Post by zeus on Jul 21, 2009 3:55:22 GMT -5
I was invited by a friend to go and try to find a few hogs at the Chain Ranch down in Oklahoma recently. They have approximately 20,000 acres owned or leased by the ranch for hunting/cattle but unfortunately, with the heat, the hog hunting was a little off. We'll probably try and go back in the Winter and see what happens then if the schedules work out for it. However, while we were there, I did take a few hours to locate and take a nice Merino sheep on a fenced section of the property. I shot a Barbados last year at another "ranch" and told myself that I wouldn't shoot anymore of the sheep but I have to admit, today was pretty fun. I spent about 3 hours walking/crawling in the sand burrs to try and get a decent shot at one of the merinos. There were only a few of them on the ranch and I had made up my mind that I wanted to try and find one to get the horns for a project that I'm wanting to try. If I had wanted a barbados, or texas dall, it would have been a really easy locate and shoot scenario but finding the merinos proved to be a pretty time consuming and tiring venture in the 100 degree heat and sandy soils 
The terrain is pretty thick surprisingly enough on this area of the property and they can hide very well. I finally found one of them about 30 minutes before dark. We were able to close the distance to about 95 yards but that was as close as we were getting. The only other merinos I had seen this afternoon was at about 50 mph because they saw me first so I was expecting to see dust from this one also. I had my stoney point folding "bipod"/walking stick with me as usual so I got a decent hold on the sixgun and waited for him to clear the other sheep near him. This took a couple of minutes but when he did clear himself, he winded me and took a step towards me and stuck his nose in the air then lowered it slightly and stared as if he was trying to figure out what the blob was that was sitting in sand burrs . The shot was slightly quartering towards my left but mostly frontal and slightly downhill. I had enough of an angle to try and enter the front and take out the right shoulder or lung in the exit. At the shot, the sheep/ram (whatever you want to call it) went straight down and never regained his feet. As the FA came out of its arch during recoil, it appeared the the first thing to hit the ground was the sheeps front end and head. It was almost instantaneous at the shot. The bullet entered where the neck meets the body just above the centerline between the front shoulders. One of the guides happened to be watching with his binoculars and was amazed that the light load I was using had that effect on a 225 pound sheep. My buddy is wanting to buy a new handgun now also
The load was the 270 grain SAA bullet from an RCBS mold that Fowler cast for me a while back(Thanks again Fowler). I loaded it with 12 grains of HS6 in 45 Colt brass which is probably in the 950-1000 fps range if I were to guess. However, this was a last minute change to use this ammo and the only gun I had with me to shoot it was my 7.5" FA 454. I always recommend loading down in 454 brass for 45 colt loads but I went ahead and used it anyway, now I just have to clean the gun before shooting again However, the bullet is very accurate at this speed from my revolver and hits like a hammer. Once again, I don't think that my heavy loads would have worked any better than the "weak" load by most people's standards today that I used. The picture is sort of misleading as far as the entry point of the bullet as the thick fur really soaked up some of the blood and I couldn't get it off for the picture unfortunately. I actually had a pretty good time with my buddy down there today and will probably take a few people back that would like to try it before too long. The guys (Mason, Newely, and James) at the Chain Ranch are really nice guys and I look forward to sending them a few more customers before the winter is over. It was a good time for an "animal on a leash" as my wife puts it and was a much better way to spend the day than behind a desk and I even got to test a bullet I've been wanting to try for a while. Can't beat that for a Monday very often
Here is one without the tacky bloody spot so bad.....
The terrain is pretty thick surprisingly enough on this area of the property and they can hide very well. I finally found one of them about 30 minutes before dark. We were able to close the distance to about 95 yards but that was as close as we were getting. The only other merinos I had seen this afternoon was at about 50 mph because they saw me first so I was expecting to see dust from this one also. I had my stoney point folding "bipod"/walking stick with me as usual so I got a decent hold on the sixgun and waited for him to clear the other sheep near him. This took a couple of minutes but when he did clear himself, he winded me and took a step towards me and stuck his nose in the air then lowered it slightly and stared as if he was trying to figure out what the blob was that was sitting in sand burrs . The shot was slightly quartering towards my left but mostly frontal and slightly downhill. I had enough of an angle to try and enter the front and take out the right shoulder or lung in the exit. At the shot, the sheep/ram (whatever you want to call it) went straight down and never regained his feet. As the FA came out of its arch during recoil, it appeared the the first thing to hit the ground was the sheeps front end and head. It was almost instantaneous at the shot. The bullet entered where the neck meets the body just above the centerline between the front shoulders. One of the guides happened to be watching with his binoculars and was amazed that the light load I was using had that effect on a 225 pound sheep. My buddy is wanting to buy a new handgun now also The load was the 270 grain SAA bullet from an RCBS mold that Fowler cast for me a while back(Thanks again Fowler). I loaded it with 12 grains of HS6 in 45 Colt brass which is probably in the 950-1000 fps range if I were to guess. However, this was a last minute change to use this ammo and the only gun I had with me to shoot it was my 7.5" FA 454. I always recommend loading down in 454 brass for 45 colt loads but I went ahead and used it anyway, now I just have to clean the gun before shooting again
However, the bullet is very accurate at this speed from my revolver and hits like a hammer. Once again, I don't think that my heavy loads would have worked any better than the "weak" load by most people's standards today that I used. The picture is sort of misleading as far as the entry point of the bullet as the thick fur really soaked up some of the blood and I couldn't get it off for the picture unfortunately. I actually had a pretty good time with my buddy down there today and will probably take a few people back that would like to try it before too long. The guys (Mason, Newely, and James) at the Chain Ranch are really nice guys and I look forward to sending them a few more customers before the winter is over. It was a good time for an "animal on a leash" as my wife puts it and was a much better way to spend the day than behind a desk and I even got to test a bullet I've been wanting to try for a while. Can't beat that for a Monday very often Here is one without the tacky bloody spot so bad.....
Shot just under him and spent the next 15 minutes kicking myself until we located him again. Luckily, the load isn't all that noisy and he had no clue where it came from. I made dang sure to know the distance on the next shot 
