Originally Posted by
marlinman93
For a number of years after I stopped being a deer sniper at long range with my bolt action rifle, I started hunting with my old Marlin lever action rifles. I think the first was my 1881 Marlin in .45-70, which was overkill for deer, but certainly did a nice job. I continued on using a number of different 1893, 1894, 1889, etc. Marlins I collected, and took a buck every year at a lot closer than I did with my deer sniper rifle.
Then one year I thought taking one of my old Ballard rifles would be fun too! I have a Ballard #8 Union Hill in .38-55, but being a schuetzen rifle it has a small Farrow style buttplate. Not a big deal to me as I hold it off my upper arm as you're supposed to, and figured I'd do the same for deer.
When we got to deer camp and I opened up my gun case it got a lot of chuckles from my brother and two nephews. They all wanted to know if I'd been hitting the bottle or loaded the wrong gun in the case?
The next morning we headed to our favorite spot, and after a 1 1/2 hour hike to the top of the ridge I chose to head West, while my brother and nephew headed East. His son in law followed me and we headed for a good draw. Once there I said I was stopping at the top of the draw and just going to sit and see what came out. After about 15 minutes of sitting he laid his bolt action rifle down and relaxed, while I kept my Ballard across my lap. Soon does began coming out of the draw, and we counted 14 of them. He again laid his rifle down, but I got mine readier by chambering a cartridge, and pointing it forward towards the draw. A minute later I saw antlers appear above the crest of the draw on the far side, and raised my rifle to my shoulder. When the buck's shoulder appeared I cocked the hammer, and my nephew asked me what I was looking at just as I touched off the set trigger!
The buck was about 140 yds., and the 255 gr. bullet hit his shoulder and dropped him instantly. But as we were high fiving and celebrating the buck began kicking and we watched him roll end over end all the way to the bottom of the draw! That kinda took the life out of our celebration as we pondered the drag up out of the draw.
The big buck went over 200 pounds and was 4x5 rack. One of my best mule deer bucks ever, and sweeter having taken him with a gun made in the 1870's.