Ok, I will give a little more info.
Illinois lease. We drive up from NC and hunt hard for 2 or 3 days. In an hour and a half before first light, and sit all day, regardless of wind, rain or cold. On this day, it was COLD. High was 12, and wind was gusting to 37 mph, quartering on my left cheek. I had seen several small bucks and does in the morning, and then it went dead from 11 am through 2:30. Shortly after 2:30 a MONSTER mainframe 10 pt came out down at the bottom of Home Timber and was struggling to walk/step. I would see his front right shoulder was busted and his whole right side was covered in dirt/dried/wet blood. He was at 347 yards, and I was 12 feet in a ladder stand. As he slowly and painfully moved from my left to my right, I realized he was 8 feet from my other stand. When he got to the base of my bottom alpha field stand, he laid down right at the base of the ladder and flopped over on his left side. At that range, and in that wind, there was no way I could make an ethical shot, and if I got down out of my stand to move closer, I would bust the remaining of my hunt as I would have had to skirt right along the top of Home Timber to get close enough and not be in view. Being the deer was down and how cold it was, I figured he would not get up, but it killed me to see this magnificent animal suffer.
He laid there for an hour plus, then he lifted his head, struggled to his feet (I put crosshairs on him, but he was facing away) and stepped beside the ladder. That stand is on the edge of a "crick" and from bank to the bottom is about 11 feet. He took one more hobble and I watched him collapse and tumble into the crick and out of sight.
By now the wind had picked up velocity and the snow was coming down again. Did I say it was COLD? All my hunting buddies who live in Illinois had given up and gone home, only my NC buddy and I stayed in the stands, but he was on another property. At 4:30, at under 100 yards, the buck in this picture stepped out of Home Timber (I would have busted him had I gotten down) and worked down the drainage from my left towards me a 45 degree angle. Wind was still howling and it was hard to hold crosshairs on him, and I realized just how cold I was as I slipped my right glove off. I was excited yes, but I can manage that. I was shivering from the cold and I had almost no feeling in my right hand. Buck continued to feed angling towards me in the alpha drainage. I blew warm breath on my right fist and moved my finger to the trigger. Was really uneventful after that. Waited for a slight drop in the gusts and for him to be broadside and bang, dead right there. I was frozen to the metal seat of the stand, so I had to work to get free, as the snow had meted and frozen the steel to my bibs.
I reloaded the ML, check on my buck, and then slowly walked down to the bottom stand. I had one more tag, and planned to put it on the big 10 in the crick. As I slowly came to the top of the bank, all I saw was water, ice and mud. The big deer was gone. He could not have gone to the right, as I would have seen him as the crick flows through the main part of that pasture and is pretty open. He must have gone upstream and that would take him off property. I went as far as I could and never saw any sign of him.
As for my gun and load.
Started as a .308 Savage 10. Mounted Arrowhead barrel and brake. Built the bolt, but did nothing to stock as it was not touching past recoil lug. 60 grains of 4198 with Mag primer and 275 grain swaged bullet. Runs 2625 fps with this charge. I have increased powder but accuracy suffered. This really is a one hole gun at 100 yards. I have a drop chart to 800 yards on paper, but since my furthest possible shot with land variances and undulations on the leases is 530 yards, I only have it charted to 540.