The rifle claimed it's first victim. This was from our hunt last December in Texas. This was also my first whitetail ever. The distance was 603 yards. The 140 grain Berger Hunting VlD dropped the deer in it's track.
Here's excerpt from my post in another forum:
"Here's how I pulled that 603 yards shot just to give you an insight as to how's it's done.
The ballistic data of the 140 grain Berger Hunting VLD I used on this hunt, was already pre-loaded in my Dell Axim Pocket PC loaded with Exbal Ballistic Program, when I left California. This was the result of months and months of extensive load development and testing and fine tuning. I'd practice shooting often with my rifle to a maximum distance of 600 yards, about the limit of our club shooting range, and I had complete confidence that the rifle and bullet were up to task.
It was late in the afternoon, the sun was just above the horizon and the temperature was dropping like a rock. I kept checking and crosschecking the data coming out of my Kestrel so that I can update the data on the Dell. For 30 minutes, I was watching the doe grazing at the edge of a food plot 300 yards away. I have 3 doe tag. Twice, I talked myself out in shooting the doe. Something inside me kept saying, just wait a few more minutes. Then out of nowhere, the small buck appeared. I grabbed my Swaro Laser range finder and ranged the distance. Three quick reading confirmed that the buck was 308 yards away. Only one problem however,,, there's a group of cows directly behind the buck. So I waited. In the meantime, I took one more reading with my Kestrel and it showed that the temperature had dropped a few more degrees, down from 55 to 44 degrees, the barometric pressure dropped a notch also, from 29.15 to 28.05 inches. The humidity remains constant however at 27%. I hurried up and updated all the numbers on the Dell and ranged the buck again since it started to moved towards the middle of the field, following the doe. The swaro reads 580 yards now and the buck was not stopping. Finally at about 600 yards, both the doe and the buck stop for a bite. It's now or never! I made three quick successive readings with the Swaro and the average distance I was getting was 603 yards. I grabbed my Dell, punched in the number and push re-calculate. The result was instantaneous. The elevation calls for a 10.75 MOA correction from my 110 yards zero, Wind was coming from northeasterly direction at a steady 3 mph at 4 oclock. This was about 3/4 MOA of correction according to Exbal which is about 5" at that distance. I know just from my observation during some of my shooting practice that the 140 Berger will have a spin drift of about 4.5" at 600 yards, which will almost canceled out the wind of the moment. I spun the Vortex turret counter clockwise and stopped right at 11 MOA mark. I clicked back once and hold the crosshair steady at the center of the deer's body, just slightly behind the shoulder and applied a steady rearward pressure on the trigger. I was oblivious of the of the rifle going off. All I saw was the deer flipped on it's side. It was probably dead before it hit the ground."
