About 5 years ago I'm driving along a dirt road with my friend John going salmon fishing. Its early fall and deer season around here runs from 1 Aug to 31 December and of course, a small herd of deer runs across the road in front of us. John whips out a Ruger auto in .45 and yells for me to stop, stop, STOP!
I do.
He leaps out, jumps off the road (you can shoot as long as you ain't standing on the road or shooting across it) draws down on a young spike thats ambling off at about twenty yards and cuts loose. As far as I could determine later, his first shot was good and went through the ribs and exited the left (or right?) front shoulder - the deer goes down and then bounds back up and is limping away with John in pursuit cutting loose with another round every five or ten yards. Somewhere in this ugly mugging/execution he actually changed magazines! Thats how many times he shot, or shot at this deer!
If I recall correctly, there were 8 entry holes in the animal before it, umm, expired.
This whole stupid chase was compounded by the fact that when he finally killed it and we dragged it back to the car I learned he was using hardball!
I think a .45 would be OK for deer if you can pick your shot and use a good hollowpoint. I'd use a Hydra-shock myself and take nothing but a broadside heart/lung shot.
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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page:
members.xoom.com/keithrogan