ARTrooper Posted December 2, 2021 Report Share Posted December 2, 2021 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. ☺️ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff R Posted December 4, 2021 Report Share Posted December 4, 2021 (edited) Thanks guys! He should be well fed he fell a couple hundred yard from the feeder I keep filled for them 6 months out of the year! I don't see too many AR platforms here but I don't get out much during the gun season since I hunt on my own property. My nephew hunts with a 450 Bushmaster as well. My brother uses a Marlin 1895 in 45/70 and so did I before moving to the 450 Bushmaster a few years back. Lots of folks mention the 350 Legend and are using that caliber for deer in this area. I looked at it but it seemed "whimpy" only shooting a 160 grain bullet about the same velocity as a 450 pushes a 250 grain bullet. I mentioned that in a conversation about the upcoming gun season with some guys at pool league recently and was quickly reminded how much less the recoil the 350 Legend has compared to the 450 Bushmaster. "Pussies" I replied.......I guess giving a round a catchy name like "Legend" and not thumping their delicate little shoulders sells deer rifles, in any case it's not on my list anyplace. Ohio started opening up deer hunting to many straight wall rifle cartridges and has expanded the list to include some that can be built on AR platforms so it wouldn't surprise me if there are a lot of them in use in these parts during the gun season. and rightfully so. It's a great all weather platform and super quick follow up shots, plus extended range past shot gun slugs which were mandated here for decades....... Edited December 4, 2021 by Cliff R Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARTrooper Posted December 4, 2021 Report Share Posted December 4, 2021 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sisco Posted December 4, 2021 Report Share Posted December 4, 2021 Passed on deer hunting this year. Our local County Deer Committee is running our deer population into the ground, because the county forestry and conservation officials want to knock the deer herd down to nothing to keep the loggers happy so they don’t eat young trees. So they have been giving out 8,000 doe permits per year for the county the last five years! At that level of harvest the population is rock bottom. That and the overpopulation of bear harvesting fawns every spring are decimating our population. The WDNR have found bears, coyotes and bobcats are actually killing more deer, mostly fawns, then wolves. The wolves take some, mostly adults. Fukked up deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARTrooper Posted December 5, 2021 Report Share Posted December 5, 2021 @Siscothat sucks to hear that brother. I think they want to do something similar here to prevent crop damage, but they seem to be failing miserably. Deer harvests are down and populations here are supposedly the highest they have been in 40 years. Even after the 9 day hun season I am still seeing over 12 deer at a time in the corn fields. A lot of it I think is due to private land management. maybe come hunt down with me next year 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sisco Posted December 5, 2021 Report Share Posted December 5, 2021 2 hours ago, ARTrooper said: @Siscothat sucks to hear that brother. I think they want to do something similar here to prevent crop damage, but they seem to be failing miserably. Deer harvests are down and populations here are supposedly the highest they have been in 40 years. Even after the 9 day hun season I am still seeing over 12 deer at a time in the corn fields. A lot of it I think is due to private land management. maybe come hunt down with me next year 😉 I may do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff R Posted December 5, 2021 Report Share Posted December 5, 2021 "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?" Where I hunt here there are few opportunities for really long shots. They deer are almost always moving, and more times than not it will be thru thick/heavy brush. This happens simply because everything here is cut over or logged heavily. Most woods on dry ground has been pull-dozed up for farm land. What's left is thick and the deer stay in it. I also quit heart/lung shooting deer at least 20 years ago. Even on hunting trips where longer shots may present themselves. I use heavier tougher bullets and shoot for the front shoulders. I want bust the chit out of them so they don't travel far. I do the same hold with my cross-bow and it's rare to have a deer travel over 50 yards and most pile right up when you whack them really hard thru the shoulders. That change was made after loosing a few really nice bucks with heart/lung shots that drifted a tad high, low or to the rear some. What makes those hits even worse even when they are good ones is that they can run a LONG ways before they bleed out AND an organ can cover the hole(s) slowing or even stopping a visible blood trail to follow them. Case in point. Just last month one of my friends was hunting my property and hit a nice buck with his bow, pics of it is in a previous post. It was a "heart/lung" hold but drifted back a little further than ideal. The deer left an easy to follow blood trail for about 150 yards, then got up against a tree and "worked" the arrow out. From that point on NOTHING to follow, up to that point buckets of blood thru the woods. The only reason I found him was following turned up leaves and staying pretty much in the same general direction he was headed in the first place. He traveled another 150 yards of so after the arrow came out, got into a big thicket and luckily stayed on a main trail thru it or I probably would have never found him......FWIW...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unforgiven Posted December 5, 2021 Report Share Posted December 5, 2021 Great write up brother glad you are well 🍻🍻 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARTrooper Posted December 5, 2021 Report Share Posted December 5, 2021 11 hours ago, Sisco said: I may do that. I sure hope you do 😁 @Cliff R I have hear of people purposefully shooting the front shoulders out, but idk if I could being myself to pull the trigger on that shot unless I had no other option. I hunt for meat and try to have as little of damaged meat as possible. But I can totally understand why you take that shot. I have seen heart shot deer go over 150 yards into some thick stuff and lung shot deer go over a mile. Some animals just have more of a will to live than others. this year I shot two doe actually in the head. I usually don’t take that shot, but one I spooked and was behind a tree only presenting its head and neck at about 100 yards. The other was about 40 yards from me and again behind a tree only presenting its head. Both those deer dropped instantly with my .260 rem. Idk if I would have taken those shots though with the 6mm arc, on duty I have shot deer in the head at point blank range with my .223 duty rifle that were hit by a car, and the bullet hit their very angled skull and deviated from its course, not striking the brain. Now would that have happened with a bonded or monolithic bullet? Probably not. so right now I think I am gonna go with the heaviest and best bc bullets for hunting that are either bonded or monolithic. Unfortunately the bonded or monolithic 6mm bullets available are mostly made for the .243 win that shoots shorter and lighter bullets 100 gr or lighter. Hopefully hornady and other companies start creating heavier 6mm bonded and monolithic bullets because of the growing popularity of 6mm arc and 6mm creedmoor. As of right now the heaviest bonded bullet for 6mm is 90 gr and the heaviest monolithic is 95 gr. and to get back on post topic, I really need to find someone to paint my rifles because I don’t trust myself to do it and I don’t want to spend several hundred to have a shop do it. Lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff R Posted December 5, 2021 Report Share Posted December 5, 2021 Wisconsin is a hike from here but if you were closer we'd hang your AR in the shop and camo it over a couple of adult beverages! "Great write up brother glad you are well 🍻🍻" Many thanks. I know I drift off topic often but try to add useful information here and there. Since I started busting deer in the shoulders my success rate has been 100 percent. I've actually shot three deer with my crossbow including one dandy buck that dropped right in their tracks busting them hard thru both "plates". For hunting Elk out West I use a Barnes 175 grain bullet pushed by 42 grains (going my memory here so don't copy it) of Varget. It's a very consistent and accurate load in all three of our 308 AR's we take on that trip. The second pic is a bullet recovered from a huge buck I shot with my 450 Bushmaster at just over 200 yards. It traveled thru both shoulders and was wadded up against the hide on the far side. He never took another step....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
98Z5V Posted December 5, 2021 Report Share Posted December 5, 2021 6 hours ago, ARTrooper said: so right now I think I am gonna go with the heaviest and best bc bullets for hunting that are either bonded or monolithic. Unfortunately the bonded or monolithic 6mm bullets available are mostly made for the .243 win that shoots shorter and lighter bullets 100 gr or lighter. Hopefully hornady and other companies start creating heavier 6mm bonded and monolithic bullets because of the growing popularity of 6mm arc and 6mm creedmoor. As of right now the heaviest bonded bullet for 6mm is 90 gr and the heaviest monolithic is 95 gr. Berger has two good options for you, brother, for the ARC, here they are: https://bergerbullets.com/product/6-mm-108-grain-elite-hunter/ ^^^ Run Hornady 108 ELD-M data to come up with a load for that one... https://bergerbullets.com/product/6-mm-115-grain-very-low-drag-vld-hunting/ ^^^ Gonna have to run Hornady ELD-M data to load that one, and start 1.0 full grain lower, and work up... That one will take some time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARTrooper Posted December 10, 2021 Report Share Posted December 10, 2021 On 12/5/2021 at 4:12 PM, 98Z5V said: Berger has two good options for you, brother, for the ARC, here they are: https://bergerbullets.com/product/6-mm-108-grain-elite-hunter/ ^^^ Run Hornady 108 ELD-M data to come up with a load for that one... https://bergerbullets.com/product/6-mm-115-grain-very-low-drag-vld-hunting/ ^^^ Gonna have to run Hornady ELD-M data to load that one, and start 1.0 full grain lower, and work up... That one will take some time... I looked at them, but I don’t see anything about them being bonded bullets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nja112189 Posted December 18, 2021 Report Share Posted December 18, 2021 I thought that I would bump this because I am looking for ideas for a twin in 6.5cm. It's a 556 and not "camo" I've shot 4 deer with it. I've used Fusions and Vortex with good results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unforgiven Posted December 18, 2021 Report Share Posted December 18, 2021 Good shooting brother 👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cunuckgaucho Posted December 18, 2021 Report Share Posted December 18, 2021 What he said... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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