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Unfortunately I now only have access to this forum from my work computer. I use to be able to log in through Tapatalk on my phone but now even that has stopped. I tried resetting my password but with an absentee owner my request never gets fulfilled. Anyways... onto the hunting portion of this story. My daughter and I went out Saturday evening and set up in a log pile to get a jump on where we have been seeing a doe a few evenings a week. The plan worked out and she took her first ever deer in the start of her third season hunting. It was a pretty wild 15-20 min as the doe popped out but offered no shot. We where not in the best of cover so we had to stay as still as possible but you could tell the doe was getting increasingly nervous. I think she could tell something was off but we where just hidden enough and she was up wind from us. She eventually worked up the courage to try and circle around us to get down wind but she didn't even have to get down wind all she had to do is get directly to our left because at that point we are completely exposed. She gets to our left, freezes, starts to stomp her hoof at us then eventually blows and takes off running. Here's the wild part she stops 60 yards away completely broadside just blowing away almost like she saw us but we somehow still had her confused. My daughter acts fast gets the gun on the doe and whispers "I'm shooting" I just simply replied "take it". Her gun goes off and the does front legs tuck into her body while she crashes to the ground and bulldozes and flips for 10 second before dying within site. High fives some hugs and probably a few tears of joy where had. Even though we knew the deer was dead and not moving we sat back down to let it all sink in. After about 10 min I have her get her tag out and start filling it out. At about the 20 min mark we slowly work our way over to the doe, thank her for her sacrifice before taking pictures and getting to work. This is a day neither of us will ever forget and has probably taken over as the best day I've ever had in the woods.

Nothing like creating memories with your kid(s). Especially hunting. Congrats to you and her.

Handloading is like most endeavors in life, with experience and practice your skills will become honed, sounds like your 243 handload is doing performance wise exactly what you hoped for, congrats. Your 30-06 loads will come around once you get things figured out. These days with all the new manuals along with huge online data resources that can be printed out makes for much easier acquisition of accurate load recipes that perform great. I have been delving into the 264 cal cartridges and all the hard work has been done by reloading experts, I take their load recommendations and use them for a starting point and tweak them for my particular firearm with good success. Al

Yup. They will know. And you will need to follow them to their next choice.

Talk about an update LOL. Well two years later I have a good handle on the reloading process the .243 for some reason is a lot easier than the 30-06 that I still struggle with from time to time and in fact I talked to RCBS and am sending the 30-06 die back to them for them to clean, polish and inspect. I have enough 30-06 brass ready for powder and a bullet that I am not worried about RCBS having the die for an extended period of time. Most of the last 2 years has been fooling around with different powder charges to get as tight of a grouping as possible which I have a nice tight group with the .243 probably a tighter grouping than anything I ever had out of factory ammo. I have a decent group with the 30-06 but I still want to play around some more with different powder charges after the season is over to really get it tight. The best part of this adventure is my daughters doe on Saturday was shot with my .243 reload and it could not have been a better shot as she took the top of the heart out and got some of the lung. Had a big exit hole with a lot of blood on the ground. Not that we needed a blood trail as the doe died 20 yards away after bulldozing the ground and flipping a few times.

Not meant to be political or intended to suggest anyone votes a certain way. The intent is to make everyone that votes aware of the fact this November there will be a 2024 NYS Constitutional Amendment which will appear as Proposal 1. These proposals usually appear on the BACK or bottom of the ballot and can be easily missed. You can research the proposal here: https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/articles/2024/brad-hoylman-sigal/proposal-1-equal-rights-amendment

Its funny how the radical lefty screwballs are out there screaming " Vote For Us !! We Must Save Democracy !! " But meanwhile in the back room they are actively coming up with new ways to strip your rights away from you.

Awesome job!

Well done young lady! Congrats

Glad to see she has come around and got that first one out of the way, congrats to her and you. Al

Now where is this guy going to hand that head-mount. You almost have to put on an addition to find enough wall space to display that magnificent set of antlers. What a great species of deer for the DEC to stock here in the U.S. Imagine having those to hunt in your back yard.

Got the crossbow dialed in , the .243 dialed in, the muzzleloader dialed in. Spent a day or two trimming branches away from my stands … Set up my ground blind … now I got a month to wait