My First Handgun Hunt - It Did Not Go Well and My Plan to Fix It

 For the 2024 deer season, my primary goal, outside of putting food in the freezer for the family, was to harvest the food using the Taurus 66 with a Burris Fastfire 3 red dot. The reasoning has been that I want to be able to carry a pistol during the deer season while on the homestead doing chores and harvest a deer should the opportunity present itself, without retrieving a rifle. Plus being able to hunt with a handgun is just cool. This year was to be the proof of concept. 

The build is a newer Taurus Model 66 with a 4 inch barrel. This is actually the second one I've had as the first, a blued model, was replaced during an RMA. I replaced the rear sight with a AliExpress Doctor/Noblex mount and a Burris Fastfire 3 red dot. The dot is an older one I've had for a while that has the 8 MOA dot. While I think that dot is too large for this application, on anything 75 yards and less, the dot would still be inside the vital zone of a whitetail. It ends up not being as bad of a choice as one might think. I don't remember why I bought that size MOA dot in the first place but I wished it was smaller.

The revolver was loaded with Hornady's Custom line using the 158 grain XTP bullet. I zeroed the dot for 25 yards. That zero should let me be able to shoot out to around 85 yards without holdover as at 88 yards, the bullet should be around 3 inches down. I don't think I'd be stable enough to make that shot off hand so I'm not really worried about needing to go further with this particular build. Sadly, I only had the single, 20 round box so I had not practiced much with that load.

Opening day started interestingly. Heading into the property for an evening hunt, I knew that deer tend to like hiding in the swamp area on either side of the driveway. On this first hunt, I was armed with the Taurus and my Marlin 1894 CST. On the walk, as expected, I spooked 4 does. 3 of those appeared to be yearlings with a much larger doe. I opted to hold off on the shot with the Marlin seeing how quickly the entire thing played out and that it would have only been 5 minutes into the deer season. I slung the rifle and drew the revolver to see if they were on the other side of the bush. They weren't. I pushed into the property and waited to see if they would come back in.

A doe showed up immediately after this picture was taken.

After waiting for a short while, I needed to start heading home for baby reasons. I made an attempt to see if they had come back into the swamp area. Turns out they had but crossed into the neighbors property and I don't have the option to follow. I had missed out on my first chance. 

I made a second attempt for an evening hunt a few days later. I approached the swamp area around the driveway with the revolver in hand this time, ready to go. Once again, I spooked a doe onto the drive. 

I immediately presented and hunted for the dot. Mistake number 2. I knew the dot presents much higher on the Taurus than I am used to compared to my semi-auto pistols. In the rush, I couldn't find the dot. Thankfully, I had enough time to correct the issue and found the dot as a broadside was being presented. At this point, the shot distance was probably around 30 yards, no more than 45 yards. I know that with my carry gun, I can land hits at 50 yards in the vital zone standing. This off-hand shot should have been just fine.

But it wasn't.

I was able to somewhat stabilize but even in single action, I was still fairly jittery. When I pressed the trigger, the revolver snapped up. The doe stood for about a second then ran off. It didn't even seem she was hit. I took a second to recoup and walked up to where she was standing. 

After searching for around 15 minutes and box scanning, I was unable to find any blood trail. Just to be sure, I walked through about where she would have run along the property line to see if I could find her. I found nothing in the 45 minutes I walked the woods along the property. I missed. While I was on the property, I stopped at my shooting tree where I have 2 metal targets hanging around the trunk of a pine. I took a shot at around 25 yards and missed again. I took a kneeling position and took another shot hitting the target. 

At this point, what confidence I had in my setup is dead. I had a total of 10 rounds left from the box. 7 for the speed loader and 3 for testing and I needed to do some validation work. I took the revolver out and setup a target at 25 yards to make sure I was zeroed correctly. I found that I was pretty much on target. What I also learned is that the distance to the target was more like 50 to 60 yards, not 30. I still should have taken a knee for stability but I feel better knowing that the shot distance was further than I thought. A miss is still a miss though.

While I still had a two full months left of the deer season, pretty much anything after Thanksgiving for me is dead. Add holidays in full swing and a 3 month old baby plus everyone getting majorly sick, the deer season was pretty much over. Everyone getting sick was a little heartbreaking. One, because seeing your baby sick is just sad but it coincided with the earliest cold days when the deer that were left would have been active. I had been sick from Thanksgiving until January.

So how will I correct this issue before the 2025 deer season? Load development and practice. 

My plan for 2025 is to start handloading using Hornady XTP bullets and H110 powder. I ordered 200 of the 158 grain XTP bullets which is what the factory load is using. I have my powder charges from the reloading data, all I need to do is load up several test samples for accuracy and chronograph work. I'm hoping that I can work up a load to around 1295 fps with good accuracy. This is pretty hot but I'm seeing where some people have pushed over 1300 fps from a 4 inch barrel. 

Once I have my load, I need to make up quite a few and just start practicing for the 2025 deer season. I would also like to replace the red dot with something in the 2 MOA range. I do have a Vortex Venom 2.5 MOA on a 22 pistol that I could harvest. Since it's just a .22 LR, I can replace it with something cheaper from Amazon or swap the 8 MOA Fastfire.

I also have my Smith and Wesson Model 17. I have been collecting ammunition for it to see if I locate a high velocity load that's accurate for the purposes of long range pistol shooting. I figure it would be good for me to be able to practice with .22 LR being so much cheaper than centerfire cartridges. Interestingly, I am seeing that red dot mounts also exist that should fit K frame Smiths so should I truly want to make this work, I can replace the rear sight. I don't know that I want to do that yet.

Based on anecdotal data for expansion of these bullets, I'm finding, in conjunction with a ballistic calculator, if I can zero whatever dot I use with this conceptual 1300 fps load at 75 yards, I should be able to have a 100 yard capable revolver. Whether the accuracy is there to make this work is beyond me at this point but we'll find out.

Stay tuned to see how the load development turns out.