My family and I went on our annual whitetail hunt to Mason, TX this weekend. This is a cull hunt in which we take spikes and does (meat hunt).
Being that it’s legal, starting this season, to hunt large game in Texas with .30 and larger caliber PCP airguns which produce at least 215 FPE, I took my .308 Slayer along.
I chose to do a youth hunt with my 15 year old this year; we share the deer stand and hunt together. He was using a .308 powder burner.
The first day of the hunt my son took a nice spike. For the second day we agreed, if all looked good, I’d take my first deer with an airgun.
A nice sized doe showed up and presented a great shot from about 90 yards. To be honest, I was a bit on edge to use the Slayer. I knew the rifle was capable with the 99gr NSA hollow points and I had my holds worked out from 30 to 100 yards. With all that said, the land-owner, other hunters and my family all wanted to see what this PCP bullpup thing-a-ma-doodle was capable of and there were some doubters.
I lined up my reticle for a broadside heart/lung shot and squeezed off on the 14 ounce second stage....Pwing! Thwack! Without a jump or any sign of injury, she ran 35 yards and stopped. My son whispered, “daddy, I think you missed”! To which I replied, “No, she’s gonna die right there”! Seemingly on cue, she wobbled right, then left and then looped straight backwards as if crashing while doing a wheelie. From shot to expiring took about 40 seconds.
It was a complete pass-through which surprised me a bit. The entrance and exit looked about the same. I‘d like to see the round “dump” more energy into the target and have a larger exit wound but it did the job.
I spent a lot of time the remainder of the day explaining what a PCP was all about. There were definitely some “eyes opened”. All and all, it was a great hunt this year. My son took another doe today and we all limited out.
Being that it’s legal, starting this season, to hunt large game in Texas with .30 and larger caliber PCP airguns which produce at least 215 FPE, I took my .308 Slayer along.
I chose to do a youth hunt with my 15 year old this year; we share the deer stand and hunt together. He was using a .308 powder burner.
The first day of the hunt my son took a nice spike. For the second day we agreed, if all looked good, I’d take my first deer with an airgun.
A nice sized doe showed up and presented a great shot from about 90 yards. To be honest, I was a bit on edge to use the Slayer. I knew the rifle was capable with the 99gr NSA hollow points and I had my holds worked out from 30 to 100 yards. With all that said, the land-owner, other hunters and my family all wanted to see what this PCP bullpup thing-a-ma-doodle was capable of and there were some doubters.
I lined up my reticle for a broadside heart/lung shot and squeezed off on the 14 ounce second stage....Pwing! Thwack! Without a jump or any sign of injury, she ran 35 yards and stopped. My son whispered, “daddy, I think you missed”! To which I replied, “No, she’s gonna die right there”! Seemingly on cue, she wobbled right, then left and then looped straight backwards as if crashing while doing a wheelie. From shot to expiring took about 40 seconds.
It was a complete pass-through which surprised me a bit. The entrance and exit looked about the same. I‘d like to see the round “dump” more energy into the target and have a larger exit wound but it did the job.
I spent a lot of time the remainder of the day explaining what a PCP was all about. There were definitely some “eyes opened”. All and all, it was a great hunt this year. My son took another doe today and we all limited out.
