Thread: Building a big gun?

cheers for all the advise guys.
yes I have a 7mm Saum & 284

This year I did fell a bit under gunned tbh that's just my opinion. I lost a good stag which I hit in the front shoulder obviously never found so cannot say 100% it was but im sure of the shot.
my mate also shot a good stag with my 284 at 450M hit it and dropped a few minutes later it was up and walking 2 shots later it was down 2nd wasn't the best placement as it was moving.
at a guess the stag we recovered would have been 130-140kg gutted with head off.

I have shot 2 300 rums now and taken a stag one and it hit like a freight train.
I have also seen at 338 edge at work with the same result.

instead of building something im going to hold out and wait for something 2nd hand to pop up hopefully save a bit of coin if it doesn't work out I will on sell it.

Originally Posted by saum7

cheers for all the advise guys.
yes I have a 7mm Saum & 284

This year I did fell a bit under gunned tbh that's just my opinion. I lost a good stag which I hit in the front shoulder obviously never found so cannot say 100% it was but im sure of the shot.
my mate also shot a good stag with my 284 at 450M hit it and dropped a few minutes later it was up and walking 2 shots later it was down 2nd wasn't the best placement as it was moving.
at a guess the stag we recovered would have been 130-140kg gutted with head off.

I have shot 2 300 rums now and taken a stag one and it hit like a freight train.
I have also seen at 338 edge at work with the same result.

"front shoulder" is a big area and a deer is obviously a 3 dimensional object. Unless you had gotten to both those animals and autopsied them to see the path the bullets took and what damage they did along the way, two is not a very big sample size to be writing off not just the particular bullet you used but 7mm altogether.

Originally Posted by Pommy

"front shoulder" is a big area and a deer is obviously a 3 dimensional object. Unless you had gotten to both those animals and autopsied them to see the path the bullets took and what damage they did along the way, two is not a very big sample size to be writing off not just the particular bullet you used but 7mm altogether.

I agree, sounds like you want to move to a big gun when what you probably should be doing is maximising using what you already have.

Ie making sure you are using projectiles that will perform at the distances you are shooting at, making sure you and the rifle can acheive a level of precision to put the bullet where you want it, and also learn a bit more about deer anatomy (Flyblown on here has done some good posts on this, deer anatomy and ideal points of aim)

Most the deer ive shot recently dont go far, only a few leaps at best, many poleaxe on the spot, even well out beyond 600 yards. 162gr Amax hitting high and forward in the front shoulder tends to put huge shock into the central nervous system sacking them hard as well as big tissue damage so they bleed out not long after hitting the deck

Originally Posted by saum7

cheers for all the advise guys.
yes I have a 7mm Saum & 284

This year I did fell a bit under gunned tbh that's just my opinion. I lost a good stag which I hit in the front shoulder obviously never found so cannot say 100% it was but im sure of the shot.
my mate also shot a good stag with my 284 at 450M hit it and dropped a few minutes later it was up and walking 2 shots later it was down 2nd wasn't the best placement as it was moving.
at a guess the stag we recovered would have been 130-140kg gutted with head off.

I have shot 2 300 rums now and taken a stag one and it hit like a freight train.
I have also seen at 338 edge at work with the same result.

instead of building something im going to hold out and wait for something 2nd hand to pop up hopefully save a bit of coin if it doesn't work out I will on sell it.

ok...so lets look at this from a tight wads point of view......Scottish heritage coming out in me.....

what projectile were you using and what weight????
can you achieve a SIMILAR outcome eg give you more hurt at terminal end buy changing things up,using what you already have...can you for instance go heavier projectile????

pretty sure 90% of us have lost an animal at some point in time.....reguardless of the range shot was taken.....its been an eye opener hunting with a dog ,finding something dead is just sooooo much easier...finding something when the shot wasnt spot on is much easier too...

Ive been around long enough now to have heard from trusted folks without an axe to grind...that sometimes shit happens and animals just carry on as if nothing happened....know of a stag that was still holding hinds 2 days after being shot too far back!!!!! needless to say he was dispatched and person responsible wasnt invited back onto that farm again.....
tales of three legged stags still holding hinds too..... sometimes they just dont get hit right,sometimes projectiles just dont do what they should...52grn hollow point speer arent supposed to tumble without opening neither are the 50grn version,yet Ive got 3-4 recovered projectiles that failed to open and tumbled.....note recovered projectiles as animal still died....
MAYBE a change of projectile type or weight will give you more smack down......I believe its definately worth exploring the option before forking out some serious coin on something bigger that cant physically deliver more energy onto target itself,most of the gain will go into hillside behind it.