HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - confidence in the rifle you hunt with.....
Old 04-28-2019, 05:30 PM
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hardcastonly
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Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: texas
Posts: 1,201
Default confidence in the rifle you hunt with.....

one of my hunting buddies, (AL) who has been rather successful had a 303 enfield jungle carbine for several decades.


He had used that carbine for many years to hunt deer very successfully, he bragged for years how his old 303 smacked the CRAP, out of our Florida deer, that rarely go more than 120lbs.
now keep in mind, the ranges where he hunts seldom exceed 40 yards and 50 yards is a rare long shot, most shots are taken at under 40 yards , in very thick brush.





hes killed dozens of deer with that 303,jungle carbine for several decades ,but he had never been to an actual rifle range, he had always set up a beer or coke can on a dirt embankment, backed off about 20-to-25 paces and tried a shot from about 35-40 yards and having hit the coke can, felt 100% sure the rifle was still correctly sighted in, like it had been for years, he had me load the ammo to match factory velocity's ,
http://www.speer-bullets.com/ballistics ... spx?id=107 with these 180 grain soft points,
over 45 grains of WW760,In my enfield it shot 2.5" 100 yard groups with iron sites off the bench,
but I totally ruined his confidence in that rifle when I made the bad mistake of taking him to a local range, for thirty years or more he had simply placed an old bottle or can on a hillside, backed off 30 or so long paces and fired at the target, with a high probability of a hit! occasionally he needed two shots to hit the beer can, but that was rare.....well I took him to the range and all his 50 yard targets had nice reasonably tight groups using the issue iron sights that measured about 3" in spread,the problem was most of the holes in the paper were key-holed, or profiles of the bullets ,it was obvious some, even most, bullets went thru at an angle or even side ways, he was very upset.....we pointed out that he had been very successful with the gun, even if it did tend to allow the bullets to tumble, end over end which the paper target clearly showed..
so far hes not been able to locate a replacement 303 British, caliber jungle carbine barrel for his carbine, and careful inspection shows the rifling is all but worn away, in fact it is so shallow, and the bores so eroded, its basically useless!
improper cleaning,improper storage,general abuse, improper solvents and corrosive primer ammo use by previous owners, long before he bought the rifle at a yard sale 30 plus years ago, sure didn,t help either.
so again Id say what you use on white tail deer is not as important as your ability to place shots consistently on the intended target, and having no confidence in the rifle hes used for decades is a huge problem

Last edited by hardcastonly; 04-29-2019 at 06:17 AM.
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