devon deer stalker
Well-Known Member
Agreed, and I dropped 2 fallow bucks this morning with the same combo as you, one ran 50, one ran 30 yards, job done.
Cheers
Richard
real life experience with copper bullets ??
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Cheers
Richard
Have you shot any Sika with that big, bad 300 of yours Ed?
lots
Sadly the 200gr Peregrines havent arrived yet so I have been forced to use 183gr
prior to that 200gr ELD-x has worked extremely well.
Not messy at all even at 70m
Tend to use it on areas that are not visible at close range due to topography though.
That's what it was built for.
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Utectok
Well-Known Member
Well done fairly nipping along… what barrel length?6.5 creedmoor bud , Rs 60 powder I get very good velocity with rl16 aswell
That looks like it does the job really well indeed! I have a surgeon XL action that is currently a target only rifle due to its calibre and my FAC conditions that would be perfect to turn into a 300 Norma Mag when the barrel is done. You have just confirmed to me that it is in fact a great idea to make the change
Folks over rate sika , they are just like any deer when hit in the proper places ! Sometimes something goes wrong with any species and bullet ! But it's way more likely to be bad placement than anything else !
No quibbles here 100 grain ttsx are awesome on reds , big stags close or far these are gge best killing bullet I have used and I have usedca fair few
nathan mawson
Member
i’ve found them to work really well haven’t had a lost animal yet after 2 years using them not as much meat damage but still do the job inside the animal even on fallow bucks
Ha
Yes, i used to think that too.
Sika take a bullet like no other species of UK deer.
Unless you routinely take in CNS (head, neck, high shoulder/close proximity to T1/T2) in shot placement you will get a significantly higher run distance for like for like shots on any other species.
I have seen them dead on their feet run 100-150m
I aim high and forward now, wont shoot them anywhere else on purpose.
Shots that turned into textbook heart lung that would pole-axe a red deer with blood everywhere see long runs and very little blood trail.
Well Scottish sika must be very different to Bowland sika though not in size strangely enough . Perhaps it's the Iron brew ?
No , I suspect its simply a case of excitement, lack of patience for the right shot and yes just perhaps the fat content gives a poorer blood trail but they ain't bullet proof and cannot survive longer than a red without oxygen to the brain
Hurried shots badly taken from an exited shooter I feel
Actually it is extremely likely that they can.
Sika have a different haemoglobin make up than most other deer with significantly more Haemoglobin Alpha chains. (Normally made up of 2 alpha and 2 beta, Sika have been shown to have as many as 7 alpha chains.....I started reading up on this....)
It would make sense that they can operate on a lower blood oxygen level, they are a naturally alpine animal predominantly originating from areas significantly higher than your average Red deer.
Higher mountains, lower Oxygen levels, bulletproof deer......
Jagare
Well-Known Member
Back in the UK a couple of weeks ago. Shot 3 muntjac and a CWD with the Fox .30 150grn. All dropped on the spot.
Driven boar, 5 shot with the Fox 180grn 8mm a couple ran on but that was my bullet placement not the bullet. So far as good as lead bullets would have preformed.
Driven boar, 5 shot with the Fox 180grn 8mm a couple ran on but that was my bullet placement not the bullet. So far as good as lead bullets would have preformed.
Well that's a theory , but the sika we have here in the UK are the smaller kind there arecsome massive ones in thier home nation ! . And smaller than uk reds by some degree . They just die same as any other I would say tge biggest factor would be shooters rushing the shot not having the nerve to wait for a better presentation or settle themselves.
I have taken all my Bowland sika with 243 and have regular had people tel, me tgats too small for them , only to then find they where acting on heresy not experience. Haven't had any real runs off a one and this includes big heavy gold medal beasts in tge rut
Penyard
Well-Known Member
Good afternoon all,
I've been experimenting with 130gr Barnes TTSX and Fox Hunter 150gr, both in .30-06. I have also worked up a very pleasing load for a mate using 120gr Barnes TTSX in 7mm-08.
I had strange issues working up the load for 130gr Barnes that have been mentioned in another thread and not relevant to this one. Having eventually got an accurate .30-06 load I was happy with that also achieved the desired velocity we have been using these almost exclusively this year for day time stalking. The 150gr Fox having been used almost exclusively for nocturnal work on the same rifle with a thermal scope fitted, obviously only boar and foxes taken at night with this rig.
The 7mm-08 load with 120gr Barnes TTSX has been faultless on approx 30 muntjac, 10 wild boar, 10 fallow deer, 3 roe deer and quite a few foxes.
The .30-06 130gr Barnes TTSX has also been faultless on approx 20 roe, 2 fallow, 2 red and 10 wild boar.
The .30-06 150gr Fox Hunter has been excellent on circa 40 wild boar (the most recent being shot last night), ok on 2 fallow (I will explain), average/good on 10 foxes but sub-optimal on a single roe buck with perfect heart/lung shot placement whereby my buddy called a miss, I couldn't work out what had happened, the deer had run 20m and was stood apparently un-phased (for over 1 minute) and I then decided to shoot again (having major doubts over shift in zero) and the deer ran a further 20m then eventually fell over. On inspection I had 2 bullets holes within 2" of each other in the cavity in text book heart/lung placement with virtually no evidence of expansion. The range was about 130m and MV 2,800fps. My conclusion being that these Fox Hunter bullets are good (very good on big/tough animals) but, in my limited experience, they perform far better when meeting significant resistance and we may need to be careful to match our non-toxic bullet choices to the animals they are best suited to. This is not really any different to conventional bullets in that I wouldn't go wild boar stalking with 70gr V-Max. I probably need to shoot >20 roe bucks with the 150gr Fox to get a meaningful sample size but will probably limit these to nocturnal wild boar thumping which they seem very well suited to.
The 2 fallow shot with the 150gr Fox are not a big enough sample to draw any meaningful conclusions. 1 was cavity shot and ran 80m in to woodland before dropping dead with modest/adequate blood trail so no complaints but I suspect my normal lead core hunting bullets would have put it down quicker. The other was neck shot so no conclusion on lethality can be drawn although, as an aside, that shot passed through (no surprise there) and then hit my trail camera that was bolted to a tree in a steel security box 20m behind the deer making a .30 hole straight through it and blowing it off the tree with catastrophic damage to the camera inside (no surprise there either). This was part of a run of bad luck with the 150gr Fox (I'm not blaming the bullet!) as I also had one pass through a wild boar and hit my 25mm water pipe 30m behind it in one of my partridge drives causing my IBC to empty over night and lots of head scratching and swearing the next morning! What this does illustrate is that these non-toxic bullets are exiting with a lot of retained energy so the importance of safe back stops is more important than ever.
I do still have some lead core hunting bullets that I will probably use up when appropriate but am perfectly happy to make the switch to non-toxic based upon my experience thus far.
I am sure we will all continue to experiment and learn. It is great to share knowledge and experience. My main conclusion is that once you have found a non-toxic bullet that you are happy with that is suited to your application just buy/load plenty of them and go stalking as this is the new normal.
All the best
Penyard
I've been experimenting with 130gr Barnes TTSX and Fox Hunter 150gr, both in .30-06. I have also worked up a very pleasing load for a mate using 120gr Barnes TTSX in 7mm-08.
I had strange issues working up the load for 130gr Barnes that have been mentioned in another thread and not relevant to this one. Having eventually got an accurate .30-06 load I was happy with that also achieved the desired velocity we have been using these almost exclusively this year for day time stalking. The 150gr Fox having been used almost exclusively for nocturnal work on the same rifle with a thermal scope fitted, obviously only boar and foxes taken at night with this rig.
The 7mm-08 load with 120gr Barnes TTSX has been faultless on approx 30 muntjac, 10 wild boar, 10 fallow deer, 3 roe deer and quite a few foxes.
The .30-06 130gr Barnes TTSX has also been faultless on approx 20 roe, 2 fallow, 2 red and 10 wild boar.
The .30-06 150gr Fox Hunter has been excellent on circa 40 wild boar (the most recent being shot last night), ok on 2 fallow (I will explain), average/good on 10 foxes but sub-optimal on a single roe buck with perfect heart/lung shot placement whereby my buddy called a miss, I couldn't work out what had happened, the deer had run 20m and was stood apparently un-phased (for over 1 minute) and I then decided to shoot again (having major doubts over shift in zero) and the deer ran a further 20m then eventually fell over. On inspection I had 2 bullets holes within 2" of each other in the cavity in text book heart/lung placement with virtually no evidence of expansion. The range was about 130m and MV 2,800fps. My conclusion being that these Fox Hunter bullets are good (very good on big/tough animals) but, in my limited experience, they perform far better when meeting significant resistance and we may need to be careful to match our non-toxic bullet choices to the animals they are best suited to. This is not really any different to conventional bullets in that I wouldn't go wild boar stalking with 70gr V-Max. I probably need to shoot >20 roe bucks with the 150gr Fox to get a meaningful sample size but will probably limit these to nocturnal wild boar thumping which they seem very well suited to.
The 2 fallow shot with the 150gr Fox are not a big enough sample to draw any meaningful conclusions. 1 was cavity shot and ran 80m in to woodland before dropping dead with modest/adequate blood trail so no complaints but I suspect my normal lead core hunting bullets would have put it down quicker. The other was neck shot so no conclusion on lethality can be drawn although, as an aside, that shot passed through (no surprise there) and then hit my trail camera that was bolted to a tree in a steel security box 20m behind the deer making a .30 hole straight through it and blowing it off the tree with catastrophic damage to the camera inside (no surprise there either). This was part of a run of bad luck with the 150gr Fox (I'm not blaming the bullet!) as I also had one pass through a wild boar and hit my 25mm water pipe 30m behind it in one of my partridge drives causing my IBC to empty over night and lots of head scratching and swearing the next morning! What this does illustrate is that these non-toxic bullets are exiting with a lot of retained energy so the importance of safe back stops is more important than ever.
I do still have some lead core hunting bullets that I will probably use up when appropriate but am perfectly happy to make the switch to non-toxic based upon my experience thus far.
I am sure we will all continue to experiment and learn. It is great to share knowledge and experience. My main conclusion is that once you have found a non-toxic bullet that you are happy with that is suited to your application just buy/load plenty of them and go stalking as this is the new normal.
All the best
Penyard
Very interesting
All I can say is that I experience more long runners on heart shot highland sika than lowland reds, I guess on average the reds weigh 2-3x that of the sika.
They always seem tougher, more of a thirst for life, but your explanation is more eloquent.
Single hind yesterday - 120 mtrs - neck
Dropped on spot - 130 GS Custom (284 win)
Dropped on spot - 130 GS Custom (284 win)
