bigred

Gold Tips rock!!!! Get the Hunter XT.

I don't like the old silvertips because of one bad experience. Many years ago I shot a big midwestern buck at 100 yards with a 30-30 and silvertips. Hit him almost perfect but a little far back. I could see I hit him, found a lot of blood at the scene. As I began trailing the blood became less and less and I found two flat pieces of bone. Eventually the blood stopped altogether. It got dark and I had to stop. I felt terrible leaving a wounded animal. I went back the next day at first light and jumped the buck about 200 yards from where I lost him. He was running on three legs, I dropped him with a spine shot. When I skinned him I found out the first shot had hit the first rib and fragmented (remember the flat pieces of bone). Another piece of bone slid down and covered the entry wound. The largest piece of the bullet traveled forward, went down the left front leg and broke it. The other bullet pieces did little damage. I think the old silvertips have too much lead exposed for bone hits. Of course the more poweful 270 might help the problem. I have used a 270 win since that experience and really like the Hornady light mags. Sorry for the long story, by the way that buck dressed out at 200+. On a bear go for the light mags.

update to my previous post, we were coues hunting, not the nearly extinct muley. We heard a big muley was checked also. Do other people count brow tines as points, I considered my friends to be a 3x3 with tines but he said he has always called them 4 points?

hunted 36C with a buddy fri-sun night. my buddy got a nice 4x4 on saturday which was his biggest so far out of seven over the years. saw several camps with deer. the checkpoint at 3-points had 18 checked in as of 1:00 pm saturday. We saw aprx 50 does over 3 days nut only 6 bucks. lots of hunters. my friend scored near the elkhorn ranch which was crawling with hunters. I got skunked but got a good workout. Only had one running shot at a buck which I blew at 130 yards.

cannot comment on their rifle scopes but I recently used a pair of Barska 10x 42 binos on my deer hunt. the quality was excellent for the money. they are a realitivly new company which uses his quality components.

I am one of those non residents that has hunted this unit for muleys and javelinas several times since 1990. I have not hunted it since 2001 though (not drawn). I will be hunting it for coues (1st time) this year with an experienced Arizona resident. Did this area receive much rain this year and does it look like a good year for deer in this zone? I'll be using a rem 700 in 270 win. with light mags. And yes good optics. :