ASSESSMENT OF THE SHOT Being up front with the readers, I
will say that the fi rst round downrange was, in my estimation, farther than I pre- fer if shooting 224 caliber bullets at big game. This deer was all of 165 pounds, and was clearly able to soak up the new Norma bullet without blinking. He was dead , but in my view just didn’t know it at the time. With both bullets entering the
The author displays a coyote taken with Savage Predator 22-250 and Norma 55-grain Oryx.
least by my standards, but the deer was standing broadside, the air was dead still, and I did have for support a Bog- Pod extended to the standing position. Leaning my back against a steel
fence post, I cradled the Savage Preda- tor over the extended shooting sticks, dropped the cross hairs on the vitals behind the shoulder, and touched off the first round of Norma’s 55-grain soft-nosed load. At the shot the buck just shuddered and bounded off not fast, but at a steady pace, then came to
a sudden stop 300 yards downrange. As I was in a cut corn fi eld without a speck of cover, I had no choice but to again set my cross hairs on the vitals, but only after turning the ranging tur- ret to the appropriate 300-yard mark. Then I touched off the AccuTrigger on the Savage varmint rig. Again the deer shuddered, but didn’t drop. This time, however, the critter was not moving off like before, but now simply walked away, only to tip over about 75 yards farther out into the fi eld’s center.
vitals on the deer’s left side, and about two inches apart, it was obvious that at the extended range I was shooting that the 55-grain bullet had started to run out of energy. I have seen this on other occasions when taking antelope with my 223 WSSM. This is a 4,000 f.p.s. 224 caliber round, but at some distance out from the muzzle even this speedster tends to cause a critter’s demise to ap- pear in somewhat slow motion much of the time. Inside 100 yards, I have witnessed
the 22-250 with a varmint style 55-grain bullet kill 1,300-pound buffalo with a single well-placed shot to the neck. I would not say this in print if I didn’t have witnesses who could completely back up my statements. It all comes down to bullet placement … each and every time. On the same ranch I have observed a hunter put fi ve rounds of 300 Win. Mag. into a big bull buffalo, which required the cowboys to mount up and ride down the critter to fi nish it off with … what else? … 22-250s, or in another case a 30-30 Winchester. Only a few days after dropping
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that fi rst buck with the Norma ammuni- tion, I was faced with taking a second animal that had come through my home place in real bad shape. With the bless- ing of the state’s Game, Fish and Parks agency, I dropped a slug into this deer’s neck at 75 yards. Unlike the fi rst harvest- ed animal, this guy dropped stone dead in his tracks. Placement, plus enough bullet to hold together until reaching the animal’s brain stem and spine, had done the job cleanly and effectively. PUSHING THE ENVELOPE
By the time I had moved into the
third and fi nal deer season in western South Dakota, my partners and I had totaled up quite a string of big game examples with the 224 caliber cartridges. These animals consisted of both white- tail deer and antelope during the last cull hunting season of the year. Norma’s
Page 46 Spring 2012
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