[Kingcreek]

First day of the second Illinois firearm season was Thursday. I worked in the am and went out to sit on the edge of a picked corn field. Cold and windy and light sleet and snow started with about 30 minutes of legal shooting time left.
My older 870 (early express) with a slug barrel and rifle sights and sling, and 3 rounds of plain ol' green and yellow boxed Remington "sluggers". its sighted in at 50 yards.
10 minutes left and a group of does came out followed by a 9pt buck at a little over 80 yards and angling slightly away. There were other deer on the other side of the field and his attention was on them when I put the sights jst below the line of his back, took a breath and let some out, and squeezed off one shot. He bolted about 25 yards, turned and dropped. That big chunk of lead had passed thru both lungs and took most of the aorta off the top of the heart. The exit was about the same size as the entrance, no slug found.
Field dressed 200 pounds. about right for one of our 2.5 year old bucks here in corn and creekbottom country.
I'm done butchering and will now clean up and oil the old express and convert it back to home defense for the other 51 weeks of the year. IOW, remove the mag plug, put the mag extention and barrel clamp back on, and change the rifled choke tube for the IC.

[Biker]

Good on you! Now, if ya don't take a hankerin' to that liver, send it my way. I ate all mine...
:)

Biker

[Gordon]

Excellent big deer, under ideal conditions ;) . Good shot ,sir!

[justsurvivingincalifornia]

Did you take pictures? Or is this all talk?

[Kingcreek]

No pictures, but the story and the deer are genuine.
I got home late with bad weather coming in and had my hands full yesterday. 14" of blowing snow during the night, 3 ft drifts. after spending most of the day on the tractor/loader I had to scramble to skin with some daylight and butcher before it froze into a solid deer-cicle. temp was +5 last night.
our deer run big 'round here with mature does averaging 150 field dressed and mature bucks anywhere from 180 and up. I know of 2 bucks taken this year that weighed on a scale of 254 and 240 and a 274 pounder was killed on land next to me last year. I arrowed an 11pt in Oct that went 215.

[IDriveB5]

:) Good deer, better story! Whata great tool the 870 is!

[Fred Fuller]

Good shootin'- congratulations!

lpl/nc

[Dave McCracken]

Congrats. No surprise to me, 870 users make plenty of meat each year.

[Kingcreek]

Thanks fellas.
It could be noted that I used an old combination with which I am very familiar. I have tried other slugs but the plain old Remington slugs grouped the best years ago and I stuck with them. I know there are scoped rigs out there with rifled barrels shooting sabots at near rifle ranges but I never saw that as needed for my hunting situations.
80 yards is pushing my personal limit with the 870 and rifle sights but I kill plenty of deer with arrows at 10 to 30 yards so I know I can be within slug range.