A deer hunt 3 and 120 years in the making

It’s opening day of firearms deer season up here and I filled my buck tag tonight with a nice little 8 pt.

The buck is nothing special, but this particular hunt was very special to me. There is an area in the slough we own that I have long been eyeballing where a lot of trails converge and I’m constantly seeing deer coming in an out of. Nobody has hunted in this area for 30 years at least. Well 3 years ago I went on a little spot and stalk with my guide gun in there and found the perfect spot to put a box stand. Well with work and kids and other stuff going on it just kept getting pushed off and it never happened.

2 years ago I bought a sporterized Krag from a local pawn shop. My goal with this rifle was to make it into a fully functional modern hunting rifle. Build details here.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/my-finished-1898-krag-hunting-rifle-project.834355/

Now the whole time I was working on that rifle I had litterally been day dreaming of hunting that spot with this rifle. Only problem is I never built the stand!

Well finally this summer I put the time aside and me and my father in law and brother in law built a 12 ft base, and just two weeks ago I built a stand for it with everything I’ve always wanted in a stand. I got all the finishing touches done just this past tuesday.

Meanwhile with the mechanical work done on the rifle last year, this fall I put a great deal of effort into finding a consistent and reliable load for this rifle. This is the most challenging rifle I have ever handloaded for. I have shot probably a dozen different bullets in it and 7 different powders. The rifle shoots to dramatic different points of aim like nothing I’ve ever seen. Changing from one bullet to another can be 10 minutes difference in POI. Most combinations don’t seam to have a velocity node within the safe load range. Then just when you would find a load that shot consistently it would be so temperature sensitive that it would not stay on the node over the temperature range I need. Well after probably 500 rounds of testing since I bought the rifle, half of that in the last month, I finally found the load. I have been shooting cold bore shots in as many different weather conditions and temps as I could and I finally have it shooting cold bore into a 3” square target at 100 yards from 10 to 70 degrees F and varying wind each and every time.

Well this all finally came together this afternoon. Like a said this is a very average buck for me, but this one was very special to me. Not only did I finally make my new hunting spot a reality but I got to take this deer with a 120 year old rifle. Very very pleased.

Lovely morning to be in the deer stand. Few more tags to fill.

Johnm1 said:

I love it! What was your final load? I read your build thread and you had some good results with a couple of different loads but I didn't see a final decision.

I admire your skills. I too hunted with my sporterized Krag this year and had a perfect vintage hunt with perfect vintage carbine. The work was all done on mine and very nice. For my sporterized Krag I settled on the standard military load using a 220 grain round nose (soft point) that limited the trajectory to original specs out of the carbine. I also used the Redfield no drill peep sight that came on the rifle when I bought it. So I was content with a 150 yard zero that had a plus or minus of 3" out to 180 yards.

You can see my Krag's story here : https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/desert-mule-deer.858522/

Again, great work!

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It is 40.5 grains of RL15 under a 165 grain Sierra gameking SP with winchester LR primers.

Beautiful rifle you have there

sage5907 said:

View attachment 870716 Great looking rifle and what a pretty deer. I do some taxidermy work and when I see a pretty cape like that it really makes me smile. The deer is bigger than what it looks like in the picture because the rifle is closer to the camera. The stock on the rifle looks to be a Fajen Aristocrat. If that is in fact what it is they were made in Warsaw, Missouri by the Reinhart Fajen Company out of great Missouri american walnut. Winchester also purchased most of their rifle stock wood in Missouri back in the 1950's because the wood was prime for making rifle stocks. Great pictures.

I am familiar with that stock because I have a stock like that that fits a pre 64 Model 70 Winchester featherweight. This one was made in Fajen's custom shop and the quality is very high.

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I hope you find a rifle to put in that one. Thanks for the info

Random 8 said:

Nice buck and cool rifle. Glad you found one moving in the daytime. My cameras look like a singles dating site from sunset to sunrise, only the ladies coming out at respectable hours.

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Ours just went into rut here so you shouldn’t be too far behind. A week ago they were all nocturnal, but now we have bucks chasing doe’s in daylight. I saw three 8 points yesterday all following the same doe including this one.

Johnm1 said:

I wish we had more than 1 deer a year. But that isn’t the case in Arizona.

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We are blessed with a great abundance of deer here.

Random 8 said:

Yeah, I'm hunting 40 miles from Canada, so they should be moving in the day, but are not. There's several families that hunt the area, big groups of 10-20 each, probably 150 total hunters in the 10 mile or so area that I'm in touch with. As of this afternoon, 2 bucks, 5 does total. Tough weekend on the N side of Sax-Zim. Wish I had doe tags, would have punched out yesterday afternoon. Did some walking around the perimeter of my woods this afternoon to see what's happening. I've got multiple deer locked up in heavy cover, 2 stands on the periphery of said heavy cover. They haven't moved in the day. I think the buck I'm after might have moved in daylight, but on the neighbors property. He crossed my camera moving towards the doe haven just after shooting hours, and by his tracks today, he stayed there all night through today. Still have 2 more weekends, so we'll see. Been a tough couple of years in Northern MN for us with the unusually cold weather setting in early.

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I’m about 100 miles south of you then. Like I said the rut just finally got going here, so should be coming to you. I bet by next weekend you’ll see more daylight activity. It was extremely quiet here today with the wind blowing like it was. I think I heard 2 shots all day including my father in law that shot a doe this evening.