Trapper's season
Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 1:54 pm
I have packed my Shiloh 45-70 almost 30 miles so far this year, chasing deer and elk. I bought a #134 MVA vernier tang sight a while back. Thought I would try that this year. I was having a hard time seeing front sight with the buckhorn. The vernier works pretty well with the silver blade front sight, so I thought. A couple weeks ago I put the stalk on a nice 5x5 mule deer. After about 45 min of closing the distance I got down to 146 yards (laser ranged). Set up my shooting sticks and got a good hold on rifle and let her go. Deer stood there and looked at me. Hit the dirt about 4' low. Crap! Ejected and reloaded settled in again and boom, hit the same place, 4' low. Deer walks off. Flustered I started looking at sights. The eye cup had come loose. The elevation screw had rattled down and the windage had moved just a little. In the heat of the moment I cranked the sight back up to where I thought it was suppose to be. Deer is at 175 yards now. Reloaded settled back into the sticks again, miss. Have no Idea where that one went. Reloaded again, miss, same thing, no idea. Sat there discussed with myself and watched the deer walk off. I went home and took the tang sight off and put the buckhorn back on. The next day I went back after that 5x5 muley, no luck couldn't find him. Got home was eating dinner looked out the window and there were some deer coming into the side pasture. I put dinner on hold and grabbed my rifle. There is about 3" of hard crust snow outside. I did the best I could to sneak up on them. I got down around my horse trailer and got a good rest on the tailgate hinge, 84 yards, boom, deer circles and goes down. Nice little doe. Went maybe 5 yards. Perfect shot right behind the shoulder. Took her down to the game check so they could test her for the chronic wasting disease. When we got home we hung it in the shed and proceeded with dinner. Barely sat down and here they come again. This time there was a little forked horn buck with them. Put dinner back on hold, grabbed the rifle again. Same as the last one, leaned up against the trailer and boom. Down goes another, this one run about 10 yards and piled up. Another perfect shot, it was about 3 yards farther away than the doe when i pulled the trigger. Got the little buck hung up in the shed. I did figure out that the barrel sights work. Too many things can go wrong with the vernier sight crawling thru the brush and stuff. Think I'm going to try a scope next. I really have a hard time seeing the front sight. There has been some talk on here about hunting sights, so I thought I would tell my story. Now I am going back to chasing elk with my barrel sights. Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving.
Trapper
Trapper