One day in the not to distant past, I was up at my lease. The landowner and I were cruising around on four wheelers. We came upon a group of axis deer hiding out in an oak mott during the middle of the day. I told him I was low on venison and sure would like to take an axis. He told me that he had seen an axis buck that he wouldn’t mind having culled. It had evidently had an injury to one side of his antlers as they were not symmetrical. He told me where he had seen it during the last week when he was out feeding his cows. Next morning I got up early and went out to the pasture where he had seen this axis buck. I got off my four wheeler, got my stool and shooting stix and decided to see if I could do a little spot and stalk. Tried this for an hour or so and saw only jack rabbits, crows hawks birds and buzzards. Decided to head back in the direction of the bunkhouse which was about a half mile from the pasture I was in. About half way back I saw a flash of brown out of the corner of my eye to the right of me. I slowed to a stop and got out my binocs. I could see several axis does grazing in and out of the cedar about a 100 yds from me. I had been going pretty slowly and at this point they were not alarmed, nor had really paid me any attention. I killed my four wheeler and unlimbered my rifle. This day I was carrying a browning micro-medallion in 7-08 loaded with 140 grain Barnes Triple Shocks. Anyway I climbed off and got behind the ATV so as to be partially hidden. I laid my rifle across the seat and watched through my binoculars. In a couple of minutes the buck the landowner had told me about stepped out from behind a cedar and started walking in my direction. I waited until he had come about 20 yds closer and made a quartering turn to the right. By this time I had switched from my binocs to the rifle scope and was holding on his right shoulder. I decided to take him there. He was quartering to me and the barnes TSX caught him in the right front shoulder. He went down at the shot. As soon as I could, I cycled the bolt and held the scope on him to make sure he didn’t get up and run. He expired within a minute or so. I waited a couple minutes more and started up my four wheeler and drove over to where he was. Man, axis are beautiful animals. I have this thing about always being able to load my animal by myself and get it back to camp. This day I had no choice as the landowner had gone to town (40 miles away) and no one else was around. It took me a couple tries to get him loaded on my four wheeler. I finally got his head and horns propped up against the back wheels of the four wheeler. Next I stood on the rear deck and reached down and used my body weight to pull him up and onto the rear deck. By the time I got him on and strapped down I was sweating like a politician telling the truth. Thought I was going to have a heart attack. After I got back and weighed him he weighed 184 lbs. I weighed 180 lbs at the time. I skinned him out taking great care not to ruin the pelt. When I was skinning this buck I found the barnes bullet underneath the hide of his left flank. This bullet at 75 yds at approx 2800 fps MV had entered at his right front shoulder and traveled all the way through the deer to rest under the hide of his left flank. Talk about penetration. The bullet made the perfect X with no petals breaking off. Processed the meat myself. He made great eating.
GWB
Axis buck


Browning micro-medallion in 7-08 & axis pelt


Recovered 7mm , 140 gr. Barnes Triple shock bullet

Nice going!

Thanks for sharing the story and photos.

Nice skin. I wish I could recover a TSX, everything I've shot has been DRT and the bullet has been gone.

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:
Nice skin. I wish I could recover a TSX, everything I've shot has been DRT and the bullet has been gone.

Ditto.

Glad to see the bullet worked well for you.

I agree, axis deer are very nice looking animals.

Good for you!

Good story, GWB. It's the kind of results I'm used to hearing about Barnes copper bullets.

I must admit, I passed by this thread thinking it might be another Texas boy's crying-in-his-beer story of how the Barnes bullet failed miserably, but the animal was still (somehow) dead. I'm glad I came back for a second look.

Splitting up the one really big paragraph would make it easier to read.

NIce story and pic's but some paragraphs would make it a lot easier to read.

I have shot a pile of critters with the Barnes bullets and have yet to recover one. Hopefully one day i will. Nice Axis.

Axis are awesome... Mike D recovered a 235 TSX on one form a .376 a couple years ago.. we were standing around skinning, and he goes "well, look at that" and there it was, balled up on the off shoulder, all there, perfectly 'shroomed

I recovered a 85gr TSX from my 243 2 years ago. Shot a small buck, quartering to, recovered on far side of rear leg, just under the skin. MV was about 3300fps and shot was less than 100 yards. Full weight retention and no petals lost, couple were a little deformed though, expanded to the bottom of the hollowpoint cavity. I was impressed and lucky to recover one...

Nice story and buck. Who did the rebarrel on the micro-medallion? They don't usually come with heavy fluted barrels.

What a fantastic pelt! I'm glad you didn't get an exit wound to ruin the skin.

How do Axis deer act around whitetails? More dominant or do they just give each other room?

larrys,
I don't know who did the rebarrel job. I bought the gun used at a local gun shop. They buy used guns and re-sell them. Sometime they know the seller and the history. On this rifle they didn't. It is a browning micro medallion. The barrel is stainless, being 22 inches long. Who ever owned it had it rebarrelled, then had the barrelled action teflon coated. It has been bedded and a trigger job done. The trigger breaks at approx 18 ounces according to my gauge. It shoots 1/2 moa if I do my part. It is a sweet little rifle in 7-08 which is also a sweet caliber. I couldn't resist it as the price was $500.

Boghossian,
One thing about Barnes TSX's is that they typically have a tiny entry wound and a relatively small exit wound.
I have been hunting the Texas hill country sinc '99. I've had the opportunity to personally observe hundreds of different axis of both sex interacting with white-tail. Axis are dominant. It is my understanding, that in high fenced ranches where both axis and white-tail deer are, unless density per acre is strictly regulated, one will eventually end up with no white tail and only axis. Where we hunt, the ranches are low fenced and deer are free ranging, so this is not a problem.
GWB

Sounds like a nice combo (7-08, tsx). Nice deer too.

Geedubya - won't the deer get scared of 4wheelers if you shoot from them?

Is that weight whole or dressed? Certainly a big deer but I'm surprised the bullet didn't exit.

congrats on your buck