I had 2 doe tags and a buck tag and wanted to make a 500 yard plus shot with the Remington XP-100 R. I was not comfortable that I was accurate enough with it to shoot beyond 700 yards so the window of ranges was fairly small that I was willing to take a shot. I was in Wyoming Unit 72 where I hunt most years and very familiar with the small valley with a several small springs. I was driving out along the two track and topped a ridge and noticed two antelope bedded down on the far side of the valley but I continued driving the truck until I was out of their sight. After I parked the truck, I took the range finder and binoculars up and took a look. It appeared to be two fawns bedded down at about 500 yards away. That was right at the range I wanted to give the XP a try, so I got the video camera and tripod out and set it up. Then I got out the wind meter and read the wind at 8 mph which was somewhat higher than I wanted but for only 500 yards seemed doable with only a 15 inch hold off. With the 14 inch barrel the 260 Rem does not generate a lot of velocity for the 130 grain Berger match bullet and that causes a long flight time which is not good in the wind.
I eased around and found me a good shooting position where the grass was lower than the short Harris bipod and got prone. Once more I checked the range with the Swaro LRF and it was 498 yards. I thought about that for a few seconds and decided I could move back three yards easy enough so I got up and stepped back until I was at 501 yards and got prone again. Unlike adult antelope, the two fawns tolerated all of the movement very well. Once I got settled in and a good steady sight picture I took the shot at the leftmost fawn. With the Bushnell pistol scope set on 12X it is very difficult to get back on target so I grabbed the binoculars and all I could see was one fawn was hit but not well and the other was running off.
I decided it would be best to move to within a few hundred yards and finish the animal with a well placed second shot; however, once down in the valley it became very difficult to find a place where the short bipod would actually give enough clearance to take shot. A small learning lesson there in hunting with the XP.
In reviewing the video it became clear that while I was getting everything ready, the wind increased significantly and then I broke the trigger right as a gust came through. Bullet drift was at least twice what I held off. You can hear the wind and see some grass moving in the video
This is a trimmed version of the video of the shot.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Microcystis?feature=mhum
I managed to eat the whole fawn by myself during the rest of the antelope hunt and the Utah rifle antlerless hunt. It was much better than some tough old buck.
Linear Mode
