By Scott

November 30, 2016

I have been a deer hunter most of my life. I turned 60 this past January and my wife bought me a Browning BAR Longtrac 30.06 for my birthday. I also reload my own ammunition and take much pride in using my reloads to harvest my game.

With a new "ought six" in the safe, I decided that I needed new load to hunt with. I've been using Hornady SSTs in my other 30.06 for several years but I thought that I should try something new for a semi-auto. During the post-2012 election period run on reloading components, the shortage of .308 bullets pushed me into buying a box of Hornady .308 caliber Interlock bullets to keep my inventory up. I decided to try to load a batch of those for deer season.

My first attempt was 54 grains of Ramshot Big Game with a Winchester large rifle primer in an R-P case trimmed to 2.484". That combination pushed the 165 interlock at 2840 FPS but I was "blown away" by the accuracy of that. I'm no great shooter but when I shoot sub 1.5 MOA groups from the BAR and sub-MOA from my Ruger 77, I know I have a good hunting load.

Deer season in NY's Finger Lakes opened warm and windy but that evening, Argos hit. Over the next four day, we accumulated 30+ inches of heavy wet snow. It just about shutdown the deer season. I hunted in the bad weather on Sunday and on Thanksgiving but didn't see much - a few does and a couple of small bucks. The Friday after Thanksgiving turned out to be my day.

There was no one out and about that Friday. I hunted on of our farms nearer to Owasco Lake and didn't hear but a shot or two. I quit for a quick lunch and a few farm chores then headed to a tower blind on the higher elevation farm behind my house. That blind is in a field on a ridge overlooking three small woodlots and a gully woods so I have lots of view.

I didn't see anything for the first three hours then, just after four PM, I saw two deer slipping through the wood lot north of my blind. The lead deer finally stepped out onto the logging road and I realized it was a big buck. It stood there looking down the road at my blind for the longest time so I didn't dare move, Finally, the other deer (a doe) started walking away and the buck tuned to watch her. I got the BAR up on the rail and got behind the scope to see that it was a huge buck. It focused again on the blind so I didn't dare move again until it settled. The doe moved and the buck turned broadside to follow that's when I squeezed off the shot.

It was 180+ yards across an open field into a hardwoods and the Interlock performed great. It is the biggest we've ever taken off of our farms.