Back from Wyoming antelopes in the cooler!!
 

Well I posted last week that I was headed to Wyoming, I had never been there before and was going to chase some speed goats. I took my Knight Mountaineer, which is really my favorite gun, but I also took my new Cooper in .25-06 that I bought this past winter. I know, it is a CF, but it is my favorite caliber in cf and I just love the handloads that I have worked up for it that I could not leave it behind. I had never been in Wyoming and never hunted the speedgoats either. My first impressions of eastern Wyoming was holy cow, it is so wide open and vast!! We scouted on Sunday and the hunt started on Monday. Man did we ever see a lot of goats!! They were everywhere. Well, with this being my first hunt and the land looked and is so open, I took the Cooper out the first morning. I was very comfortable with my Mountaineer out to 200 but have not shot any past that. So the morning begins, I went in on some state land that bordered up next to a piece of private land that had a vary big alfalfa field in it. When dawn was beginning to break, I'm glassing the fields and out of the alfalfa comes a herd of elk!! One big 6x6 and 7 cows!! Holy cow was I ever stoked and I wasn't even hunting elk!! But when you have this majestic animals at 149 yards, it just runs a rush through ya!! After the sun got up, I started seeing goats on the state land, bucks were chasing does all over the place. I finally had what I considered a good buck come into the picture. I put the range finder on him at 252 yards, this would have been a little past my comfort zone with the Knight so I was real glad I took the Cooper!! I steady my BOG tripod and squeezed the trigger, my buck took off with another buck and doe for about 10 feet and then went belly up!! I had my first antelope and was I ever elated!! The next goats shot would be with the Mountaineer, no exceptions!! I had 2 doe tags as well and the muzzleloader was going to see some action. A friend and I stocked up on a herd of goats and 169 yards was as close as we were gonna get so we pulled down on them and made the shots count. One thing that took me by surprise on my goat was the wind, I did not take a 25 mph wind into account well enough and hit my goat a little far back, but the 275 gr Lehigh did its job and the goat was down!! My third goat came the second morning, I went back to the state land again and had the big herd of elk in there again along with a smaller bull. WoW!! Is all I can say about that. I got to hunting and did a stalk on my doe and got to about 200 yards and set up, she got curious and started towards me, I thought this is good. Well at 131 yards she got close enough and turned broadside and I let her have it, you guessed it the Lehigh did its job again. I really wish I would have shot my buck with the muzzy but I really love my Cooper also!! At any rate, we had a great hunt and put a new set of horns on my wall!!!!! Here are some pics of my goats!!
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onetohunt

Outstanding hunt... had to be exciting... it certainly was rewarding!

Sidenote... that is my most favorite all-around ML bullet

Congratulations on the goats. That's some outstanding shooting.

Congrats. Sounds like a great hunt. I know what you mean about the elk. I was bow hunting last week and there were 7 cows and a trophy bull That ambled right near me . Enjoy that goat . I had steak from the back strap tonight and jerky is in the dehydrator now.

That's awesome! Looks like you had a lot of fun. That's a good buck as well to top it off.

Your story was really exciting, awesome read. You can thank Sabotloader for that bullet. Congratulations!!!

Great report onetohunt. I really enjoyed the read. Congratulations on the triple.

Wind is a real issue indeed when shooting long range with a muzzle loader. It seems that area had plenty of game. Glad you connected. Now we await the taste test.

Congratulations on your goats. What load you were using in the Mountaineer?

I am using a 275 gr Lehigh with an orange MMP sabot pushed by a 120 gr of Blackthorn 209 with a Winchester 209 primer.