Home› Main Category› Hunting
Missouri doe whacked with cast lead bullet from a muzzleloader
It’s always reassuring to know you’ve made a good investment.
A month or so back, I went on contract for a 52.6 acre plot in Missouri that includes 22 tillable acres, currently in beans, that are on a lease that I'll inherit at closing. It also has plenty of deer, turkey and waterfowl, as it sits just 6 minutes south of a major wildlife refuge.
While the sellers and I don’t close on the land until the top of next month, they were kind enough to let me hunt the “alternative methods” season before I officially own it. This season includes handguns, high power air rifles, atlatls, archery equipment and muzzleloading firearms (to include flintlock, caplock, cap and ball arms, and scoped inlines).
Since I made a batch of cast lead bullets for my .45 Colt lever rifle last year, I’ve had the inkling to toss them in .50 cal sabots and see how they shot out of an inline muzzleloader. While they don’t shoot as nearly accurately out on my T/C Omega with sabots as they do from metallic cartridges in my lever rifle, they would work for the task at hand. Over 100 grains of Blackhorn 209 using a CCI 209M primer (no gas check/no lube), they shot respectably enough to stretch them out to a little over 100 yards at about a 4” group. Velocity with this charge is right at 1,800 fps.
I sat the current landowner’s elevated box blind overlooking two of the bean fields and some of the woods. It was not where I would’ve chosen to sit if the goal was exclusively to kill a deer, but it offered an excellent view over a huge swath of the property - much more important for overall intel gathering and long term success.
There were plenty of deer moving in the morning, but the evening was when deer would come into my limited range window. Well before the end of legal daylight, I filled my antlerless tag at 106 yards to the thump of 245 gr. of cast lead walloping a mature doe. She death dashed for about 100 yards and toppled.
Impact was slightly high and right of aim point, but the hit was clearly lethal, leaving the patented cookie-cutter exit typical of minimally expanding cast bullets.
Entrance:
Exit:
So, my first ever Missouri deer made for my 6th overall of this season. A buddy is coming over next week to help me make a monster batch of polish and Summer sausage out of her. Can’t wait!
I have a feeling that a lot of great memories are going to be made on this land. There were a lot of critters around for such a modest-sized parcel. Next month can’t come soon enough.
A month or so back, I went on contract for a 52.6 acre plot in Missouri that includes 22 tillable acres, currently in beans, that are on a lease that I'll inherit at closing. It also has plenty of deer, turkey and waterfowl, as it sits just 6 minutes south of a major wildlife refuge.
While the sellers and I don’t close on the land until the top of next month, they were kind enough to let me hunt the “alternative methods” season before I officially own it. This season includes handguns, high power air rifles, atlatls, archery equipment and muzzleloading firearms (to include flintlock, caplock, cap and ball arms, and scoped inlines).
Since I made a batch of cast lead bullets for my .45 Colt lever rifle last year, I’ve had the inkling to toss them in .50 cal sabots and see how they shot out of an inline muzzleloader. While they don’t shoot as nearly accurately out on my T/C Omega with sabots as they do from metallic cartridges in my lever rifle, they would work for the task at hand. Over 100 grains of Blackhorn 209 using a CCI 209M primer (no gas check/no lube), they shot respectably enough to stretch them out to a little over 100 yards at about a 4” group. Velocity with this charge is right at 1,800 fps.
I sat the current landowner’s elevated box blind overlooking two of the bean fields and some of the woods. It was not where I would’ve chosen to sit if the goal was exclusively to kill a deer, but it offered an excellent view over a huge swath of the property - much more important for overall intel gathering and long term success.
There were plenty of deer moving in the morning, but the evening was when deer would come into my limited range window. Well before the end of legal daylight, I filled my antlerless tag at 106 yards to the thump of 245 gr. of cast lead walloping a mature doe. She death dashed for about 100 yards and toppled.
Impact was slightly high and right of aim point, but the hit was clearly lethal, leaving the patented cookie-cutter exit typical of minimally expanding cast bullets.
Entrance:
Exit:
So, my first ever Missouri deer made for my 6th overall of this season. A buddy is coming over next week to help me make a monster batch of polish and Summer sausage out of her. Can’t wait!
I have a feeling that a lot of great memories are going to be made on this land. There were a lot of critters around for such a modest-sized parcel. Next month can’t come soon enough.
Accuracy: because white space between bullet holes drives me insane.
Replies
Why you buying in MO?
This place is only 1.5 hours from home. You have to drive well away from where I live to find a remotely affordable tract, and it will almost assuredly be smaller than what I got for the same price. Nebraska farmland is awesome and packed with game, but it's also WAY overpriced and property taxes here are much, much higher. On place like I got, I'd be looking at around $1,500/year in taxes in NE.
In contrast the entire 52.6 in MO, my total annual tax bill is under $55 for the entire place. Better still, the crop lease that I'm inheriting is with a cattle company and generates a substantial amount of income. It literally pays for more than half of what the mortgage costs annually. That lease still has 2 years left on it and the tenant has zero intentions to leave anytime soon. In fact, he will likely reset and re-sign the lease for 3 more years when I take over. That factor alone allowed me to buy much larger than I originally planned.
Lastly, MO has relatively cheap non-resident tag prices. If I ever change my residency over to there, I will get *free* landowner tags for deer and turkey. I'm considering it, but that's not a straight forward decision since I hold 8 resident points for bighorn sheep, elk and other game in Nevada that I don't want to lose or convert to non-resident points.
Better on the land.
Happy for you.
Make me hungry for fresh ven backstraps.
I was extremely impressed at the number of deer I saw in Kansas while scouting turkeys and am seriously considering trying a deer season there. That said, Missouri is no slouch and I can definitely understand your family crossing the border to hunt there.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
The gas boom here drove the value and tax rates of land around this area out of my reach. Even those who already had land have to lease the hunting rights to afford the taxes. Unless they get good lease money for the mineral rights and that is so hit and miss it makes no sense to me. Two adjoining plots can make many $1000's difference.
Now you can look forward to finding your first trespasser...
Oh, and the Ohio gas boom you mentioned is something else. A hunting buddy of mine is from St. Calirsville, OH. Many years back, his cousin befriended an old guy who had no living kin and willed him a beautiful piece of land. Turns out the place not only had tons of game, but it was sitting on a huge amount of natural gas.
I don’t know how much his cousin makes on that mineral lease, but it’s A LOT. The guy is now 80 years old and really doesn’t have to work anymore with the income from the land...but he does, presumably so he ain’t stuck in the house with his old lady all day. 😂
It should be noted that my parents are in town visiting and wanted to go see the place. We went down and we, again, saw plenty of deer and a boatload of migrating waterfowl. It’s really a good thing and I hope that never changes. It may even necessitate buying a regular hunting license and hauling my snow goose decoy spread down here when the Spring Conservation season starts. Can’t wait for Spring to get here to see when the turkeys start gobbling and strutting in the open fields.