Use Enough Gun

[JimT]

.... or Use What You Have! BUT .. use it correctly!

I had filled all my deer tags that year and was helping a couple people try to get their deer. I had my Ruger .22 Single Six on my belt as I never went unarmed into the hills and canyons. The pistol had been reworked by my Dad and one of the things he had done was re-chamber one chamber to .22 Magnum. That was the one kept empty for the hammer to be down on. There were always a few .22 Magnums in my shirt pocket. (An article I wrote about this gun can be found at https://leverguns.com/articles/taylor/family_gun.htm)

About the time the people I was with were tired of hunting I heard 5 shots off to the south. Fairly rapid fire. So instead of going back with the hunters I set out on my own to see who was down in that part of the hills and see what was going on.

After about a mile I could see someone standing on a hill, waving their arms at me. I signaled back and made my way toward them. When I got within a couple hundred yards I could see it was my friend Rick and he was making signs about something in front of me. I eased my way forward and suddenly a Mule Deer buck got up and tried to move off. I could see it was wounded but still had a lot of life in it.

I slipped a .22 Magnum out of my shirt pocket and into the chamber and rolled it around so it would be up when I cocked the hammer. The deer was dragging its back end and trying its best to get away. I was on its left side so I aimed at its head and fired. The deer stiffened up and then turned away from me. I fired again, into the back of its head and that turned the lights out.

By that time Rick was about down from the hill and he was sure happy to see me. I asked him what happened and he reminded me that he had asked me for suggestions about where to hunt. I had told him about this area and he had made his way there, hunted for a couple hours without seeing anything, gotten tired and laid down and took a nap. When he woke up there were deer all around him! He fired at the buck and missed and panic set in. He shot rapidly and managed to shoot the buck through the pelvis, but he was completely out of ammo! He had relocated the deer and was thinking about trying to jump on it and kill it with his knife when he saw me working my way toward him.

The .22 Long Rifle ain't the best deer medicine, but it will work if you can hold it and hit correctly. The first shot with the .22 Magnum was too low to hit the brain and went through the sinus cavities. It shocked the buck enough that he could not move very well. The Long Rifle shot was placed correctly and worked.

It just goes to show that "enough gun" ain't enough by itself. You got to use it correctly also.

[Griff]

[gamekeeper]

I would also add carry enough ammo...although lately I've been guilty of just putting a few rounds in my pocket.

[Griff]

I would also add carry enough ammo...although lately I've been guilty of just putting a few rounds in my pocket.

Been there, done that! Once, and only the once, when hunting about 4-¼ miles south of Olancha Peak @ ~9,000', I hit a buck, low, forward of amidships. As it turned out I'd nicked an artery just above his heart, and he was slowly bleeding, mostly internally. Anyway, I had the 3 rounds in my rifle, (now less one), and 7 rounds in the little ammo wallet in my coat pocket. I had to drop down 300 feet and back up about 150 across this little ravine to get to the deer. He was still alive when I got there, and it took all remaining nine rounds to finally hit the deer a second time, staying back about 20 or so feet. Taking aim while sucking in huge gulps of air does not bode well for aiming! We usually got to camp on Thursday, and this was Sunday morning, so probably not well acclimatized to the altitude! The following few years we had to hike up from around 8,200' to our camp site @ 9,200' so we were generally very well acclimatized by the time opening day arrived for us. We also went up at least 4 days in advance to acclimatize.

[GunnyMack]

I heard a first hand report from an old Indian guide in Quebec about how his father got a moose every year. Caliber of choice was .22 short! He would shoot for the lungs and then just track until the moose bled out, mostly internally.
.22 certainly does punch above what it should. I had a deer here that was all busted up after it was hit by a car. Poor ol guy was crippled badly so I humanly sent a CCI SGB through his lungs and watched him fall over. It was Christmas Eve, and a blizzard was forecasted, I figured a .22 was much more humane than that poor deer freezing or starving . Of course that was before we had coyotes.