TL:DR version:  Muzzleloader antelope hunt, whacked a nice goat at 276 yards

So I drew a muzzleloader hunt on one of the training ranges in New Mexico.  For some reason, it is a muzzleloader-only hunt.  Well, until this year the only experience I had with muzzleloaders was when the occasional geezer at the range would let me shoot his.  Back in SC, there was a fellow who used to tape quarters to a target at 25 yards and take bets in the form of a quarter on the bench as to whether or not he could hit it while standing, shooting off-hand with iron sights.  Well, needless to say, he hit it more times than not.  I knew that muzzleloaders had advanced since the Kentucky long rifles in terms of accuracy so I did a little research and settled on a Knight Mountaineer with the Leupold Ultimate Slam.

After some experimentation shooting the Hornady SST 250 and 300 bullets, I settled on the 300gr bullet with 84.0 gr (weighed) of BH209 powder with a W209 primer.  My shooting practice revealed to me that I got better accuracy if I weighed every charge, rather than measuring like most people do with blackpowder.  The disadvantage is that if you run out of pre-weighed powder tubes on a hunt or at the range, you canu't shoot accurately.  (One workaround to this is to know what your weighed charge is in terms of measured capacity.)  I practiced 2-3 a week for two months leading up to the hunt, typically shooting 9-12 shots each range trip.  With this load I managed a 1.5" group at 100 yar ds, a 5" group at 200 yards, and an 8" group at 300 yards.  The chronograph showed consistent velocities between 2154 and 2168 FPS.

A few days before my hunt, I finished my can of BH209 and switched to a new can.  All of a sudden, my accuracy changed to around 3" at 100 yards and the rifle began shooting 2-5" high.  Not happy with this, I decided (correctly) that perhaps the new powder batch was hotter.  I dropped my powder charge to 82.0 gr and the accuracy tightened down, with me managing a 3" group at 200 yards (two of the bullets cloverleafed.)  I put 9 shots through the rifle, 3 each at 100, 200, and 300 yards the morning prior to the hunt and managed to keep all shots within 6" of the bullseye.  I fired a 10th and 11th shot at a steel buffalo located on my range at 370 yards, dinging the steel both times.

My guide, Justin from Arrowhead Outfitters NM, picked me up at 4 pm and we went down to the check-in station at the range for day-prior check-in.  We talked about my rifle and he asked what my comfort level was with the muzzleloader.  I told him I was comfortable shooting out to 350, provided I was shooting prone with little to no wind.  He raised his eyebrows at me and I nodded reassuringly.  He said this would give us an advantage on the hunt, since the antelope are only hunted on this range with muzzleloader and most folks can't shoot reliably beyond 200 yds.  We did some scouting and within five minutes of stopping the truck I had spotted a buck and a few does about 500 yds from the truck.  Justin scoped them and we were both impressed with the size of the rack on the buck.  It was large, not huge, but it was perfectly symmetrical with nice curls.  

We drove onward a few hundred yards and had close to 40 does and one small buck antelope run across the road from us right out of a cattle water hole next to the road.  Another couple miles down the road, and we saw another half dozen pockets of antelope, one of which was close to two miles out but had a rack that could be seen easily at that range through the spotting scope.  We decided that we wouldn't have any problems finding speed goats the next morning and decided to head back, stopping to see if our nice buck from the day prior was still there.  He was and we watched him for about a half hour, deciding that he would be worth a stalk first thing in the morning.

We arrived at the range around thirty minutes before legal shooting light and parked the truck on the hill where we had glassed the buck the day prior.  As soon as there was enough light, we located him and his does about a quarter mile farther than where we had previously seen him.  Unfortunately, they had moved into a flat field farther from the low yucca-covered stretches we had seen them in, decreasing the cover available for a good stalk.  With the antelope close to a mile from the truck, the last third of the stalk would be over a bare grassfield.  We loaded up and set out, covering the ground fairly quickly the first third, then much more slowly when we got within about 1000 yards of the goats, moving slowly and low between yuccas.  At 650 yards, we ran out of cover and decided to deploy the Montana Antelope Decoy and work our way towards a lone yucca roughly 100 yards closer to the speed goats.  

Working our way slowly on a course about 30 degrees off the bearing towards the goats, roughly in the direction they were grazing, we made it another 100 yards before two of the does stopped grazing and began staring only in our direction.  A few seconds later, the whole heard took off in a southward heading away from us.  With the stalk blown, we hiked back to the truck.  

We looked at the map and repositioned two miles south, then worked our way west our way along a rough two-track road past a pair of hunters who were hanging our at their truck.  We parked the truck behind a hill and hiked to the top to glass northwards towards where we had seen our buck head.  We located him right at a mile northwest of our position and hiked back to the truck to reposition to a hill roughly three-quarters of a mile south of the goats, with the goal of using the terrain to mask our approach.  We loaded up and hiked up the hill towards the goats.  As we approached the top of the hill, we slowly glassed over and found him.  We dropped back down a hundred yards below the crest and used terrain to work towards him.  We made it to just under 600 yards  when the hill ended and we transitioned to using the low shrubbery available for our stalk.  

At 550 yards, we dropped our packs and I began crawling on my hands and knees slowly, really wishing that I'd worn the long sleeve jacket or the knee and elbow pads I had put in the truck.  Fortunately the ground wasn't overly rocky but it still was difficult.  We made it to 400 yards before the cover began to decrease.  At this point, I could feel a bit of dehydration beginning and my heart starting to race.  At 373 yards we paused and I scoped him.  He was fairly stable in my crosshairs but I really didn't want to take a shot that far if it could be avoided.  That was definitely pushing my comfort level, especially since I couldn't shoot prone and completely flat.  

We very slowly crawled another twenty yards when they goats disappeared. Justin said they had probably bedded down for the morning as it was passing 93 degrees.  We saw a single doe at 340 yards and we crawled another 10 yards towards them.  We sat there and I played around with my bipod, trying to figure out whether I was better off using the dead yucca next to me as a rest or the tall Harris bipod.  I really couldn't get a steady solution with either option so I repositioned slightly into the open and sat, extending the bipod legs fully.  For about 15 minutes we glassed, looking to see where the buck was bedded down when a second doe stood up.   A few minutes later the first doe disappeared.  We repositioned another 5 yards closer and I set back up, trying to find where the buck was bedded.

Suddenly two more does popped back up, staring in our direction.  Had they seen us?  Were they going to bolt?   My heart began racing at the prospects of another blown stalk, with a healthy dose of dehydration and some muscle soreness added to the mix.  Finally the first of the two does laid back down.  

"BUCK!" was the whisper I heard next from Justin.  "323 yards."  I scoped and glassed, not entirely comfortable with my shooting position and the amount of movement I had on him.  I re-extended the bipod legs fully and sat, resting my elbow on my knee.  One of the does began wandering slowly in a direction that would bring her closer to us via a quartering vector.  (Blading towards us at 45 degrees?)  The buck would have none of that.  He was keeping a tight rein on his harem so he walked towards her to corral her back towards the rest of his girlfriends.  The doe stopped at 270 yards from us and Justin whispered to take him when he walked around the cactus bush to her left.  He stopped right behind her and Justin whispered "276."

I put the 250 yd drop on him, since I knew the rifle was shooting 2" high at 300 yards using the 300 yard drop, which should put the 250 right on right at that range.

BANG!

"You [WET THWAP] got him!  Yeah!" said Justin, right as the sound of the bullet hitting meat reached us.  I looked but couldn't see the buck.  All I could see were does scattering.

Justin recovered the packs while I kept an eye on the spot he went down.   We hiked down and found him, lying on his back with his feet almost in the air.  We dragged him about 200 yards to use a slight rise in the hill to get a good picture, then we gutted him and dragged him the remainder of the distance back to the truck.  Note to self:  Buy a game cart.

The bullet hit 3" right and 1" high of where I was aiming.  Rough score has his horns just over 14" with a B&C score of 73 2/8, or a Safari Club International score of 74 6/8. 80 is required for the B&C record book (which doesn't differentiate between rifle and muzzleloaders) but the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association classifies anything above a 63 B&C score as a record book maker.  All in all, it was a great hunt.

Great shot and thanks for sharing op.

That is a helluva good shot and a very nice antelope.Congratulations!!

That's a helluva shot  for a center fire, let alone a muzzle. Nice prairie goat too.

Great Read !

Congrats !!!!

Way to go OP.

Nice goat! Especially for a smoke pole. Muzzleloader antelope is on my list.

Sounds like a great hunt and good job on your homework prior to heading out.

Which range were you on? Was that part of White Sands?

ETA < That picture was taken just up the road from White Sands

Outstanding place for pie!

Excellent! Perfect shape on that buck.