The Georgia DNR finalized the 2023 to 2024 deer season's regs on 25 MAY. For me, opening day for Firearms Season is 21 OCT and the season will end on 14 JAN 2024. I don't yet hunt with a bow or muzzleloader, so I won't be taking advantage of the earlier dates associated with those seasons. After looking over the seasons of other states, I've come to love the Georgia deer season.
This year my goals are fairly simple. Now that I have several of my rifle projects completed, it's time to put them into the field and go hunt some deer. The closer we get, the more excited I am.
I stripped the Marlin 1894 CST in 357 Magnum of the Leupold 2.5x and reinstalled the Midwest Industries T1 Mount and iron sights putting the rifle back into the ProjectVaquero setup. I found that I very much like this layout but I don't know how I will like it in for deer hunting on the Farm. It should be good for 100 yards with the current setup. I had to re-zero but I wasn't setup for 100 yards so I zeroed at a shorter range that should match. Around 22 yards should be the first zero putting the second zero around 100 yards. It should be no more than 1.1 inches with the peak of the arc around 62 yards. The calculator puts my bullet down around 3 inches low at 133 yards. The calculated velocity of those Remington 158 grain semi-jacketed hollow points around 1300 fps at that point. That should be enough to achieve expansion.
The Marlin is my favorite Farm gun. It rides shotgun often.
Speaking of expansion, every resource I have seen where people tested those Remington HTP rounds found that they expand to at least .50 caliber whether it's from a rifle or pistol. YouTube has various videos where someone tested those rounds from rifles and pistols in gel. Lucky Gunner did some testing as well. I have full confidence that those bullets will perform and penetrate deep enough. I picked up several boxes to keep in stock and plan to buy more. Much more.
Lucky Gunner posted this picture from their test. You can find it on their website in the Labs section. I can't thank those folks enough for their contribution to the firearms world. If you ever had questions about ammo selection, you should start there.
There doesn't appear to be a hard and fast rule on how far a bullet should penetrate ballistic gelatin for said load to be suitable for deer hunting but I've seen anecdotal data pointing to a preference of around 20 inches. Those HTPs appear to come close to that.
On the accuracy front, I've never really sat down to see what sort of groups I could get the Marlin 357 to do. Back in 2022, I zeroed the rifle with the setup I have now and was getting around 4 inch groups or so at 100 yards. I'm not much of a marksman and having no magnification won't help my case so I attribute that grouping to myself more than the gun. While I'd like to sit down and test again, I don't want to use the ammo up. I don't have sponsors to send me ammo when I need it.
If Remington ammunition wants to sponsor me, I will be happy to switch my other Farm Gun, the .300 Blackout, to their Core-Lokt line up and see how it goes in leu of the SIG Elite I currently use. I know the 30-30 Core-Lokt will kill deer since that's what I used until I had the Federal Fusion 170. I've still not gotten to use those Federal rounds to take a deer. On a side note, I'm not so sure these days that Marlin will release a threaded barrel version of the 336 and wood stocks that I can use as a dedicated hunting rifle. We'll see if the 336 project turns out. I have alternative plans if Marlin doesn't release a TB version of the 336.
Getting back to the topic of being majorly excited for deer season, once I get at least one deer, I'll start looking at taking the WWSD 300 Blackout build I put together and see it those SIG Elite all copper bullets work as advertised. That will depend on how the situation goes with the Marlin. I'm not as confident with just the red dot at shorter ranges as I am with a little magnification and I think I should try to get over that.
In conclusion, deer season cannot get here soon enough. I want to get out into the woods and find a good deer. Maybe this year will be my first buck.
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