For the 2022-2023 Whitetail Deer season, I decided to test out a brand new rifle with a not so new bullet that I have never tried before. I ordered a Browning X-Bolt Stainless Stalker in 30-06 Sprg with enough time to test a few factory loads and see what the rifle shot well before modern gun season in Mississippi. After settling on Hornady 165 SSTs in the Superformance line, I was able to take three deer with this rifle/ammo combination. To say I was impressed with this rifle and ammunition would be an understatement.
After mounting the scope and running a few patches with some CLP down the barrel, I hit the range. I tried five or six different factory loads, most of which shot around 1.5 MOA three shot groups at 100 yards. Federal’s 180 grain Trophy Copper shot sub-MOA in this X-Bolt, but I have shot several smaller Mississippi deer with this load out of a 30-06 Sprg with less than stellar results. It’s not a knock against it, I just think the heavier monometal bullets are suited more for larger game such as elk or moose. If I am ever able to make it out to Colorado for elk, the 180 grain Trophy Copper will probably be the elk medicine I take with me. I finally tried Hornady’s 165 grain SST ammo, and I was able to shoot multiple sub-MOA three shot groups at 100 yards. This excited me because of the typical higher velocities of the Superformance line, so I would essentially be getting 150 grain 30-06 Sprg velocities with a 165 grain bullet with higher sectional density and ballistic coefficient, which would hopefully translate to better performance on deer at longer ranges if need be (long range is relative, but as of before this deer season my farthest shot on a deer was 175 yards if that gives you an idea of what long range is to me). I had found a winner, and it was time to get ready for deer season.
The first deer taken this hunting season with my 30-06 Sprg and 165 SST’s was a 10 point Mississippi buck. I hunted the edge of a big hay field one morning before work, and I had made my mind up that I was leaving at 9:00 AM. I had taken some rattling antlers that my father-in-law gave me five or six years ago for Christmas that I had never used before this season. After two or three low-key rattling sequences performed between daylight until around 8:30 AM, I decided that I would give it one more try since I had not seen a single deer all morning. At 8:45 I really let those antlers have it. I was almost obnoxious with my rattling and clanging of those plastic antlers, but within 30 seconds from the time I stopped that last sequence, a 10 point buck ran out of the woods from my left to right bowed up like a jealous teenage boyfriend. He stopped 40 yards in front of me. As I raised my rifle, he must have seen movement because he ran back toward the tree line he came from 175 yards away from where I was sitting and stopped quartering away from me. I hate to admit when I mess up, but the first shot I attempted was a miss. I shot right over him. Luckily he didn’t move, and I took another shot. This time It was a hit. The buck went down immediately, but he did not die immediately. As I walked up on the buck, He was obviously paralyzed, and his breathing was distressed. I put another shot through the buck’s vitals to finish him off. Upon further investigation, the buck had been hit high, through one lung, and the impact broke his spine. This was a perfect case of the bullet doing its job, even when she shooter didn’t do his best job.
The second deer taken with this rifle/ammo combo was a pretty good 6 point Mississippi buck. Despite it being a warmer than usual December afternoon, I decided I would try hunt anyway and hit the public woods around 1:00 PM to get a head start. I was hunting the edge of a pine thicket where it met a hardwood bottom, and I had seen some red-hot buck sign a few days earlier. I had been sitting in my climbing stand about two hours, received two phone calls that for whatever reason I answered, and seen 5 gobblers come within 100 yards of me. All of the sudden I heard a familiar crashing through the woods. The deer was running down the same trail that I walked in on, and I could tell right away that is was a legal buck. He ran right in front of me and was not checking up. I did my best doe bleat about four or five times, each time louder than before. The buck finally stopped about 45 yards away, and I let the ‘06 sing. It was a good hit right in the vitals, and the buck dropped in his tracks. There were good entry and exit wounds, which gave me a more assurance that the bullet will pass through at closer ranges (the box states that the muzzle velocity of this load is just north of 2950 fps). Had the buck ran, there would have been a tremendous blood trail. This was my second public land Mississippi buck ever taken, and it was much better than my first.
The third deer taken during the 2022-23 season with this rifle/ammo combo was a doe I shot in the same hay field where I had killed the 10 point. This time I took my 6 year old with me. He had run out of snacks and was getting restless, but thankfully I was able to talk him in to staying just a little bit longer (15 minutes before legal shoot light ended) because a group of does came out about that time. The does came out of the woods about 400 yards away, and they were headed right for us. The does changed direction and headed for the tree line to my left, and they stopped in front of a cluster of trees that I knew from ranging earlier was 350 yards away. I didn’t have my rangefinder out at the time, and legal light was fading fast. Judging by the does’ body language they were not planning on staying in that field much longer. I knew from plugging numbers in a ballistics calculator that my drop was around a foot at that distance, so I lied down prone and propped my rifle on my backpack and aimed what I thought was a foot high. I squeezed the trigger, and the doe dropped. This was, by far, my longest shot on a deer. I was tickled silly that the doe dropped right where she had been standing, because I have had to blood trail at least 4 deer in the past that have run into the woods out of that hay field after being shot. Now that I am done patting myself on the back, let me tell you where I messed up First let me say that I am not a long range shooter, but this experience showed me that if I am going to take a shot at that distance, I better start learning more about and practicing long range shooting. I did not take wind into consideration before taking this shot on this doe. There was a 10 (ish) mph wind from my left to right that afternoon, and the doe gave me a quartering shot (head closer to me and to the left, tail was going back to the right). The bullet hit dead center on the vertical axis where I intended it to go, but the wind carried that bullet about 6 inches to the right. I hit her in the guts, and the bullet exited the right hind quarter. The entrance wound and exit wound were very impressive to say the least, even if my shooting was not.
With these three deer harvests, I learned a lot. I learned that I need to practice more with longer distance shots, and I need to be more aware of the wind. I also learned that I do better when I zero my rifle at either 100 or 200 yards vs zeroing for maximum point blank range, but that is a topic for another day. I plan to order a custom dial turret for my scope on this particular rifle and zero it at 200 yards for next year. I am a big fan of this cartridge/ammo combination because of the forgiveness in the case of less than optimal shot placement and the fact that none of these deer took a step after being shot. Had I needed to blood trail these deer, it would have likely been easy because of the good exit wounds on all three. The only downside to using this particular ammo, if you can even call it a downside, would be the potential for increased meat damage compared to something similar with a slower velocity, but with good shot placement (behind the shoulder) this shouldn’t be an issue.