By Rocki wolfe

March 17, 2021

My little girl been hunting for the last few years but has never had the luck of a good buck stepping out in range. So I went and built me a rifle for use to reach out across the 400 yards of field we hunt. The magic combo is a m1917 from WWI in 280/06. It's just a 280 REM chambered .50 thousands short to use 30/06 brass sized down.

With 7mm 139gr SST at 3050fps. 0 to 300 is dead flat and an easy adjust for drop to 400. So a cold rainy and windy day after 5 days of hunting the hill river bottoms and anyplace we could, we sat in the back field without hope that deer were going to move. 3 hours before dark 5 small doe walked out in the first and feeding at 150 to 230 yards out.

She just watched and hoped that one of the bucks we seen all summer long would be out along the field edge. Out of nowhere a good buck stepped up just at the edge of the pond we still don't know were he came from. After checking to see if he had 4 on one side she said, "I want him."

I ranged him and he was 230 yards on the dot. I told her to just aim right on him and when your ready just go ahead. As what any father would, I sat shaking more than when I'm hunting watch and waiting. With one shot it crumpled to the ground without even a kick. At 14 I don't think I could of made a shot like that. She placed the bullet at the top of the heart both lungs and I can't say nothing but good things about how the bullet performed. That was just one of many deer taken with that same box of 139gr SST 7mm.