I am gonna load 95 gr Barnes LRX for the 6mm arc so I have the weight retention for consistent pass through. Shooting that deer with the 6mm arc might be the biggest take away from hunting with any caliber. What do you want the bullet to do? Pass through and create a nice spurty blood trail and be able to go through heavy muscle and bone, or do you want your bullets to hit the sweet spot and dump tons of energy very quickly in soft tissue? Cup core, bonded, and monolithic bullets perform very differently. I think I am gonna start to go just for bonded and monolithic for deer size game and up.

I actually saw a huge increase this year on the number of ARs used to hunt deer. I hunt public usually and easily saw over 50 hunters this year. I would say at least 1/3 of them had an AR. Last year was probably 10%. And the ones using them are getting smarter and using proper calibers and bullets for humane kills. seems the gun grabbers and their agenda has only made ARs more popular in every aspect of their use. ☺️

8 more boxes of hornady 103 grain eld-x 6mm arc… since I can’t find the brass. $35 a box isn’t to bad. wife was funny and called it “horndaddy” thinking that was actually how it was pronounced. 😂

My jig and saw are coming on christmas. I been sorting my brass. I will probably do the lake city brass first, but depending on how much I have, I might use others that have been reported as good to go.

Plus their prices look pretty good too! Maybe I will just take a drive over there. Lol

Thank you to everyone who responded. Tom I got home late from the woods. I text you but wasn’t sure if you still wanted me to call you.

Sounds good, as soon as the sun goes down and I am out of the woods I will give you a call. Thanks Tom. thank you for your input sagebrush

Hey guys, sorry I have been MIA, life has been busy and stressful. So many of you know I have been collecting stuff to begin reloading. I am close to having everything I need besides reloading dies. I have been doing a lot of research into the many types of dies. I understand many people use small base dies for semi-autos or for using ammo in multiple rifles so that is more likely to properly feed and seat in the chamber. But I know this dies work the brass more. I currently only have one rifle per caliber and all are ARs. .260 rem, 6mm arc, and .300 blk are the first 3 I am gonna reload, maybe some of my others in the future if my ammo stockpile runs low or ammo because more difficult to find. What is everyone’s opinion? Small base FL dies or standard FL dies? Probably gonna go with hornady or rcbs until i am good enough at reloading to justify Redding or some other top of the line dies.

I was a machine gunner a decade ago in Afghanistan, I know what you mean. But you should be able to build a long range 308ar at 12-14 pounds with scope. I went with a modified bull barrel on mine and that is the one thing I would change. I would go more for a gunner barrel. The rare few can even get down to 10 pounds. but the M1A is a great rifle, I would love to have one for the history of it.

Sounds like you can’t go wrong than with 6.5 creedmoor or .260 Remington. as for me, I tell everyone that questions me about hunting with a 308ar, “1 bullet is for the deer, the other 24 are for the crazies out there on two legs.” After all, Wisconsin did have a several hunters murdered over a trespassing incident years ago and when I was a kid we had permission to pull a deer out through some private property at noon and when we did we ended up in a stand off with other hunters that were given permission to hunt there. Cops were called and things were worked out, but still it was a stressful 10 min or so. But I have never had to shoot a deer with my .260 or .300 blk with more than one round from a large magazine.

Yes you are correct, my mistake.

https://www.kakindustry.com/lr-308-parts/magnum/kak-300-wsm-complete-19in-magnum-upper-w-m-lok Kak makes BCGs and uppers, and other parts just for the Winchester Short Magnum calibers. Sadly they only offer the .300 wsm complete upper. the difference is kinda like running a 6.5 grendel in an AR15; need a difference size bolt because of the wider case diameter, and they added another extractor to help with reliability. I am not sure if this is necessary, but the added bolt face area is. also, just like with the grendel, the wider case body to these Short Magnums create feeding issues in magazines. I have seen review of bulging in mags with to much loaded in. Best results seem to come from lancer mags, aluminum mags, or 10 round mags. And it took me a while to figure this out, but from what I can tell, KAK’s upper has a larger cut ejection port for ejecting the larger size cases. At first I was worried about getting these Winchester short magnums to fit in standard 308ar mags, so I played around at several of my local gun stores and have been able to get several 270 wsm and 300 wsm factory loads to fit in the mags. sadly 300 wsm is over $4.00 a round right now, 270 wsm is over $2.50 a round, and 7mm wsm is over $2.00 a round. oh and barrels seem to be impossible to find so would have to more than likely go custom. I plan on doing a 270 wsm hopefully within the next year or two because I like how flat it shoots and it has lower recoil than the other short magnums. Plus 270 wsm has grown in popularity around me for taking deer and pre Covid was getting more common in the stores. And 270 bullets are are one of the more common ones thanks to the decades of popularity of the 270 Winchester. My whole point of wanting one is for big game at those 300+ yard shots. Which in my area isn’t that uncommon. Flatter shooting and more energy in target creates a more humane kill. If I was just shooting steel out to 1000 yards, I would just use my 260 Remington.

I agree jtallen. And most of these federal agencies do things that aren’t necessary and our states can’t handle themselves. Federal government has to much power and to much involvement in state matters. Plain and simple.

I definitely agree with the last. ATF’s main purpose is to infringe on our 2nd amendment rights. Rarely do they do anything worth my tax dollars.

At work we are even just shooting a fraction of what we usually shoot because we are basically out of rifle rounds and low on pistol as well. I have been seeing prices come down and availability increasing. So that’s good news

finally got my LaRue R.A.T. Stock with cleaning rods I was wanting to put on my 6mm ARC after I ordered it over 4 months ago. I ended up calling them a few days ago and they said it was still out of stock and expected at least another 8 weeks till they got more. Maybe calling them made them rush it. I like it so far, but it is very tight in my aero precision buffer tube (mil-spec). And my tube is matching the 1.148” that the stock is meant for. Hopefully it I’ll loosen up. Also, got some more bullets today for the 6mm arc

We actually got a smaller one for camping also. Lol. I cook on mine almost every day. Made elk steaks and other stuff on it tonight!

Al my mouth is watering! Hope you cut it super thick

Well and food is cheaper and easier to come by than ammunition. 😂

Some day when life settles down. I need to figure out what to cook for our Wisconsin shoot. The other guys made some pretty amazing food the first one.

The pork roasts turned out perfect and the venison shank just fell off the bone in three big pieces. Best way to cook a shank for sure.

The wife had to clean out one of our freezers because it was frosting over. Well we ended up haven’t to cook a bunch of meat. Smoking 6 pork roasts and a venison shank.

Lol. Sometimes we cook for two guests but otherwise just a family of 5 with our oldest being 7. We just can’t cook small. 😂

Lol. I only have 3 Tom. They just have so much energy they run around so fast you see blurs and think there is more. 😂