Gents & ladies: deer season is almost here - pick your tool(s)

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Unlicensed Dremel

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Name your top two or three whitetail/mulie/blacktail/sitka/coues deer rifles you're going to hunt with first or at all this year - with details such as scope and chosen load. What the heck - throw in speed goats, sheep, and goats too if you hunt them.

Whitetails - here's the blooding order this year (assuming I can keep making the harvests):
--Knight's Original DISC, .50 cal, with 19.5" cut-n-crowned barrel, with Nikon Omega 1.65-5x36mm - with Precision Bullets 195 gr .357 cal "nested sabot" loads (.50=>.357)
--Winchester 70 Coyote S-R 24" in .243 win, with Elite 6500 2.5-16x50mm, with 100 gr PSP-FB handloads
--Lawson / Rem 700 custom 24" in 7mm RSAUM, with Nikon Monarch UCC 3-9x40mm - not sure which ammo yet - some 139/140 load.

That's optimistic. I usually don't get more than 1 or 2, but sometimes do.

As for bows, please go to my current thread on "New Archery Gear for 2014" in this forum to list your archery weapon blooding lineup.
 
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I will be using:

1)Custom Savage 11 chambered in .243AI, wearing a Boyds stock and topped with a Minox 4-20x. It shoots an 80gr Barnes TTSX at about 3,500fps.

2)Encore Pro Hunter handgun 15" chambered in 7mm-08, topped with a Burris 3-12x. It shoots a 110gr Barnes TTSX at about 2,800fps.

3)As occasionally as possible, my father's muzzleloader, which is one of the unknown to me Gander/Bass Pro/Wal*Mart special brand topped with whatever scope they put with it. It shoots a great big saboted thing at an unknown speed.
 
For me it's going to be a Wicked Ridge Raider crossbow during archery season, then an Encore in .35 Whelen for primitive weapon (interesting how Mississippi now defines primitive weapon), then a Remington Model 7 in .260 - with maybe a few hunts using various handguns thrown in for fun.
 
Since Ohio is letting us use rifles this year. I plan on using the following.

Gun season

Marlin 1895 45/70 topped with a Nikon 3x9 scope.

Muzzle Loading season

T/C Omega 50 Cal. topped with a Nikon 3x9 scope.

Jim
 
Not much middle ground with me. I'll use a 50+ year old Browning recurve starting Sept 13 for primitive weapons season. I have a modern compound, and have never really gotten into black powder, I just like the recurve much better. If I ever do hunt with a muzzle loader it will be a traditional rifle. Not interested in the modern inlines

Starting in mid-October to January 1, the Winchester 70, 308 EW will get primary use during rifle season. If I'm hunting with a rifle I go all out with the most modern rifle I can get my hands on. With everything else I like traditional gear.
 
For starters I will be using my Model 7 in 7-08 with 150 gr partitions for black bear over bait, then my circa 1997 Knight disc in 50 cal shooting 44 cal 240 gr hollow points for the Muzzleloading season here in NH which last 10 days. If i dont score with the musket I will be using my model 7 with 140 grain ballistic tips and switching to my 243 weatherby S2 if I find a nice open field to hunt, Possibly heading down to So Carolina just after Thanksgiving for deer, the 243 and 7-08 will take that trip too.
 
Our gun season only lasts 9 days, so i won't get too many chances with the boomstick. That being said, my two i always bring with:

Main:
Winchester 70 in 7mm Rem Mag with a Leupold 3x9x40mm scope.

Backup:

Marlin 336 in 30-30 with open sights.
 
Black tail deer are tough to hunt and I've decided to not wast money on deer hunting this year. It seems the only times and places you can hunt them, they're won't be any deer there. There all in town after dark.

On the other hand if I could hunt in my yard or the city parks, I'd get a deer every year... :D

Tony
 
Deer season here never opens because its never shut, mostly fallow deer with a few reds and rusa, they will fall victim to the new howa varmint .243, topped with a cheap yet surprisingly great performing ZOS 10-40x60, firing 75gr nosler hand loads, that is if spot lighting. If walking will be using old faithfull, Carl gustav 6.5x55 topped with a 3-12x42 nikko nighteater, firing 140gr soft point highlands. Proven deer/pig/goat/roo/camel stopper, yes we have feral camels too. Not hear in nsw but hunted them in Western Australia.
And always have the devils cannon as a back up, the nastiest bucking baikal single shot 30-06 ever shot by a man, topped with a 4x30 nikko hold crown. Emphasis on the word back up, infact I think I'd let em run before I rushed to get it!
 
Deer season here never opens because its never shut
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Hmmm, so there *is* a paradise on earth, and its down under... funny how 9/10ths of the continent is a desert but from what you hear, you're overrun with all manner of game and feral critters. Mmmmmmm, rooooo stewwwww.

and sorry, I should have said "....for those of you in the USA" so as not to exclude "furriners". :)

Encore Pro Hunter handgun 15" chambered in 7mm-08, topped with a Burris 3-12x. It shoots a 110gr Barnes TTSX at about 2,800fps
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Sounds very deadly and handy - did you put a rifle scope on a handgun? Just rest it on a bipod and scootch up closer to it?
 
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For most of my spots I'll be several hundred yards away so I usually take my 300 WBY to make sure bullet drop and impact energy isn't an issue.

On closer hunts it's the M1 Garand or a 12ga slug.
 
did you put a rifle scope on a handgun? Just rest it on a bipod and scootch up closer to it?
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There are scopes made just for handguns with LOOONG eye relief. My Remington XP100 in .260 wears a Leupold VariX 2.5-8. My Encore in 7mm-08 wears a Burris and my Savage Striker .22LR wears a T/C scope. With all of mine, a rest of some kind is required in order to get a good sight picture. However, there are people who can put a low-powered scope on a "normally" shaped handgun (notice that all of mine are not traditional handgun shaped) and shoot it offhand.
 
I'm going to use my Underwood M1 Carbine this year. There was an topic on TFL earlier that said it wont kill deer.

I call BS.

I have two tags, on the second deer I'm thinking of my Krag or M1904A4, haven't decided yet.
 
For deer this year: (and most other years)

Marlin 336 CS in .35 Remington with Leatherwood Scout scope.

Backup gun in camp will either be my Marlin 1895M in .450 or Ruger American .308.

I will be wearing my Glock 20 on my hip.
 
I generally hunt deer during firearms season with a handgun. Which gun I take varies with the area and the type of hunt I will do that particular day. Occasionally, I will carry one of my handgun caliber carbines. Sometimes I will use the .32 Special my grandad gave me 48 years ago, the model '97 that used to be my dad's that I carried my first day in the deer woods, or the M1917 Eddystone I bought outta the surplus bin in high school and carved my own stock for. While they ain't none of them the super-duper rip snortin' ultra fine six button rifled barrels with the Wham-tec thermal imaging scope, using heat seeking .363 caliber "magic mushroom" bullets........they're all good and work well on deer. I've found it ain't the gun that gets the deer, but one's skill with it and their woodsmanship. Otherwise is just plain dumb luck.
 
Marlin 336C in .35 Remington for me, shooting 200 grn Cor-Lokts, and open sights of course. I'll probably wear my red flannel jacket and hat with ear flaps too, provided I can get out of the house with out being seen.

My little sister, who is venturing out on her on this year, will be taking my Ruger Mk II in .270 Win, shooting 170 grn Cor-Lokts, with a Leupold 3x9 Rifleman atop it. Clad in just about every piece of Under Armor camouflage from jacket to base layers that she puppy eyed Pops into buying at Bass Pro.
 
U.D. said:
Sounds very deadly and handy - did you put a rifle scope on a handgun? Just rest it on a bipod and scootch up closer to it?
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Haha!:D

Good Lord, you'd give yourself a concussion. The recoil on that thing is not for the faint of heart.;) It's a blast to shoot, in every conceivable way. I can tell if you're alive just by whether or not you giggle like a girl when you it goes off.:D

Sometimes I use two bipods on it. I have a Harris for the front and a quick-detach, flexible one I sometimes use for the back end. If I'm sitting watching a field, having it on 4 legs is really nice. For tree stand hunting, it gets no bipod. I've also found it quite easy to shoot accurately by putting the Harris in "prone" length, simply leaning back in a chair and resting the bipod on my knees. I shot a nice doe that way from about 125 last year.
 
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