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- Sep 30, 2023
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I won an Optima V2 in October and on Monday this week I hunted with it for the first time.
My gun was sighted in at 50 yards with Hornady Xtp's with the 44 cal bullet and they were touching in the bull. I found at the range that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get a third bullet seated on the powder. It would come up short between 1/8 and 1/4" above the powder based upon my mark on my range rod. I underestimated the distance to a deer and hit it low twice. Not proud of what happened but my 1 month old range finder wouldn't range past 35 yards for some reason. So after two shots I knew from practice that I had to swab the barrel. I went to do this and the jag got stuck and I couldn't pull it back up. This whole time the deer is now closer and standing broadside and I am having a mini meltdown because I had the time to load a 3rd bullet but couldn't! Fortunately it made it about 60 yards down the field edge and another hunter was able to put it down.
After that, I was able to think clearly and realized I could unscrew the ram rod, take the breech plug out and push the jag back up the barrel and pull it out. I was using 777 pellets because the store was out of BH 209 and said they didn't expect to get anymore this year. How do I avoid this going forward? Is it as simple as using BH 209 as many have said or is there something more? I would never have expected being able to get two let alone 3 possible shots but that was my first experience. The next day I went out and had no drama with the same combo. I shot my best public land buck at 50 yards off hand. It ran 20 or so yards and dropped. It was awesome! I have exclusively bowhunted until this week since 1991. Looking forward to what you would suggest trying to avoid this possibly happening again.
I also called the store I got the gun and they said they had 777 powder in FFFG which several people said to get if I couldn't get BH 209. I also was was told not to get the FFg powder. The XTp's are very accurate but hard to load. Should I look at the .45 cal XTP's with the black sabot or something else? Most shots won't even be 100 yards.
Thanks' in advance!
Here’s pictures of both bucks.
My gun was sighted in at 50 yards with Hornady Xtp's with the 44 cal bullet and they were touching in the bull. I found at the range that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get a third bullet seated on the powder. It would come up short between 1/8 and 1/4" above the powder based upon my mark on my range rod. I underestimated the distance to a deer and hit it low twice. Not proud of what happened but my 1 month old range finder wouldn't range past 35 yards for some reason. So after two shots I knew from practice that I had to swab the barrel. I went to do this and the jag got stuck and I couldn't pull it back up. This whole time the deer is now closer and standing broadside and I am having a mini meltdown because I had the time to load a 3rd bullet but couldn't! Fortunately it made it about 60 yards down the field edge and another hunter was able to put it down.
After that, I was able to think clearly and realized I could unscrew the ram rod, take the breech plug out and push the jag back up the barrel and pull it out. I was using 777 pellets because the store was out of BH 209 and said they didn't expect to get anymore this year. How do I avoid this going forward? Is it as simple as using BH 209 as many have said or is there something more? I would never have expected being able to get two let alone 3 possible shots but that was my first experience. The next day I went out and had no drama with the same combo. I shot my best public land buck at 50 yards off hand. It ran 20 or so yards and dropped. It was awesome! I have exclusively bowhunted until this week since 1991. Looking forward to what you would suggest trying to avoid this possibly happening again.
I also called the store I got the gun and they said they had 777 powder in FFFG which several people said to get if I couldn't get BH 209. I also was was told not to get the FFg powder. The XTp's are very accurate but hard to load. Should I look at the .45 cal XTP's with the black sabot or something else? Most shots won't even be 100 yards.
Thanks' in advance!
Here’s pictures of both bucks.
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