Pygmy

Two holes are better than one.. I've never been sold on the ENERGY TRANSFER theory of terminal ballistics. I'm not saying that energy is not part of the equation, but I think bullets kill by destroying tissue and disrupting vital organs. I'm not worried about "wasting "a little energy.. I want an exit hole. That's one reason I use Barnes Bullets...They penetrate, disrupt plenty of tissue, and nearly always exit.

Hehehehehe..I've spent some time in Norfolk..My daughter and her family live there.. I can definitely attest to the fact that there are rednecks there.. I suspect that some kind of chemical stimulation was involved.

Adirondack....All the animals That I have shot with the 9.3 ( 5 with 250 Barnes and 1 with Speer 270) Have dropped in thier tracks.. However, I have only taken 5 head of big game and one varmint with it, so it's not a very large sampling. However most (if not all) of them were hits where major bones were struck. I've dropped a lot of animals in thier tracks with my 7MM08 and .280 also. What I have not done yet is make a center double lung shot with the 9.3. I did watch my buddy shoot a smallish whitetail doe with my .338 and a 225 Hornady.. Shot through the lungs, it ran about 60 yards, similar to deer I have lung or heart shot with shotgun slugs or 7MM rifle bullets.

The deer have just gotten tougher over the years.... I heard a rumor that The Arabs are selling them steroids and Kevlar vests...<<wink>>...

Congrats, Rob...Drive safely... Hey Doc..What was your first vehicle..??? Mine was a 1957 Ford F100, followed by a 1957 Ford Fairlane, followed by a 1957 Dodge Coronet... One thing I loved about the Dodge..It had a backseat as big as a COUCH....hehehe. That was in the days when there lots of drive-in theaters around...<<wink>>...

I have seen a couple of these birds in summer flocks... The last one I saw was along Rte. 414 near Chambers ( between Watkins Glen and Corning) about ten years ago. Congrats, my friend..You have a very unique trophy, well worth mounting..

Adirondack....I find your narrative very interesting because I have never shot a deer or other big game animal with a centerfire riife bigger than my 9.3 x 62... It uses a .366" bullet and my pet load is a 250 grain Barnes X at about 2500 FPS. I have limited experience with it, because I have only shot half a dozen critters with it. One moose, two caribou, two whitetails and a coyote. The only one that took a step was the coyote, and he just made a couple of spasmodic leaps. However, I have shot perhaps 70 or 80 whitetails with shotgun slugs and .50 caliber muzzleloader bullets. These projectiles weigh in the 400 grain range, albeit they are launched at a lower veocity than your .444. With similar shot placement, I have never seen much difference in the heavy slugs and the lighter ( mostly 7MM) fired from a 7 x 57, a 7MM08 and a .280 Rem as far as how far the animals went. Dead center double lung shots, they run 15 to 100 yards.. Shots that effect shoulders or the CNS, they drop in thier tracks.. Perhaps the higher velocity of your heavy rifle rounds makes the difference in what you call "knockdown power".. My experience with shotgun slugs suggests that bullet weight is not the only factor.

Adirondack....You must be related to Elmer Keith.. I know that Lawdwaz is Jack O'Connor's great grandson...<<GRIN>>....

Fine birds...Congrats big time.. BTW...Looks like beard rot rather than freezing on that thick beard..

Running and gunning typically involves covering a lot of ground trying to find an active gobbler... In many cases, where there is access to a lot of land, it is done by driving roads and stopping at places where you can listen to a large amount of real estate, and listening for birds..If nothing is gobbling, try to get an answer by crow calling, owl hooting, or calling aggressively on your turkey call. I know guys who NEVER leave the road unless they hear a gobbler...Not exactly my idea of communing with nature, but sometimes it works..One of my friends routinely covers 100 miles in a morning of hunting. I call my version of running and gunning "walking and talking"...I walk ridgelines, woods roads,etc. stopping every 100 yards or so to call and listen for an answer. I find that calling somewhat aggressively seems to trigger a gobble better than subtle calling, so I mostly use loud yelps and cutts on a box call. Before you call, look for a potential place to set up in case a gobbler answers close..You sometimes need to "dig a hole" in a hurry..

Thankfully I have not yet had a paunch or gut shot with this bullet.... I've killed about a dozen whitetails with it, and most were broadside. Two were shot head on in the brisket. Most of them dropped within sight.. Two brisket shots dropped straight down. Of the two deer that I shot that ran out of sight, one was another brisket shot that got just one lung..The deer ran about 75 yards but left a blood trail Stevie Wonder could follow...The other was a broadside liver shot last season...She went about 100 with a fairly sparse blood trail,but that is common with liver shots, in my experience Before I switched to the Barnes 120 I used Nosler 140 ballistic tips. I never had any problem with them either. However the Barnes kills just as well and the recoil is lighter. As far as frontal area goes, it is not a big issue with me...I have killed dozens of head of big game ( deer, antelope, caribou, moose)with 7MM bullets, in the 7mm08 and .280 Rem, and I have also killed dozens of deer with 12 gauge slugs and 50 cal muzzleloader bullets. With similar shot placement, I never really saw much difference as far as how well they killed. My main requirement in a bullet is to get enough penetration for an exit hole at any reasonable angle, and a bullet that will expand enough to disrupt some tissue on its way through.

Adirondack..I applaud you for presenting sound arguments for your opinions and not getting defensive or offended when other posters question you. This is all in the spirit of good discussion. I have remedied the light recoil/bullet performace quandry to my satisfaction by switching to Barnes X bullets for all of my hunting rifles. I get superb performace and nearly always get an exit hole, even with light for caliber bullets, such as the 120 grain TSSX in the 7mm08. They are very accurate in my rifles and kill well whether you have a perfect broadside shot or a shot at the south end of a northbound buck.

The discussion goes on and on,whether the .243 is adequate for deer.. Interestingly, on the western forums, the discussion goes on and on whether the .270 is adequate for elk...

Nice setup, ... It's not so very different from the way I shot it... I kiiled 3 deer with it resting over big round hay bales and 2 laying flat on my belly on the ground, all with the bipod... I shot only one in the woods resting against a tree, and she was only 20 yards away. The others were from 100-225 yards.

Say, Larry, that pistol looks familiar...<GRIN>..... Glad to see you are having fun with it.

I've heard a few HUNDRED gobbles in the last two weeks, in Ontario ( Canada) and here in Steuben County.. And I'm half DEAF..hehehehe.. Most of the adult gobblers I have seen are still with hens... I do admit that they haven't been setting the house afire gobbling, but to me it seems like an average year. Sorry you are having bad luck hearing birds, but keep at it ...Sounds like you may be having a bum luck year..Happens to all of us now and then.. I hope your luck improves.

Awesome pictures, Wooley....Thanks for sharing... I love hop toads.. Makes me HUNGRY.... I think I'll have the little woman whip me up a mess of marshmallow cream corn willie fritters !

Pinholing would be much less likely at close range than at longer range. Expansion tends to be greater at higher velocities.. Actually, I suspect that most reports of "pinholing" involve animals that are marginally hit and not recovered... It's sort of a problem that doesn't exist...

I think it's one one of those radio collared, computer chipped, stealth helicopter stocked pumacougars stocked by the DEC and sponsored by the insurance companies to reduce the deer population... It's either THAT or a bobcat...

Gobblers can hang up for many reasons, but most often it is because you are calling too loud and too much, as Uncle Nicky said. The first thing I try is to shut up...If he starts gobbling MORE after you shut up, it often means that it is WORKING..Resist the urge to call... Typically, he'll gobble his butt off for a few minutes and then shut up..When he quits gobbling, be alert, because it often means that he is on his way.. Good luck !

To answer a couple of Mike's questions... In New York, a rifled shotgun is not considered a rifle..As long as it uses shotgun ammunition, it is considered a shotgun.. Yes, indeed,rifled slugs were called that because they have grooves on them to impart a spin to the projectile. Pumpkin balls were bore size round balls loaded in shotgun casings..They were notoriously inaccurate and as far as I know they are no longer produced. They were replaced by rifled slugs back in the 1930s or thereabouts. Many slug hunters referred to rifled slugs as "punkin balls" but that is a misnomer. Elmo... The term "sabot" has nothing to do with whether the projectile has grooves or not. The sabot is the sleeve that encloses the projectile, contacts the bore when fired, and then falls away after the projectile leaves the barrel.. The first successful sabot slugs were smooth hourglass shaped projectiles (BRI), but in recent years many other bullet types have been used.

Most smoothbore barrels have some degree of choke, unless it is a riot barrel, which would be cylinder bore or no choke (constriction) at all, or a slug barrel which is usually choked cylinder or IC. Choke is merely a constriction or reduction of bore size near the muzzle to compress the pattern. The choke should be stamped on the left side of the barrel, just ahead of the reciever. Most likely it is F or Full, Mod (modified) or IC ( improved cylinder). Full produces the smallest, densest patterns and is effective at the longest range. With the right loads, many 2 3/4" 12 gauge guns produce killing patterns out to 40 yards or a bit more. Modified should do the job out to 30 yards or a bit more... IC is pretty open for turkeys. You'll need to pattern your gun to see what loads pattern the best...I would suggest # 6 shot because the higher pellet counts generally deliver denser patterns than 4s ot 5s. However every gun is an individual.

Bubba....Sometimes the best call is no call at all.. Good luck..

To whom it may concern... I did a swap with Bubba and got some brass from him...It's good stuff, not junk... I was a little embarassed because I don't have a tumbler and the brass I sent him was dirty, while the brass he sent me was shiny as a baby's butt.

The idea of the DEC closing the spring turkey season is very unlikely. I would be willing to bet next week's paycheck that this is a rumor.. Kind of like the rumors of the DEC stocking coyotes.. Turkey Management 101.... Since one gobbler will breed numerous hens, harvest of gobblers in the spring has a minimal effect on turkey populations.. The game departments of many of the southern states knew this long before New York even HAD a huntable population of wild turkeys. Weather is the biggest factor in turkey populations,nest predation probably coming in at # 2..