Ridge Runner
Well-Known Member
A year ago I promised a young lady who bear hunts with us some to let her try a shot with the 7 AM on a deer, so 12/30 I met her and her BF at a local store to take her hunting.
I explained to them that I didn't want her trying a shot beyond 600 yards because in my experience thats where things change and without experience on the rifle at those ranges chances of a first round hit decrease beyond 600 yards. So we went to one of the places where I hunt a good deal. its a bank above a 4 lane highway where you can see the whole side of the ridge, max. range is 670 yards with most of the deer seen at around 530-600 yards.
now from the bottom center of the pic, look at 10:30upper left just under the ridgetop is an open area, thats where her deer appeared. It was cold (16°) I instructed her to wait for a good broadside shot and hold center shoulder. she took her time and hammered the doe, I saw the impact and the back end hit the ground first, lazered range was 575 yards.
On the way home I saw deer in a field that my boss owns, I been wanting to try a 140 berger from the 6.5 Gibbs, I wanted a shot at 600-750 yards but didn't look like it would happen, I ranged the doe at 419 yards set everything up and sent a vld, impact was behind the shoulder, had an exit the size of a 50 cent piece, after 15 yards the doe was going down, a very impressive impact sight and bloodtrail to the deer.
when I got home I had a message from my redneck bearhunting buddies in the adjoining county that we were hunting the next day for deer on the big farm that they own, so I repacked the 7mm AM, grabbed another 20 rounds and left the next morning in a snowstorm to go hunting, needless to say with 4" of new snow on top of a foot left over from the last storm, I was late for breakfast.
We got to the farm at about 7:20 AM, layed an 8'x8' sheet of carboard down set the rifle up . we saw deer immediately and again I explained about the 600 yard reccomendation.
first shooter up is a young guy we call hulio, he picked out a big doe at 520 yards, I explained the whole process best I could as time allowed and started to make the scope adjustments. While rechecking my pda my glasses broke, the left lense fell into the snow never to be saw again. Now you may not think this a big deal but let me explain.
I'm 50 years old, near-sighted as heck with 20/65 vision in my right eye, here I am trying to read a palm pda with a screensize the same as a pack of ciggarettes, wasn't gonna happen.
So there I was my reading glasses on upside down trying to read the screen by holding it off to the left so my right eye wasn't confusing the one I use to see with, well finaly got the scope set, I looked pretty silly, so the redneck crowd says.
when the deer turned broadside he held center shoulder and fired, the doe never as much as kicked, just folded up.
another mature doe stood up close to the dead one and we were debating on who wanted to shoot next when a jeep pulled into the field, a guy got out, and asked how things were going, we said great, hulio just killed a deer at 520 yards, where he said, over on the next top beside that deer standing over there. I've never shot anything that far he said, well give it a whirl, scopes allready set. he sighted and sighted finaly he broke the trigger, shot was a bit low but the deer sprinted 40 yards and went down. have no idea who that guy was but he was happy!
skeeter was next up, but he didn't want one at 600 yards he wanted to say he shot one at 800, I told him again about the 600 yard threshold, but he witnessed me killing a buck 2 years ago at 822 yards, and he'd shot one that same day at 567 and he knew it was easier than I let on, so we got him set up to shoot where deer were crossing a gasline at 787 yards7 deer got by before he could get the crosshair on them.
finaly one started feeding and he got time for a shot, a miss, and another miss, and another. finaly I got on the rifle, adjusted the focus to remove the parralex, instructed him to watch the level and slowly squeeze, he finaly connected the 4th shot.
then a guy hollared that my deer was spottedit was crossing a gasline at 926 yards, with the glasses on upside down again and furiously trying to get the droptable to pull up on the palm to the page 850-1000 yards, the deer just walked into the timber with no shot fired. I had just removed my broken glasses when they yelled another deer crossing the gasline what luck, another deer at 926, the rifle is set and good to go. I set the focus, leveled the rifle, loaded the bipod and missed bad! shot again, no impact, no reaction, nothing. Then I saw it, a black spot in the snow just above a set of fresh tracks, I knew then that the deer was farther than 926 yards.
judgeing what I was seeing in the snow, and knowing I didn't have time to get the broken glasses out I took my best guess set the scope for 1000 yards +1/4 moa (15 moa total elevation) and fired, the deers reaction told the story 1.4 seconds later, backend drooped, front end came off the ground and a 20 yard death dash. on retrival I ranged back to the rest of the party and got 1005 yards.
we spent the rest of the afternoon testing a friends 300 win mag at ranges to 400 yards.
Here's a pic of one of the kids I took out for his first LR hunt and a few of the deer taken with the 7mm AM
RR
I explained to them that I didn't want her trying a shot beyond 600 yards because in my experience thats where things change and without experience on the rifle at those ranges chances of a first round hit decrease beyond 600 yards. So we went to one of the places where I hunt a good deal. its a bank above a 4 lane highway where you can see the whole side of the ridge, max. range is 670 yards with most of the deer seen at around 530-600 yards.
now from the bottom center of the pic, look at 10:30upper left just under the ridgetop is an open area, thats where her deer appeared. It was cold (16°) I instructed her to wait for a good broadside shot and hold center shoulder. she took her time and hammered the doe, I saw the impact and the back end hit the ground first, lazered range was 575 yards.
On the way home I saw deer in a field that my boss owns, I been wanting to try a 140 berger from the 6.5 Gibbs, I wanted a shot at 600-750 yards but didn't look like it would happen, I ranged the doe at 419 yards set everything up and sent a vld, impact was behind the shoulder, had an exit the size of a 50 cent piece, after 15 yards the doe was going down, a very impressive impact sight and bloodtrail to the deer.
when I got home I had a message from my redneck bearhunting buddies in the adjoining county that we were hunting the next day for deer on the big farm that they own, so I repacked the 7mm AM, grabbed another 20 rounds and left the next morning in a snowstorm to go hunting, needless to say with 4" of new snow on top of a foot left over from the last storm, I was late for breakfast.
We got to the farm at about 7:20 AM, layed an 8'x8' sheet of carboard down set the rifle up . we saw deer immediately and again I explained about the 600 yard reccomendation.
first shooter up is a young guy we call hulio, he picked out a big doe at 520 yards, I explained the whole process best I could as time allowed and started to make the scope adjustments. While rechecking my pda my glasses broke, the left lense fell into the snow never to be saw again. Now you may not think this a big deal but let me explain.
I'm 50 years old, near-sighted as heck with 20/65 vision in my right eye, here I am trying to read a palm pda with a screensize the same as a pack of ciggarettes, wasn't gonna happen.
So there I was my reading glasses on upside down trying to read the screen by holding it off to the left so my right eye wasn't confusing the one I use to see with, well finaly got the scope set, I looked pretty silly, so the redneck crowd says.
when the deer turned broadside he held center shoulder and fired, the doe never as much as kicked, just folded up.
another mature doe stood up close to the dead one and we were debating on who wanted to shoot next when a jeep pulled into the field, a guy got out, and asked how things were going, we said great, hulio just killed a deer at 520 yards, where he said, over on the next top beside that deer standing over there. I've never shot anything that far he said, well give it a whirl, scopes allready set. he sighted and sighted finaly he broke the trigger, shot was a bit low but the deer sprinted 40 yards and went down. have no idea who that guy was but he was happy!
skeeter was next up, but he didn't want one at 600 yards he wanted to say he shot one at 800, I told him again about the 600 yard threshold, but he witnessed me killing a buck 2 years ago at 822 yards, and he'd shot one that same day at 567 and he knew it was easier than I let on, so we got him set up to shoot where deer were crossing a gasline at 787 yards7 deer got by before he could get the crosshair on them.
finaly one started feeding and he got time for a shot, a miss, and another miss, and another. finaly I got on the rifle, adjusted the focus to remove the parralex, instructed him to watch the level and slowly squeeze, he finaly connected the 4th shot.
then a guy hollared that my deer was spottedit was crossing a gasline at 926 yards, with the glasses on upside down again and furiously trying to get the droptable to pull up on the palm to the page 850-1000 yards, the deer just walked into the timber with no shot fired. I had just removed my broken glasses when they yelled another deer crossing the gasline what luck, another deer at 926, the rifle is set and good to go. I set the focus, leveled the rifle, loaded the bipod and missed bad! shot again, no impact, no reaction, nothing. Then I saw it, a black spot in the snow just above a set of fresh tracks, I knew then that the deer was farther than 926 yards.
judgeing what I was seeing in the snow, and knowing I didn't have time to get the broken glasses out I took my best guess set the scope for 1000 yards +1/4 moa (15 moa total elevation) and fired, the deers reaction told the story 1.4 seconds later, backend drooped, front end came off the ground and a 20 yard death dash. on retrival I ranged back to the rest of the party and got 1005 yards.
we spent the rest of the afternoon testing a friends 300 win mag at ranges to 400 yards.
Here's a pic of one of the kids I took out for his first LR hunt and a few of the deer taken with the 7mm AM
RR
