Preparing for Colorado 1999

After the Idaho, 1995 trip, we did not go on another hunt away from Red’s ranch until 1999, when our friend Kelly called to see if we wanted to go on a private land, rifle elk/mule deer hunt outside of Norwood, Colorado…Without hesitation, we said YES!

I talked with the outfitter, Tom Colander of Colorado Trophies . He suggested having a stronger rifle than a .30-’06 and a .270. He also said opportunities could be out to as far as 400 yards. We decided that we were going to buy new rifles and scopes, and learn how to shoot out to 500 yards. This was going to be our fourth elk hunt, and we were determined to be as prepared as we knew how.

From Off-the Shelf to Custom Rifles - the Journey Begins

We purchased new rifles. Janice’s was a Remington 700 chambered in .300 Win Mag, and mine was a Browning A-bolt in .338 Win Mag. with the B.O.S.S. system. We selected the Leupold 6.5 x 20 with 50 mm objective.

I developed loads for each of these rifles. Janice’s rifle responded magnificently and was shooting 1” groups at 100 yards in no time! However, that Browning was very frustrating. I tried to work with the load and with the B.O.S.S. system, but could not get that rifle to shoot a sub-2 inch group to save my life! We worked all summer on our shooting at our local range. Unfortunately, this range only goes out to 100 yards.

We decided to spend a weekend at her dad’s ranch, and set up a range out to 500 yards.
We had done some research, and decided we should try placing the zero at 300 yards, which would allow just pointing the rifle all the way out to 350 or so. Anything beyond that would require hold-over. I constructed a tall target back. We found a spot on the ranch where we could place the target, and move the firing line, rather than the target, as we increased our distance. This would allow us to safely get out to 540 yards.

The first time we fired at 300 yards, our groups were in the 8 inch (Janice’s rifle) and 12 inch (my rifle) range! It was difficult to “zero” the scope to a 12 inch group! We had lots of work to do! However, with a lot of practice and experimentation on bagging the rifle, breath control, etc., we had the 300 yard groups down to a respectable 4 to 5 inches on hers and 7 to 8 inches on mine by the end of the day. We zeroed each scope to the center of the group.

We then moved in to 200 and 100 yards. This was to see where the point of impact would be at these closer distances with the scope zeroed at 300. We did not have a chronograph, but my reloading manual had suggested the muzzle velocity would be in the 3100 fps for her 180 gr. bullet, and mine would be in the 2850 range for a 225 gr. bullet. We expected the 200 yard to be between 3 and 4 inches high and the 100 yard to be between 2 and 3 inches high. After actually firing at these distances and confirming the drop was as predicted, I was beginning to gain confidence in the predictability of bullet drop from the charts!.

Moving to 350 yards was like starting all over! The groups were huge! Again, practice and experimentation tightened the groups. We found that each 50 yard step was a tremendous increase in challenge. After 2 days of work, we finally worked our way out to 500 yards.

We did this again the next weekend, and it was like starting over! The 300 zero was way off on both rifles and the drop had changed considerably at the further distances (what we were unaware of at that time is the effects of cleaning, fouling, cooling, the need for having “laboratory” precision in the re-loading room, and the effects of headwind /tailwind component on bullet drop at longer distances).

After 3 weekends, we were shooting respectably out to 500 yards, we felt we finally had the data and the skills needed to dispatch Mr. Bull out to that distance (What we didn’t know at this time was we could only do this if he would stand perfectly still, on a perfectly calm day and we could set up our shooting tables and sand bags!).

The Introduction to Precision Rifles

I was still unhappy with the way the Browning was shooting. I continued to work with it, but it continued to send fliers and and generally not shoot well. We were now only 1 week from departure for Colorado, and I had very little confidence this rifle would perfrom the way I needed it to! I had become a fixture at our local gun range. One day, I was out there trying to get that Browning to be able to hit the broad side of a barn when I noticed this gentleman with a rifle like none I had ever seen. It looked like a Remington action, but had a heavy fluted barrel, ported fore stock, with a slick looking muzzle break on the end. The ammunition he loaded looked like an artillery round, and it sounded like it when he fired! When we went down to check targets, I also noticed that his rifle shot groups less than ¾”!

The other interesting observation was that he had a cleaning kit like none I had ever seen, and it seemed he cleaned the rifle after every round. The cleaning kit had a cradle to hold the rifle, 1 piece coated cleaning rods, and a bore guide that he put in place of the bolt. I had always used the old screw-together steel or aluminum rods and just held the rifle while I cleaned it…it was much easier to clean from the muzzle rather than the bolt end. Boy, I was about to get an education!

I went over to talk to him. He explained that this was a newly accurized Remington 700 chambered in .300 Jarrett, and he was “breaking in the barrel”. O.K., I’ll bite…A what? And your doing what?

I never got that man’s name, but he sure turned-on a light bulb for me! He explained that the .300 Jarrett is a wildcat round, meaning you can’t buy off-the- shelf ammunition for it. You have to form the brass for a .300 Jarrett by starting out with 8mm Remington brass, then necking down the neck to .30 caliber. You then load it with a specific strength load and fire the round. This “fire-forms” the brass to the shape of the chamber which gives the Jarrett brass that distinguishing shoulder. I was hooked! I asked where he got such a machine. He explained that there is a world-class gunsmith just across the highway at the local airport. Well heck, that is where I keep my airplane. Why wasn’t I aware of this? It turns out, I had seen their sign hundreds of times, but the sign talks about Benchrest and Precision Rifles, those space-age looking things! I wanted a hunting rifle; the sign said nothing about that!! (don’t you just love Aggies?)

I went over to S.G.&Y. Precision Rifles that afternoon. Upon entering the shop, my eyes were wide open. There were several of these beautiful hunting rifles like I had seen at the range, along with other types of outer-space looking things (benchrest and palma rifles). On the wall were framed targets with groups in the .065 range …YES 1/16 of an inch! There were trophies lining the shelves! Wow! Was I in the right place or what?

I met Thomas “Speedy” Gonzalez. I explained I had this Browning I had no confidence in, and this big hunting trip coming up in 1 week. He explained to me he would be glad to build me a rifle. It would be ready in 9 to 12 months! ARRGGHH!.

I approached from a different angle….is there a recently completed rifle that someone might want to make available? He sent me to see J.D. Sims in the S.G.&Y supplies room on the other side of the building. I explained my situation to J.D. He went to the back and pulled out a brand new accurized Remington, with a heavy, fluted Kreiger barrel chambered in .338 Jarrett, Jewell trigger, ported fore stock…just beautiful!. They had just completed it, and J.D. said he would be willing to part with it. We made the deal. However, I also needed to be taught how to care for and feed this beautiful rifle. This was going to be a crash course in cleaning, loading and caring for a precision firearm! Speedy and J.D. were both very generous with their time and advice. I was soaking it all in, taking lots of notes as I went. I purchased all the necessary gear to care for this rifle and reload the ammunition.

I built 150 fire-forming loads that evening. The next morning I headed out to the range to break in the barrel and fire-form the cases. I spent all day out there, cleaning after every shot for the first 10 rounds, and letting the rifle cool every 5 rounds and cleaning every 10 rounds after the first 10. What I found in that 1 day was the remarkable effects that cleaning, fouling and cooling have on point of impact. As an example, this rifle would shoot about 2 inches up and to the right for the first shot after cleaning, the next shot would be 1 inch up and to the right, then the 3rd thru 10th shots could almost be covered by a quarter if you let it cool after 5 and then shot 6 thru 10! And these were just fire-forming rounds, not tuned loads for this rifle.

I reloaded that night. I varied the powder by .5 gr., and carefully built 5 rounds of each weight over a 5 gr. spread. I also built several rounds to be used for fouling. I went back to the range the next day and began the tedious process of cleaning, fouling, testing…it didn’t take long. The groups were immediately sub inch! When I got to the fifth set, the primer was pretty flattened after the first round. That load and any subsequent increase in powder would be too much.

I reloaded again that night, after breaking down the rounds that had too much powder in them. The next day I was able to borrow a chronograph for 5 shots. Armed with this information, I headed for the ranch in East Texas to get the rifle zeroed at 300 and verify predicted drops at the other distances.

It all went pretty smooth, The rifle shot much more predictably with the skills I had learned about cleaning, fouling and cooling. I was able to zero the rifle at 300, and verify drops at 50 yard increments to 500 yards within 5 hours. Considering it had taken 2 days with the Browning, I felt we were making progress!

Janice and I had done all of the preparation we knew to do. (Please note however, that we had failed to practice from our shooting sticks, or in awkward positions. Both of these skills need to be practiced and evaluated to begin to establish your hunting distance limits!)

Off To Colorado

It had been a very busy week for me and my new Jarrett! We loaded our gear in the airplane and took off headed for the Telluride airport. What spectacular scenery flying over the divide and into the San Juans!

Joe Buckley met us at the airport and helped us load our gear. Of course we had all of this new equipment to clean our rifles and such. I think Joe instantly took a liking to us, seeing we were really serious about this hunting business!

First things first! As soon as we got to the lodge, we checked our rifles on the range. I then cleaned them, and fouled them with 2 shots. Janice and I had worked hard over the summer leading up to this hunt, learning about shooting accurately past 200 yards, and felt we were ready for the challenge. (note that I didn’t say we were proficient at 500 yet! However, I thought we were at the time!) The rifles were ready!

This was our first trip to Colorado Trophies. . I had never been on a hunt like this. The lodge was beautiful. There were mounts on the wall I had only dreamed of. Dinner was delicious, served buffet style, with 3 rows of tables that allow you to talk and get to know the other hunters and guides. The outfitter Tom and Lynn Colander sat everyone down the evening before the hunt and gave us all a thorough briefing on what to expect, what was legal, etc. This was going to be fun!

The first morning we went out before first light, headed towards a hillside called "Baldy". Our guide, Joe Buckley, had placed Janice in one area, then was taking me to another. It was just barely enough light to be legal shooting. Joe was about 50 yards in front of me when I saw the 2 biggest mule deer I had ever seen! Joe, in the mean time, was watching a 5x5 bull and was trying to get my attention. I signaled that I had “big horns in sight”, so he thought I saw the bull, but was wondering why I was setting up my rifle in the wrong direction! I had a bad case of Buck-Fever! I was fumbling around trying to get my shooting sticks extended and get a shot off at these monster bucks! When I looked thru the scope. I was shaking so bad I could hardly find the bucks! I did fire, but my very light trigger on my .338 Jarrett went off MUCH earlier than I had expected it to. I had had no problem with such a smooth trigger on the range, but my pulse wasn’t going 90 miles an hour at that time! I tried to chamber another round, and jammed my rifle! The result was my bullet was probably not within 10 yards of touching either of the bucks, and I never saw the bull Joe thought I was looking at! I obviously had a lot to learn about the differences of shooting on the range and shooting at game animals.

Learning to shoot effectively is a journey…and I was just beginning!

Janice Scores her First Muley

After I collected my thoughts and fumbled gear, Joe set me down to watch the side of Baldy. Just about then , three shots rang out from the direction of Janice. Joe went running up in that direction and saw Janice doing a war-dance around a downed, huge mule deer buck! She had broken the buck’s back with the first shot from 240 yards. After the first shot, he was down in the rear, but was still standing on his front legs. Janice is very good at following instructions, and she had been instructed to shoot him until he is down! She did exactly that. The first shot was lethal, but he did not go down instantly, so she hit him twice more! Buy hey, actually seeing game on a out-of-state hunt was something totally new to us! We were off to a great start!

We continued to hunt elk the next few days. We saw elk, but there were no opportunities at bulls. Janice and I asked as many questions about hunting elk and elk behavior as we could think of. We listened to anyone who would talk. We were absorbing valuable information like a sponge!

 

Dale Scores his First Bull

The morning of the third day found us back on Baldy. Joe placed me about half way up the slope, in a saddle. I had a great view and could cover a lot of acres.

I felt I had gotten over the excitement of the first morning, and would be able to deliver a well-placed shot if the opportunity presented itself. I was glassing to my right when I heard hoofs off to my left and behind me. I very carefully turned only my head to take a look. It was a large heard of elk transitioning the same area I was in. I knew from conversation around camp, that if there is a bull with the herd, he will likely be about ¾ of the way back. I eased into a prone position, placed my back-pack to be used as a rest (we did not know about bipods at this time) and ranged the general area the herd was passing through; 330 yards! I can just put the cross hair right where I want the bullet to strike and I will hit within 2 inches of point of aim! More cows, more cows.. then THERE HE IS, about ¾ of the way back in the herd…he looks magnificent! I put my scope on him. I checked that he is legal, and that he is in the same area I had just ranged. He is moving at a slow trot. I take a deep breath, let half of it out, and place the horizontal cross hair 1/3 of the way from his brisket to his wither, smoothly swing the rifle though his chest and squeeze the trigger as the vertical goes thru his head, just slightly in front of his chest. BAM! The bull goes from the trot to a very difficult walk. I chamber another round, and place the cross hair right behind the shoulder. BAM! This time the bull put all four legs out to hold himself up, like a prize-fighter refusing to go down! I decided to let that 225 grain bullet do a little bone work rather than vital organ work. I chambered another round, and this time put the cross hairs a little further forward and let that bullet penetrate some shoulder bone. BAM! WOW! The bull stood straight up like a stallion, then fell over backwards and never moved again! I watched him thru the scope, ready to dispatch a fourth shot if necessary. We finally had a bull…and he was not getting away! Now the excitement set in! I could hardly breathe. I tried to calm down and collect my thoughts, I checked on the bull, collected my empty brass, checked on the bull again, then just stayed in position to make sure I didn’t disturb any other hunters, then checked on the bull again! I kept checking the bull to make sure he was there, and that he did indeed have that rack on his head! WOW! Finally!

Joe was with Janice. When the remainder of the elk had gone to bed down, Joe and Janice came over to see what all of the shooting was about. Lots of high fives, hugs etc.(its nice hunting with your wife!) WE HAD OUR BULL ELK! We helped Joe field dress the bull. Then Janice and I waited for him to go get the truck. We only had to carry him about 100 yards. Little did I know that would probably be the easiest bull ever to get out of the field! We were both so excited that we had finally scored a beautiful Bull Elk!

Tagging Out

The following morning, we set up over looking a water hole. Janice was now elk hunting, and I was deer hunting. We had not been there long, when a small herd of 4 does and a buck approached the water hole. I had already ranged several places where the deer might approach, 226 yards. I glassed the buck, and although not as big as Janice’s buck from opening morning, he looked like a handsome buck to me! I placed the rifle on my already extended shooting sticks, leveled a little low on the buck (my bullet would stike 3 inched above my point of aim) and squeezed. BAM! He dropped in his tracks. It is amazing what just a little bit of experience does for your execution!

Janice had an opportunity a nice 5x5 the last morning. However, looking back on it, I think it was a little beyond our capabilities at the time. The bull was slightly up hill and at a full trot, 450 yards. We had an equipment failure (the shooting sticks), so she did not have shooting sticks. The grass was so tall where they were, she had to stand to see the bull through her scope….Lots of negatives there! A off-hand 450 yard shot at a trotting bull was just a little beyond our capabilities at that time. More practice, more experience and better equipment (Harris Bipods!)

As you can see Janice’s buck actually has more inches of horn than my bull, but they are our first trophies from a successful hunt! All three are now proudly displayed in our trophy room. We were both anxious to prepare for the next season, determined to learn more about elk habits and more about shot execution in the field! This was a GREAT hunt that will always be remembered!

We packed our bags, booked a hunt for the following year, said our good-byes and took off for Texas…but not before a slight deviation from the flight plan to buzz the lodge!