Final Preparation for the Hunt

Well, if everything remains in accordance with the game plan, I'll be on the road in a week for the hunting trip to southern Arkansas. This past week, I managed to check off a few more items from the pre-hunt punch list, ordering the following from Cabela's:

A Knight & Hale grunt call:

Under Armour blaze orange vest and cap (not very attractive, but legally required):

A Streamlight Scorpion LED flashlight (for those early, pre-dawn trips to the stand):

... and finally, another box of the Winchester XP3 Extreme Elite ammo, in .270 WSM:

I also took one more trip to the rifle range, where I had to make my final ammo choice, fine tune my scope and get a little more comfortable with the rifle. After going back and forth with Federal standard big game loads and the Winchester Extreme Elite, I opted for the latter. At 100M, the Winchester rounds were a good 2.5" higher than the Federal rounds. This is not surprising, as the Winchester rounds travel significantly faster and have a much flatter trajectory. Once I convinced myself that I could accurately place the Winchester rounds in tight groups (which for whatever reason, I initially found harder to group than the Federal rounds), I made my decision and dialed in my Leupold VX-R for that ammo. My goal was to set the scope 1.1" high at 100 meters, which according to the ballistics chart provided by Winchester, would make the 130 grain load dead flat at 200 meters and down about 5.5" at 300 meters (which is the longest shot I'll potentially see for my shooting lanes). (Interesting side note: Until I purchased this rifle, I had no idea that bullets actually rise initially before beginning to drop.)

My efforts resulted in the final three round grouping below. (The numbers on the target are 1 inch increments.) The first two shots were those that are touching, just left of center. From there, I adjusted upward 4 clicks (1") and right 2 clicks (.5"), and fired the third round. I decided to stop right there. While I wasn't dead above center an inch like I planned, I've learned that when I mispull the trigger with this rifle, I tend to miss a little right. Thus, I'm ok with being a half inch left of center at 100 meters.

Finally, I charged up the Flip video camera so I can try to capture some video of the hunt. Hopefully, I won't forget to pack it next week. More importantly, I hope I don't forget my non-resident license. With that, the tools are ready. Word from SouthArk is, the deer are ready. I guess the rest is up to the shooter.