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.
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