Very nice buck!
I noticed the 6.5 and 120 gr. Great choice. How's he like that combo for shooting?
The rifle is a Weatherby Vanguard, that started out as their compact model with the stock spacer to adjust length of pull from adult to youth, and a 20" barrel.
The factory stock was terrible with the barrel riding the channel on one side the full length, and it was difficult to get a 2" 100yd group. I called B&C because my Wilderness has a lighter version of their stock that is not the same as what is widely available. They told me they had two of those stocks in short action left, so I ordered one. When it showed up I glass bedded the tang and the lug.
I also had Black Canyon Customs in Denver put a Hawkins brake on it. Last, I installed a Spartan universal adapter in the foreend for their javelin bipod.
The gun shoots as well as any of us can with the federal Trophy copper, and hornady whitetail. My magnetospeed has the federal load at 2764fps over 21 measured shots.
This deer was quartering away with his left side towards us and upslope. The bullet centered the second to last rib, breaking the two on either side as well, and a racquetball sized hole was the result. We were tricked on the other side because there was no apparent exit. When we were done cutting meat, I sawed the entry side ribs off and dug into things. The lungs were jello, I kept the heart, and after pulling everything out, I found the exit hole high above and a little behind the shoulder, it broke one rib but was much smaller at maybe a larger bottle cap. That should was fine, so I think maybe that right front was stretched forward on the shot, and then the scapula in a normal position covered the exit hole up because there wasn't any indication it was there until I got inside.
The deer was bounding, paused, was shot, and then slow trotted about 30 yards, the blood trail was massive, and I can't think that we would look to a different factory mono load unless availability were an issue.
