The rising sun
had just finished painting delicate pink strips to the east when I heard it: a
big animal running. There could be no doubt this was a deer, probably a doe
chased by a buck. Unfortunately, the animal was directly behind me. No matter,
I thought, it should pass. And that’s exactly what it did, moving past me,
crossing near the scrape to my left, and then into the small clearcut to my
front. She was indeed a big doe, moving too quickly to detect me. Like you, I
knew what would follow.
The buck that
followed on her heels was not so careless. Running about as fast as the doe, he
slammed on the brakes about ten yards behind my stand. After a few seconds, he
continued walking. Crunch, crunch, came the sound of sharp hooves
punching through cornflake leaves.Suddenly from the corner of my eye I
saw the white ivory tips of a nice eight point deer. He then turned to the left
and walked another ten yards. Ever so slowly, I raised my rifle, planted the
crosshairs behind the buck’s foreleg, and pressed the trigger. At 15 yards, the
buck was too close for me to hear the bullet hit, but the reaction of the deer
told me what I already knew: this was winter meat. He fell not 50 yards from
where I hit him. I quickly climbed down to claim my prize. As I rubbed by
fingers over the bone-hard antlers, I once again gave thanks for short barreled
rifles.
These days it
seems rifles with barrels as long as a broomstick and sporting scopes large
enough to stargaze get the nod from a lot of hunters, especially those who hunt
from stands. These rifles often shoot cartridges that spit out hunting bullets
with more velocity than a varmint rifle. Many hunters reason that because they
don’t carry that rifle except when traveling to the stand, it makes sense to
hunt with a heavy barreled rifle that has a flat trajectory. These kind of
rifles have become known as “beanfield” rifles, meaning they can kill deer all
the way across a beanfield. They were first popularized by custom gunsmiths
such as Kenny Jarrett, but most major manufacturers quickly followed suit with
more economical versions such as Remington’s Sendero series.
The deer
mentioned at the beginning of this story certainly could have been killed with a
7mm STW or .300 Remington Ultra Mag; I own four rifles in these chamberings
myself. But I also know that my secret weapon that day was the ability to move
my rifle barrel undetected when aiming – after all, the deer was right under me
when I raised my rifle to take aim. I was using a Remington Model Seven in
.308 Winchester. That short action rifle with a thin recoil pad and 18 ½ inch
barrel is only 37 ½ inches long, much shorter than my 7mm STW, which measures 46
¾ inches long.
“So what’s the
big deal?” you may be thinking. “Once I am in a stand, who cares how long the
rifle is?”
