RUSSELL THORNBERRY OUTDOORS

Almost Mine

Bowhunting for trophy-class white-tailed bucks is usually asking more of Mother Nature than she is willing to allow. Add a cameraman to the equation and she pulls out all the stops.  Such was the case last fall in Bullock County, Alabama. 

Bowhunting, by nature, is an invitation for disappointment.  So many things have to go right.  The stars have to line up just so, and still, the most miniscule of minutia will deny you of your dream. 

My dream was wearing 12 tall points on a wide, palmated frame at least 25 inches wide.  He was one of those “take your breath” bucks – the kind that steps into view and makes it impossible to breathe – that kind of buck.

I was hunting a hardwood bottom about 50 miles from my home in Montgomery, Alabama.  It was a television hunt so an unnamed cameraman was perched in a tall oak tree right behind me.  The rut was coming on so I had my rattling antlers on hand.  I know that many hunters believe you can’t rattle up a buck in Alabama and admittedly it is tough but it can be done when the weather and the early stages of the rut cooperate.  It seemed like a perfect day to me especially considering that for the three days previous it had rained non stop, washing away the fresh scrapes that outlined every creek bottom and timber line.  But now the sky was clearing and the wind claming. Maybe the rut would come alive again.

I tickled the tips of my rattling antlers gently and paused for five minutes.  Then I smacked them together with some authority and continued for a minute or so.  That’s when I caught movement to the north.  It was a buck slipping quietly through the canes, heading my way.  The cameraman was on red alert and soon it was clear that this buck was truly a life-time deer.  I hung the antlers on a limb and froze.  The buck meandered around, never coming closer than forty yards from us, and then bedded down in the canes – broadside!  I could see his hug rack sway when he turned his head slowly from side to side.  He was actually close enough to shoot but the canes provided him with enough of a protective shroud that I dared not chance it. 

He was obviously waiting patiently for the fight to continue and was in no hurry.  A buck of that magnitude never is. They usually have far more patience that their hunters.  For 30 minutes the he stayed bedded – taunting me – tormenting me – daring me -- and then finally stood up, stretched and walked away back from the direction from whence he came.  My heart sank.  I don’t think a whitetail has ever made me cry but this one came close.  I felt the same way I did in the 7th grade when I was snubbed by the girl of my dreams.  Love dies hard, and so does a deer hunter’s anxiety when he sees a buck of such rarity.  “Helpless” doesn’t begin to describe the feeling. Neither does “aching,” “sick,” “nauseous,” or “deflated,” or any combination thereof.

I simply couldn’t believe that I had rattled that monster in to 40 yards and could do nothing about it.

The cameraman and I sat quietly, not even looking at each other, mutually grieving over our disappointment.  Another 45 quiet minutes dragged by and darkness started to settle on the treetops.  It looked like the hunt was over and I was just waiting to hear him announce that our filming light was all gone. I glanced up at him and saw him with his head turned sharply to his left.  Suddenly he turned back to me and with eyes as big as saucers and pointed behind him. When I looked around the tree my heart almost exploded.  Our buck was back – and standing only 10 yards from our tree.  He stood like a statue straining every sense he possessed like radar.  Had I been in the cameraman’s stand it would have been all over, but I was in my stand and was as helpless as a “kitten up a tree.”

I tried to control my breathing and hoped the buck couldn’t hear my heart beating as it thundered in my ears.  The buck wanted to walk past out tree and finally he was standing at arms length from it, still directly under the cameraman’s stand.  He would start around the tree on one side and just before he would give me a shot he would back up and start around the tree on the opposite side. He did this three times as precious seconds of light ticked away.  Finally he started a around the tree on my side and I thought the unthinkable was actually going to happen.  When I saw his head clear the tree trunk I knew he was committed.  I hauled back on my bowstring and gingerly as one can pull 70 pounds, praying that I wouldn’t spook him.  Just two more steps and this adrenaline-packed drama would finally end in my favor.

He took another cautious step.

Just one more step I urged under my breath.

The buck started to step forward in to certain peril and then stopped mid step and dropped his nose to the ground.  At that moment my heart turned to stone and the dying rays of daylight revealed my nemesis – a skinny orange plastic jerky wrapper that the cameraman had dropped unknowingly.  I knew how it would end even before it happened.  The blast of air created by the snorting alarm of the great deer came as no surprise, nor did the speed with which he vanished back into the canes.

He was almost mine.  So close – so very close.

There is nothing to be gained by describing the horrors of the torture I envisioned for the cameraman. But suffice to say that boiling him in oil would have been an act of kindness compared to what I had in mind!

Hyper Velocity Rifles

Hyper Velocity Rifles:  Shockdown versus Knockdown Power

P.O. Ackley, the godfather of American ballisticians, forgot more than most of us will ever know about bullet performance. Many years ago, I read his double volume “Handbook for Shooters & Reloaders.” When I turned to his chapter entitled “Killing Power” in Volume I, I fully expected a treatise on why .50-caliber bullets are more deadly than .49-caliber bullets. However, I was amazed to fine something different – something that Ackley called “shockdown power” rather than “knockdown power.”

His premise is simply that the more speed increases, the more shock increases. And when speed passes the threshold of 4,000 feet per second, a whole new dynamic is created – one that cannot be equaled with lesser speed, no matter how large the bullet.

His classic test, which proved his point, was conducted by shooting bullets into ½-inch-thick steel-armor plate from the frontal area of a U.S. military half-track. At a distance of 30 feet, he shot a .270 Win with 100-grain bullets, a .30-06 with military-issue, solid-steel, armor-piercing bullets, and a .220 Swift with a 48-grain bullet.

The results were astounding. The .270 bullet left a shiny spot on the armor plate and did not penetrate at all. Two shots from the .30-06 armor-piercing bullets left shallow craters .070 and .098 inch respectively. The little .220 Swift bullets consistently burned 3/8-inch diameter holes completely through the ½-inch armor. The results spoke for themselves. Crossing the threshold of hypervelocity created a dynamic as a result of shock that cannot be achieved any other way.

Ackley’s test was done on armor plate, but how does that translate to performance on the flesh and bone of wild animals? Ackley went on to say that if he had to pick only one rifle for hunting North American game, it would be a .220 Swift. If, in Ackley’s day, he had had access to the slower-burning powders of today, he would have been able to propel even larger-diameter bullets at “hyperspeed” – bullets traveling 4,000 or more feet per second at the muzzle. I speculate that he would have chosen a larger-caliber, heavier bullet capable of hyperspeed for his choice North American game rifle.

Fate allowed me to cross paths with an Ackley disciple when I was outfitting in Alberta, Canada. James Ferguson of Wharton, Texas, came to hunt with me, and we struck up a lasting friendship. James is a superb custom rifle builder and has built several hunting rifles for me – all capable of hypervelocity. Two of my favorites are the .257 Ferguson Hot Tamale and the .30-378 Ferguson Mach IV Habanero.

The .257 Hot Tamale is a 7mm STW case necked down to .257 caliber. I shoot either a 100-grain all-copper Barnes Triple Shock bullet or a Lost River Ballistic Technologies 100-grain J-36 bullet in that rifle. The Mach IV Habanero is a custom .30-378 Weatherby cartridge loaded with either a 130-grain Barnes Triple Shock bullet or Barnes 130-grain XLC Coated X Bullet. In both calibers, Ferguson has reached or exceeded 4,000-fps muzzle velocity. The incredible expansion control of the all-copper bullets makes it possible to achieve complete penetration in spite of their light weights and extreme velocities.

To illustrate my point, Ferguson went to South Africa last year with the .257 Hot Tamale in hand. Yes, he was treading on the hallowed tradition of the .375 H&H Magnum, but he convinced his professional hunter to give him a chance. Then he proceeded to anchor plains game large and small in their tracks with a single 100-grain bullet. Game including zebra, wildebeest, kudu, water buck and gemsbuck folded up like scalded spiders upon bullet impact.

And if that isn’t convincing enough, before Ferguson left for Africa, he took a massive plains bison and a 6x6 bull elk with his Hot Tamale with precisely the same results. And he achieved complete pass through with his diminutive 100-grain all-copper bullets, even on the buffalo and elk! Guess where he aimed at all these critters? The point of the shoulder – the thickest-muscled and most heavily boned part of their anatomy.

I have taken numerous deer with my Hot Tamale, and I, too, seek the point-of-the-shoulder shot. They drop like stones.

Last season, Buckmasters videographer Jimmy Little and I went to Mexico on a whitetail hunt, and we filmed each other taking our bucks. When we returned to the office and viewed the footage in slow motion, we were astounded to the see the devastating results of the impact of our shots. In both cases, the front ends of the deer collapsed – their heads dropped before their hind legs buckled. Then they flipped over backwards and landed with all four feet pointed at the sky as if struck by lightning.

The subsequent examination of their vital organs further explained the effects of hypervelocity. Whether deer or buffalo, the internal examinations revealed the same thing: The vitals were, for the most part, unrecognizable, rendered as a mass of black jelly.

On Ferguson’s plains bison hunt in Canada, he used his .257 Hot Tamale while a friend used a .300 Win Mag. He said the examination of the buffalo shot with the .300 revealed a bullet hole through the lungs, but the farther from the bullet hole, the more the lungs looked pink and normal. However, the internal organs of the buffalo hit with the Hot Tamale were as described above – a mass of black jelly.

Why the difference? Shock. Liquid can’t be compressed, so when the force of hypervelocity impacts internal organs, the liquid contained therein becomes a deadly weapon in its own right. It explodes away from the impact with such force that it destroys all in its path. Crossing the 4,000-fps threshold of speed creates such intense hydrostatic shock within the animal that the liquid in its vital organs becomes something of an internal bomb. Magnum velocity of 3,000 fps does not approach this devastating threshold, regardless of bullet weights.

Now, a word about bullets: All-copper bullets are a key in standing up to hypervelocity, penetrating and exiting an animal. Their solid construction allows them to penetrate at speeds of which other light bullets are incapable.

Secondly, since all-copper bullets are lighter in mass then lead, they must be longer than copper-coated lead bullets of the same weight. This offers another advantage: The ogive of the all-copper bullet of any given weight will be longer those that of a copper-coated lead bullet, creating a downrange ballistic advantage in speed and accuracy.

Wind drift is often cited as a reason not to use light bullets, but like gravity, wind drift is in a race with the bullet’s speed. The faster the bullet flies, the less time wind drift has to bear on the bullet.

I watched a man shoot a huge bull elk last season with one of Ferguson’s Mach IV Habaneros. He used a 130-grain XLC bullet leaving the barrel at 4,000-plus fps. The elk was some 200 yards distant. Upon impact, the bull’s chin hit the ground so hard, I thought it might have broken his jaws – and that was before his hind legs could even buckle! He never took a step. The shot took him through the thickest part of his front shoulders and exited his offside.

I shot a big Saskatchewan whitetail last fall with the Mach IV Habanero with the same bullet as was shot at the elk. The buck was 240 yards from my blind. When the bullet hit him, he did a complete back flip in the air and landed without a twitch, as dead as a sack of cement.

Unlike days of old, it really doesn’t matter if the animal is 30 yards away or 500, the bullets described will work with equal effectiveness. And speaking of 500 yards, with either the Mach IV Habanero or the Hot Tamale, they both shoot so flat when zeroed 2 ½ inches high at 100 yards that the shooter can actually aim at a deer-sized animal out to 500 yards with no holdover.

Did I mention accuracy? Both rifles shoot three shots into 3/8-inch groups or less. I’ve taken several javelinas, much smaller than a whitetail, well in excess of 400 yards by holding right on them. Amazing!

The argument of high-velocity light bullets versus big, slower bullets will likely continue on as long as hunters sit around campfires. But for me the argument is forever settled.

I am sometimes quoted as saying “There all kinds of wounded but only one kind of dead,” and while I still hold to that, I have come to realize that there is instant dead and there is dead pretty soon. I am definitely a proponent of instant dead, or as they say in Texas, “Dead right there!”

For more information on James Ferguson Custom Rifles, call (979) 533-0140 or visit www.fergusonrifles.com.                                   

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