Bowsite.com

Okay, where to start!

I’ve had a great run the last few years with a bow in my hands, but this year I had my hands full. The elk killer herself, Steph, was back with another archery tag, my dad joined us on his trusty steed, a white Percheron, and my buddy. Let’s just call him “Jordan”. Jk Jk!!!! Like I said, I had my hands full, so when it was time to get a tag, I opted for a 1st season rifle tag. This would be my first bull rifle tag and I was really excited to change it up and take on a new area and a new challenge!

Quick rifle breakdown

20” CF BARREL

AG COMPOSITE CF STOCK

TBAC DOMINUS SUPPRESSOR

VORTEX RAZOR LHT 3-15x

180gr HORNADY ELD-M (yep, target bullets for hunting)

ADG 7saum BRASS

In the summer of 2020 I went to the range to make sure everything was dialed. I shot the first 3-4 shots and remembered why I hated that rifle!!! A couple more shots and I tried to stretch it out. The goal was to shoot a milk jug at 400 yards off my primos trigger sticks. After 3 shots I hadn’t hit it and I just had no desire to shoot anymore. I needed to make a decision. I either needed to brake on the rifle or get a new rifle.

My buddy said he had been looking at suppressors. That’s when I went full geek out. I started researching suppressors, barrels, rifles, then that lead to cartridges, bullets, etc!

You can’t mount a suppressor on a pencil barrel. There’s not enough shoulder on the barrel to support it. More wheels turning…

I’m sure this crowd would rather see pictures of your hunter than me, but here it is :^)

I don’t know about the rest of you but I know myself well enough to know that I don’t have the willpower to pass up a shot in heavy timber on an animal that jumps up because I don’t have earplugs in. For that reason I decided that a brake on my rifle was not an option for me. That left me with a Suppressor option and I made the decision to spend more money on a Suppressor than I had into my rifle and optics at the time! Looking back I will say right now that every person who is legally allowed should go out today and order a Suppressor. Wait times are between seven and 12 months, but somehow mine showed up in five months in a day!

Next was the decision on what caliber I wanted. After killing myself for five years with that 300 WM I decided against a 30 caliber. I wanted some thing I could shoot long range for target practice and you just can’t beat the ballistics of a 7MM bullet. If you want to short barrel you wanna short cartridge and I kept seeing the 7 short action ultra mag pop up. It had all the characteristics that I wanted, it was super efficient, worked great in short barrels, shot a ridiculously high BC bullet, and most importantly had a very manageable recoil. I decided to put it in my long action so I could shoot a 180 ELD match bullet and extend it way out for maximum powder capacity.

Here’s where things got wonky… I sent the gun to OMR (Oregon Mountain Riflles). They promised to spin on the carbon fiber barrel and put the barreled action in the AG composite stock. They were going to throat the action long for the longer bullets and I sent off some dummy rounds. It went downhill from there and if someone wants to send me a message I will explain my issues with OMR. Long story short I would strongly strongly strongly suggest using anybody other than OMR for your gunsmithing.

Like many of you guys I have a tendency to geek out when it comes to shooting in hunting, whether archery or rifle, and I found myself completely headfirst into the reloading and shooting realm. I was shooting multiple times a week, reloading every night, and finding new and innovative ways to spend money as fast as I could! I’ll post a few pictures and a video of the 7SAUM in action and then get back to my ”SHORT” story… Lol

No doubt this short, not short!, boom boom elk recap is killin’ some purists on here…some of whom may be staying off BS till it is safe again but great stuff.

As my dad keeps saying…”it’s not fair!” And he’s absolutely right. The rangefinding binoculars calculate distance, angle, MILs, oh and elevation, humidity, and barometric pressure. Range, dial and shoot. It’s honestly ridiculous! I can shoot at 5k feet one day, then at 12k feet the next day with zero change to my setup. Like my dad says “it’s not fair”.

Or a curse. If Colorado went to primitive for all seasons and methods of take I would vote in favor every single time!

Although my passion is and will always be hunting with my longbows, I still love shooting a precision rifle!

Keep it rolling!

PRONGHORN!!!!!

We had a great time and the girls were troopers. Hunting with kids is less hunting and more entertaining but opening evening I put them in the truck on one bluff and hiked to an adjacent bluff. Right before the end of shoot time a truck pushed a buck a little too close!

I was laid out prone with my spartan bipod and my pack as my rear bag. I ranged him and dialed. He didn’t move as he stood broadside watching to see if the truck would stop. The crosshairs never even quivered as I squeezed the perfect trigger squeeze. The rifle barked and I was back on him immediately. Did I mention how much I love my new gun? I heard the boom, whack, but he started to run?! As he turned to show his other side it was bright red and he folded.

I heard screaming from the truck. My cheer squad heard the shot and couldn’t have been more excited. With light fading I decided to locate the buck, mark him and then go get the packing team.

As I came off my bluff I hear “daddddddy”. That didn’t come from the truck. “Dadddy, did you get him?” Obviously the pack team was heading my way. Pretty soon I see little orange heads pop up over a little rise.

They were so excited. We went to the spot I thought he fell and I ranged back to the bluff. Yep, he should be here. We split up and found him in 30 seconds. The eld-m went in behind the shoulder, blew out the heart and exited a tennis ball hole on the offside. No meat loss, a quick clean kill!!!

Ok ok, I’m going to get all sappy thinking about them growing up.

With the pesky antelope tag out of the way, you know what time it is!????? ELK KILLING TIME!

Jordan….well I guess the antelope was boom…soooooo…. Maybe your logic will turn out to be correct!

Thanks WV, hunting with the kids is definitely special. I guess I haven’t outgrown the killing phase and it’s always a balance I have to remind myself!

Steph hates being cold and wasn’t very excited about the prospects of lows in the teens at night. I promised wall tents, wood stoves, and saunas! As we were setting up the wall tent another hunter from a camp down the road started bugling.

Then he started working his way across the canyon bugling as we went. 10 bugles later the “hunter” went into another drainage. Bugling elk with a rifle!!!!!! Pffft….as if I wasn’t excited enough already!

I got the tent setup and the box stove put together. Ok, let’s get the stove pipe and get this finished. Oh crap…. where’s the stove pipe. Yep, sitting in the garage.

Life is hard when you’re stupid.

We headed back for Denver. 4.5 hours later we pulled in and threw the stupid pipe in the bed. We climbed into bed and slept for a couple hours. At 2am we headed back for the mountains. Sleeping in bed was nice, 9 hours of driving…not so much.

GOOGLE EARTH IS A FILTHY LIAR!!!!

Halfway down it was apparent that this wasn’t a good decision. Snow covered rocks kept rolling down below me. I made it half way down and was making more noise than 200 elk stampeding through bubble wrap.

I sat down on my spot, braced my legs ahead of me so I didn’t slide down the hill and waited for a deaf elk to come out…the ones with working ears were probably in the next county.

The other thing I realized as I sat there. This is NOT the place you want to kill an elk. Pulling him out of that hole would have been BRUTAL, borderline undoable. I’m not one to back away from a challenge, but my minimum elk went from a solid 6 point to 350 or better. There were no 350 bulls to be found and I dropped down and around the rock face to a place I could climb back up. Not fun….

We headed back to camp to regroup and figure out how to find a spot to kill an elk that wouldn’t require me to eat it on the spot.

I threw up the RFs and at 1550 yards I could tell it was a good bull. No need to study him, he’s a shooter.

Steph says “can you just shoot him from here?” She’s seen me shoot a looooong way over the past 4 months…I laughed and said, “I think we might need to get a little closer. He’s a mile away.”

He had come out of the timber and was feeding above timberline with a small bull. It looked like I could just walk down the road and get up high and possibly have a shot.

We hustled to the truck. I told Steph, sit here until you hear me shoot or until it gets dark. Then drive down and pick me up. I handed her my gun and told her to hold it while I took my spotter, tripod and water bladder out. Not need for an extra 15 pounds of crap!

As I furiously toss crap left and right I hear a metallic bang. I look down, and my gun is laying on the ground. Steph’s face…lol…it was a look of horror as she realized she just dropped my rifle on the ground!!!! Well I guess we’ll see how good the vortex scope holds it’s zero!

At this point I felt like I was some desert sniper. My gun was on its bipod, my pack off and in front of me. I was belly crawling up to the top of the peak, which would be skylined. I got the gun in front of me and put my pack under the but. It makes a hell of a rear bag! I glassed the area in front of me, nothing. The wind was marginal at best and the thought that it was already over crossed my mind.

Then I heard it…the creaking of an old Jeep coming up the road. What are the chances…

It was obvious another hunter was coming up to glass at last light, even though they were too late even if they saw something. The sun had set and we only had 20 minutes left of shooting light.

The old Jeep Wrangler parked and a woman, man, and their son jumped out and started snapping photos. Leaf lickers!

They had no idea I was 100 yards above them and there were bulls just over the rise.

I turned back and swept the hillside with my binoculars. I immediately saw him as he came up over a rise. One look at the horns and then it was time to get ready to shoot before he smelled me or the noise of creaking jeeps and slamming doors pushed him into the timber.

Ranging an elk is difficult when you’re shaking. I don’t get overly excited but holding still enough to get a good range isn’t always easy. My ranges were fluctuating 50 yards back and forth before I finally got 3 to read out the same. He was walking right to left, looking at the Jeep, which he couldn’t see because of the terrain. I tried to whistle. Luckily he stopped on his own because at that moment my mouth was too dry to do anything but blow air through parsed lips.

I put the crosshairs 1/3 of the way up his body, behind the shoulder (I don’t want to hit shoulder with the match bullets if I can help it), and started to squeeze.

So there’s nothing to break up my rambling….other than Steph yelling at me to come carve pumpkins!

Now get back to it!

She came down the hill in the truck and I walked back to meet her.

I called my dad and told him I shot a good bull. He says “good, you’ve been whining about how you weren’t going to see anything all day”. I had told him how daunting the mountains were and if I killed one Id never get it out of whatever hole I found it in!

So what to do…leave it overnight? Go look for blood? Leave it for a few hours and come back in the dark?

We decided to go look for blood. I took my gun, my headlamp, and my benchmade knife. Steph took her headlamp. I’m not sure why I thought leaving my pack, filled with game bags and all the stuff you really need to butcher an animal, in the truck, but at the time it seemed like the right decision.

Looking forward to the results….

We decided to follow the tracks a little further. 100 yards down the hill the ridge fell off into the abyss. If he made it to the edge, he would make it to the bottom, whether he rolled or ran.

Another 10 yards, another speck. I knew I should back out and let him sit, but I couldn’t help myself. I was like a deaf and dumb bloodhound! We now were 30 yards down the hill and following the trail was easy in the snow, lots of tracks, no blood.

Without game bags we laid the quarters in the snow and the trim meat over some limbs of a little tree.

Steph didn’t want to leave the back straps or tenderloins, she was scared the coyotes would eat them. I told her coyotes won’t mess with it and it’s fine, but it also saved us an additional trip the following day. I threw a shoulder over my shoulder and we walked out.

We fired up the wood stove and she was like a pig in slop! She kept opening the air dampeners and pretty soon I was laying on the top of my cot with nothing but my boxers on, while it was 18 degrees outside the sauna tent.

There’s my short story! =D

If anybody has anymore questions on my setup feel free to shoot me a PM or ask on here.

ElkNut

We are hunters, be it, bow, gun, or slingshot. I’m actually starting gravitate little more towards gun myself in the past year. As the kids get older and time becomes more precious, sometimes you just gotta go out and make stuff happen. At the end of the day hunting is fun, and success is fun, and a gun typically brings more success than a bow, with less time invested. Great job again!

I have a lot of stories from this year that are going to be my most treasured memories from this year. And it’s all with a rifle.

Steph is a trooper. I’ve come back to the truck more than once after a grueling day and wondered if this was the moment where she tells me she’s done with my adventures…and me! There have definitely been some tears along the way, but I feel very fortunate to have found someone not only willing to put up with obsession, but to come along for the ride!

Thanks for sharing..

The other issue is that a suppressor just changes the way a gun recoils. It takes away that blowback that a muzzle brake enhances. That force field that blows back into your face is almost worse than the actually thumping against your shoulder.

Lots of guys love them, they’re just not for me.

Before I bought my suppressor I had never shot a gun with one on, if you have the chance I would highly recommend trying it. I would find it hard to believe anybody who shot a rifle that was suppressed wouldn’t immediately decide they needed to buy one!

I would assume there are plenty of good suppressors out there but from the research I did the gold standard is thunderbeast. My suppressor is 100% titanium which makes it super lightweight and really easy to clean.