Now that the Montana Big Game season is grinding to a halt, I thought I would publish another update on this years hunting.
Montana requires a drawing process be followed for several big game species. My goal this year was to shoot a cow elk with my 9x57 Mauser. Unfortunately, I did not draw a cow elk tag.
I hunt from my home here south of Helena. This is heavy timbered country and mountainous. Perfect for an iron sighted '98 Mauser in the venerable 9x57. However, retreiving big animals from this country can be a serious chore....one that I do not take lighly at 64 years of age (even thought I am in excellent physical shape). In some places one should bring a frying pan and eat the elk on the spot......as getting him out is near impossible.
With that said, I made my decision to not go after a bull in the thick, rough stuff....if I had the opportunity to take one in a reasonable place, I would do so.
This did not happen......(incidentally, most of my neighbors that had cow elk tags filled them.)
This past weekend, I decided it was time to fill my deer tag. Despite some serious depradation by mountain lions in this area (we discovered at least one lion kill in our hunting area), I was able to find and shoot a very large white tail deer doe.
The 9x57 performed wonderfully........ I had to take a moving shot, thru the timber at about 60 yards, with the deer quartering away to the left. The big 292gr 358009 bullet hit the deer at the front of its left rear quarter, nicking the pelvis. The bullet traveled forward thru the paunch, thru the right lung and exited out the right side of the neck. The doe ran about 35 yards!! and piled up.
When I butchered the deer, I found a large chunk of the bullet lodged in the right shoulder.......so, hitting the front of the pelvic bone caused the bullet to shed the piece that I recovered in the shoulder. There was virtually no blood shot meat to be trimmed.
I am a meat hunter.......yeah, I have some nice antlers from years ago...but now meat is my primary objective. There is a local place here that makes wild game into wonderful goodies of all types. This deer is, at this moment, being made into some delicious spicy German sausage.
I am also including some pics of the rifle and cartridge. The sight on the rifle is a Lyman 48M with Target Knobs. I had Dennis Erhardt of Frontier Gunshop put on the Oberndorf style pear shaped bolt handle. The front is a New England Custom Guns banded ramp. The stock is one from an Argentenian Engineering carbine. I liked the straight grip...... It was free... ;o)....The butt plate is steel...standard mauser. It weighs around 7 lbs. I shot some 1.5-2.0" groups when I was checking the sight in before the season. As I noted previously in other posts the velocity is around 1850-1900fps.
All for this year..
Bill