I don't think it was dead before it got hit, but she is the only animal I have ever field dressed that had hair singed by the powder!

She went about 20 yards and piled up. That big chunk of lead from my .54 did a number on her lungs. I'm pretty sure I'll never duplicate that particular shot.

I'd get it shooting about 1" high at 100 yards. That should cover you for as far as you can reasonably see with your 62 yr old eyes.

You might surprise yourself with your accuracy if the gun wears decent irons.

Spend some time at the range and you just might find you can shoot 150 yards with those irons. Course, you could always get it scoped and then I think you'd find yourself being hard pressed to NOT take a 175 yrd shot on a nice buck!

She didn't run that far, she was thrown!!!!!! I still have my Renegade in 54 and get it out on occasion and shoot it. That was my first ML and took 4 deer with it.

I have 2 .54s, a Renegade and a Rem M700ML. My Renegade has accounted for 7 elk, about a dozen mulies and a pronghorn. The Rem has tipped over a bunch of whitetails and hogs. I keep the Renegade in CO since they have to be open sight to be legal in muzzleloader season and I keep the Rem on the east coast since it can be scoped and converted to shotgun primers.

I'd go with a rear peep that you can change the arpetures in faster up close than irons, and more user friendly for older eyes
using peeps your ey3 automaticly will find center of the peep so you only have 2 points to line up, the front sight on the target instead of front sight in the rear, then line them both up with the target.
I have a designated close range rifle I always carry when I don't anticipate shots beyond 200

hate to say how much game this old browning clone of a win. 71 has taken, can think of several deer and 1/2 dozen bear I took with it.
RR

I think the rear peep is a very good idea. Low power scopes make sense, too, but this is gonna be an iron sight gun. Will get a bolt action .308 that will be scoped some time in the future! Thanks to all for the great advice, insight and stories! :-)
gary

Oh man I love my Browning Model 71....but since moving to Michigan from Washington just haven't had a chance to really hunt with it...great brush/medium range gun! Although RR's definition of medium range is further than mine probably...

Plus 1 on the peep. Before I found that scopes were the best bet for my eyes, I had a couple rifles that wore peeps only. They were my carry choice on rainy days when I was hunting the closed in swamps in northern Michigan, ... Wilderness State Park to be more precise.

When the day got short and dark I'd just unscrew the apeture and use the threaded body only as a ghost ring for the last few minutes of shooting light. But that was years ago for me. At 60 yrs old, and with my current eyesight, I'll be using scopes for just about everything now.

i do have a 6.5 X 55 Swede 94 though, and it wears a scope mounted on the old Weaver pivot mounts. Though it does not return to a perfect POI when switching it over to irons and back again to scope, it allows me to flip the scope out of the way to use the iron sights in the event I have real close shots in lousy weather when my scope is way too rained-stained.