LITTLE ROCK — Several weeks ago I saw the biggest buck I’ve ever had a chance to shoot.
I missed.
I sold the gun the next week.
Here’s how it all went down. I went duck hunting with a friend near Stuttgart, and the deer hunt happened spontaneously. I spent the previous afternoon hunting in Grant County with a Remington Model 700 Classic chambered in .257 Roberts. Its magazine held five custom handloads that, according to the book, were rated at about 2,900 feet per second at the muzzle. It punched cloverleaf patterns at 100 yards, a long shot in Grant County. It’s stable at 200 yards, which covers any shot I might get in the piney woods.
So, that’s the gun that happened to be in my truck whenI arrived in Stuttgart, unaware I’d have to use it there.
After our duck hunt the next morning, my friend surprised me by telling me he’d lined us up a deer hunt that afternoon. It was a buck-only deal, he said, but our chances of bagging a large, adult buck were excellent.
He took me to my spot and showed me where to park. It was a bog, and I told him my truck would get stuck there.
“No it won’t,” my friendsaid. “Here, I’ll show you.”
He drove into the suggested parking spot and backed out, pulled back in and then backed out a second time. Although he slung mud all over the place, his truck escaped with only moderate effort.
But that was his truck, not mine. I drive a two-wheel drive Ford F150. I love it, but I can spit on concrete, and that truck will get stuck in it.
“Nonsense!” my friend insisted. “You’ll get out of here just fine.”
Several hours later, I pulled into that spot and buried it halfway to the axles. The landowner miraculously arrived and pulled me out with his truck, a 4x4 Chevy.
“That’s too muddy,” he admonished. “Park on that high ground over there, and you’ll be fine.”
By high ground, he meanta small ridge that was about 4 inches higher than the swamp that captured me. It was also very moist, but I did as instructed. Minutes later, my Ford was buried halfway to the axles again and the landowner was gone. I looked at this two ways. It either portended worse things to come, or it portended that things would only get better.
Before leaving, the landowner said I was undergunned for that field. It was 320 yards to the treeline on the opposite side, and more than 400 yards to the treeline on the far right end. It was about 250 yards to the treeline to my left. For comparison, the landowner uses a 7mm STW, which can also double as an antitank weapon.
About 250 yards to my right was a grassy point that jutted into the field. I was temptedto sit there, but I rationalized that no matter where I hunted, deer would appear at the greatest distance somewhere else.
About 4:30 p.m., a group of does entered the field from the grassy point and crossed the field to the far treeline. Later, more does entered the field. In the waning light, a buck entered the field from the grassy point. A shooter buck on that property must have at least eight points, but preferably 10. I could only see its left antler, and it had at least four points. It walked to the far right end of the field and then joined the does at the treeline directly across from me, about 320 yards away. The buck finally faced me. Its antlers stretched beyond the width of its ears, and it was very tall. It was a clean 10-pointer, and a monster at that.
I aimed about 6 inches higher than I would at 100 yards and fired. The buck looked my way for an instant and vanished into the woods. I searched a long time for hair or blood but found none. I learned later from a ballistics chart that my bullet fell about 13 inches at that distance. I shot right under the buck.
That experience affirmed nearly 75 years worth of shooting literature that insists the .257 Roberts is, at best, a 200-yard rifle. I have other stuff that shoots farther and flatter, and it all works just as well for close range, too. That left the .257 Roberts with no role in my arsenal.
It’s like a kicker who misses a field goal that would have won the Super Bowl. Cut him and get someone with a stronger leg.
Sports, Pages 34 on 12/27/2009