I hunted KY on the farm in Fleming County, KY but came up empty. The good news is that my Grand daughter scored a very nice 12pt buck in mid week which is her third deer and her little brother bagged his first deer with a very respectable 9pt buck a couple days later on the same farm. The week of Thanksgiving my hunting relocated to Roane Co WV for our traditional annual deer hunting outing the week prior to Thanksgiving. This is a group of 4-5 old friends who have all hunted the same farm for more than 30y now. In fact most years now our kids join us and this year was epic. One of our friend's sons bagged an antlerless deer with his crossbow the day before gun season opened. So, we had fresh meat right at the start.
Normally, I hunt whitetail deer with my old Mauser 270 custom topped with a 3-9x Leupold optic. It is a tried and true deer slayer. But, I am prepping for a SA Safari and have two new FN Browning Rifles that I have been setting up for that trip. While the 308 would have been the logical choice I wanted to get some real world trigger time with the 375 H&H. This is way too much gun for deer but I figured the heavy constructed bullets from the magnum might just pass thru the light skinned deer as long as I did not hit heavy bone and besides, practice is practice. I used 250g Trophy Bonded Bear Claw ammo running about 2750 fps. The FN had a 1.5-4x Leupold optic on top at the time. This was also a chance to shake down my Vortex binos and a new pair of Merrill Boots. I brought my shooting sticks along because I am trying to get used to shooting off sticks as well.
Our little one room hunting cabin is getting too small for our party so some of our gang was housed in a large four man tent next door. I woke at 4am and strolled to the outhouse in the dark to prep for the day and do some serious reading. One of our other early birds was shocked to find the library was ocupido when he arrived on the scene. Needless to say I was in my stand more than an hour before first light. About 15min after first light I was looking left and was "Squacking" at a large grey squirrel on the dead tree near my stand. This stand was a five foot tall 3ft diameter stump which I had placed a folding camp chair behind, overlooking a large wooded valley below. This provided a commanding view of at least three hot game trails below and a fourth that passed near my tree. The longest available shot was about 150y.
As I was talking to the squirrel, I heard a twig snap to my right. Slowly turning my head I got a fleeting glimpse of a 8pt buck retreating to the North away from me. Then I spotted a doe down the hill to my West looking back. About 20y behind the doe was what I thought was a 2nd doe about 40y down the mtn. In the dim light, I could not make out antlers with the naked eye and not being used to having binocs, I failed to deploy them at all. Instead, I slowly rose from my seat and lifted my rifle to glass the deer. At 1.5x in the half light of dawn, I still did not see horns. But I dialed to 4x and lo and behold the deer was a modest 8pt buck. Placing the reticle on his shoulder, I slipped off the safety and readied for a shot. All this happened in the course of about 5 seconds and I fired a shot and the buck ran over the hill, stopping on the next bench below about 80y away. When the deer stopped I fired a 2nd shot and the deer dropped in its tracks. I sat down and watched it for several minutes giving it time to expire. During this time our PH and the rest of our African hunting party from KY began texting me and I told them I was hunting with the 375 and it was a pussycat, that I planned to take it squirrel hunting next, lol. I also, texted one of my hunting buddies and told him that a buck was headed his way. 3min later I heard his shot and five min after that another of our party shot a 3rd buck. In the first half hour of legal hunting light we bagged three 8pt bucks.
Turned out that my first shot was a miss as I had zeroed the rifle at 200y with 300g ammo but failed to account for the higher trajectory of the faster lighter bullet I was using and the steep downhill angle. A dumb rookie mistake in part from hunting with an unfamiliar firearm but is also why I was hunting with it. I may have gotten spoiled from hunting with the 270 all these years and it just shoots flat at all normal shooting distances in the Eastern woodlands. This was our best hunt in several years as the herd has rebounded from the scourge of coyotes and disease.
Post Hunt Lessons Learned:
- Zero for the actual conditions to be encountered - i.e. 100y
- Hunt with the actual ammo used for zero of the weapon
- In hind sight the low powered Leupold was not enough scope for my taste. It has since been replaced with a Swarovski Z6i with an illuminated mil dot. More power but also with a true 1x with the red dot makes for quick acquisition and better light gathering, etc.
- The 250g Trophy Bonded Bear Claw punched a 2" wound channel thru the deer but did not appear to expand much at all and the damage was minimal, yet the shot that did connect blew out both lungs and wrecked most of the plumbing above the heart and resulting in a quick and humane kill. No tracking required.
- The shooting sticks are the "Bomb".
- No African carry was used on this hunt, but I did utilize the Rhodesian Carry some during both the KY and WV hunts.
- We spent most of the morning field dressing and retrieving our deer from their various valleys (wounded deer always run downhill).
The FN Browning 375 is really not a bad hunting rifle and the recoil is slight in a real hunting situation. While too much gun for deer, it is not horrific. It would make a great Elk, Moose, Bear rifle and should serve well on Buffalo and larger plains game in RSA. With the new optic I am getting about 1" groups at 100y using my 300g ammo and a new zero that is 1" high at 100y and about zero at 130-150y and then drops one more inch for every 10y further out as you progress to 250y. After that it begins to drop off faster.
Irish
