Hunting With the M81

Posts about the Model 81~Woodsmaster~
Locked
User avatar
Wildgoose
Posts: 237
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 5:53 am
Location: Nebraska

Hunting With the M81

Post by Wildgoose »

Well another year is darn near gone and deer season will be on us soon. I am going to try the M81 300 Savage again this year. I got an idea when I saw these targets at a gun show last winter and thougt the list might like to see what it looked like. Took the M81 out to the range to get an idea what my sight picture at 100 yards would produce shooting while sitting and only resting one elbow just as I do in my tree stand. Two of the shots didn't go where I intended as you can see but all but one, which I knew was a bad pull when I let it go, would have done the job. And even that one would most likely have ended in a down deer but I wouldn't have enjoyed field dressing it. :( It was a fun experiment and a good way to get some trigger time in.
Image
Image
DWalt
Posts: 513
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:18 pm
Location: San Antonio & Brackettville TX

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by DWalt »

Not too bad. With open sights, from a shooting bench, my M81 in .300 Savage will typically print 5-shot groups of about 3" center to center at 50 yards. That translates into 6" at 100 yards.

Many of the local deer hunters have the belief that if you can hit something about the size of a basketball at whatever range you are shooting at, that's good enough. They are probably correct.

While the .300 Savage is deadly at distances well beyond 125-150 yards, if I were using a M81, I wouldn't shoot at anything beyond that range, especially so if using open sights. In a lesser caliber, such as the .30 Rem, I'd drop back to 100 yard max shots.
User avatar
81police
Posts: 2613
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 12:12 pm
Location: TEXAS

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by 81police »

I think that's good shooting wildgoose. At some point this season I have of mind to take an M81 in .300Sav out hunting as well. I would probably limit my shots to inside 100 yards, more likely around 50. We'll see though, I might not be able to put down the BAR ;)
Cam Woodall
Site Co-Administrator
texassako
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by texassako »

I can't even see further than 75-100 yards where I hunt these days unless I shoot across the pond; so I hope to take an 8 or 81 out this year. People tend to forget that a deer's kill zone is not the 1/2" that they want to see on a target these days. My .35 with a 4x scope shoots a 2" 50 yard group and my .32 shoots a 3" 50 yard group with the factory open sights now that I am getting better at shooting irons and have some new eye glasses with the proper prescription. I needed quite a bit of range time to get used to how these rifles handle and aim when not supported completely on bags. Even with our dog sized deer, those groups easily fit into the kill zone.
User avatar
Rem8&81
Posts: 71
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:03 am

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by Rem8&81 »

Guys, I'm not a ballistics expert, as a matter of fact I rarely know what most of you are talking about when you start in on that subject, but I have had some experience hunting with our beloved rifles. We hunt deer and elk with our 8’s and 81’s out here in Oregon. My father shoots a well worn 1906 in .35 caliber (all original early guns that year were .35 calibers) and I shoot a 1907 amongst a few others. My brother likes his 300 Savage and .35 caliber 81’s. We have all killed game with them and although the terrain rarely allows for a longer shot that the 50 to 100 yards you are all mentioning, I have seen them drop game at much further. These guns were meant to shoot at longer ranges as evidenced by the requirements of the FBI, police/penitentiary, and trials rifles. I shot a deer running straight away from me at about 200 yards. It was bounding up and down and was admittedly pure luck at that point, even with the four or five shots I threw out there like an excited GI emptying his clip into the bushes after hearing a noise. I’m not a great shot and would have been just as likely or unlikely to hit it if it was standing still. However, it occurs to me that it is less about the rifle and more about the shooter. Granted, most of us could be better with a scope and maybe and different rifle, but the 8’s and 81’s are probably much more capable than the guys who are shooting them. It sounds like most of you are pretty good shots however. I’d like to think I might be better off a bench or in a blind, rather than taking what typically amounts to not much more than frantic pop shots at running game from a standing position on uneven ground after hiking several miles. Although I don’t like to admit it, my rifle has probably never missed a shot, rather I missed more often than not. We hunt in the thick mountainy woods out here and if you’re lucky to sneak up on something, they are generally running and it’s like trying to shoot something on one of those hunting arcade games as they bolt between the trees. I hear Cam and some of you talk about stands, lease partials, feed plots, feeders, cameras, salt licks, etc. and don’t have any frame of reference. I love to hunt the way we do, but sometimes a dry stand by a feeder doesn’t sound so bad. My knees might require it sooner than later. I get tired of falling down the hill.
[color=#004000]COREY CREAMER[/color]
User avatar
81police
Posts: 2613
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 12:12 pm
Location: TEXAS

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by 81police »

Great points Corey! In West Texas, we don't have many hills so if you come out here there's little worry of falling over ;)

I'm a youngster, so I prefer scoped rifles and am not as confident with iron sights. I'm sure these rifles can shoot much better than I can :D
Cam Woodall
Site Co-Administrator
DWalt
Posts: 513
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:18 pm
Location: San Antonio & Brackettville TX

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by DWalt »

Much of Texas deer hunting can be described as being more like shooting fish in a barrel anyway. Most leases have stands, and automatic feeders draw in the deer close to them for easy shots. Senderos are cut in brushy areas, and it's just a matter of shooting the deer from a stand when he crosses the road. This situation exists because in Texas, there is almost no public land available for hunting, and private ranchers control most hunting activity on their lease properties. It's a very, very big business here, and the ranchers want to make it easy for hunters to get their deer in order to keep the business going year after year. Under typical Texas lease hunting conditions, one doesn't often need to have highly developed marksmanship skills or an extremely accurate rifle, as most shots will be at 50 to 100 yards. Nothing like hunting in the Rockies, or even some areas back east. When I lived in Western Maryland, and hunted there, and also in both West Virginia and Pennsylvania, there were areas where 200+ yard shots weren't that unusual. They are in Texas.

It always amazes me to see those Texas hunters carrying .300 Win Magnums and ,338s when a .30-30 is all that's really needed most of the time. I use a .30-'06.

I am fortunate that I have a great place available to me that I can hunt both whitetail and Axis deer very reasonably (most leases are fairly expensive, especially the exotic game ranches), yet I don't hunt much anymore, maybe once every couple of years. I've gotten to the point where most of my meat comes from the supermarket. I prefer it, as it's much simpler and cheaper, plus at my age I have no particular love of killing. The meat tastes better too.
User avatar
imfuncity
Posts: 1208
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:44 am
Location: 2hrs N of Sac., Tehama Co. CA

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by imfuncity »

I've never hunted but a REAL hunt sounds like fun until...
- the work starts when the critter is on the ground
- plus I've never tasted venison that I would call good eating (altogether different story on bear & hog, have yet to try "Oregon Beef".)
- plus all the ups and downs (makes those stands and plots look very good)
- in Northern CA I have heard more then one hunter talk about taking 2 days to pack their deer out!

On the other hand (I've got a lot of those), any excuse to pop a cap sounds good to me and I too have been investing in more magnification after starting on iron sights a few years ago.
Though defensive violence will always be “a sad necessity” in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men. - St. Augustine
User avatar
jack1653
Posts: 984
Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:52 pm

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by jack1653 »

I am sure to cause some controversey with this post but like others who post it is often from a personal perspective and their own experience. I do not live in Texas but I have hunted there on more than one occassion. I have hunted big game in several western states, the midwest and southeast. I have found the experiences quite challenging in each and every place that I have hunted. I have made killing shots from 25 feet to over 500 yards and I have yet to feel that I have ever hunted where it was like "shooting fish in barrel". The hunts that I experienced in Texas, on leased property, was nothing like that was described in an earlier post. No one "pushed" the deer to precut openings nor did I have the opportunity to shoot them at the feed bunk. I waited in a tree stand that was placed in what I thought was a well concealed location based on the trails that the animals were using basedon scouting the area to be hunted. If the animals weren't moving we went looking for them and stalked until a good shot could be had. If Texas has hunting as previously described, I certainly haven't experienced it.

My other criticism of the previous posting about hunting in Texas concerns the weapons of choice. What difference does it make what caliber rifle the hunter chooses to use? Each of us chooses a weapon that we feel most comfortable with our abilities and that is as it should be. I certainlly agree that you don't go hunting elephants with a flyswatter, but my neighbor, a well known instinctive long bow archer, Dan Quillian, killed a big old bull elephant with his long bow. I knew what he thought of the fellows who used 30-06's for hunting deer and it can't be printed here.

My Dad would make a lauging stock of many hunters who would shoot deer with anything larger than a .22 long rifle. He killed more deer with his Marlin Mico-Groove than many have with their high powered rifles. He never lost a deer because of a mis-placed shot in all the 70 plus years he hunted. A well placed shot right between the eyes will drop a deer right in his tracks and you don't have to go looking for them, not to mention following an often disappearing blood trail only to find your animal with a massive exit wound and a lot of destroyed meat. I have witnessed my Dad make killing shots with his .22 many times at over a hundred yards. Was he exceptional? I think not. He was a skilled marksman and knew his abilities and the capability of his weapon. If he couldn't get a clean shot, he wouldn't take it. He taught me well and learned to be respectful of other hunters choices, the Lord's bounty and the environment in which they lived.

So, who is right?
User avatar
Wildgoose
Posts: 237
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 5:53 am
Location: Nebraska

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by Wildgoose »

Hunting is indeed a very personal experience. From the start it is a game management tool for the states involved. Where deer hunting has been restriced in some eastern states the resulting over population has done great damage to the forested areas and caused much suffering for the deer population as well. Here in Nebraska for the last seven years the state has been on a mission to reduce the deer population by issueing many diffrent season extensions and bonus tags. It is starting to work and some of the pressure has been reduced in all but the most overcrowed areas. That being said from my point of view our deer hunting is both a chance to make use of a natural resorce for food and help to control the deer population. We eat all of the deer we shoot. We are meat hunters and follw all of the game and parks regulations in our hunting. The weapoins and calibers are regulated by law and we make use of what ever each of us is comfortable with within those restrections. For me its a great set up. I hunt with my grand daughter in a double tree stand. She takes the longer shots with her scoped Model 722 Remington 300 Savage and that leaves grandpa the closer ones for what ever old vintage rifle he chooses for the season. This year it will be my M81. 8-) We will take a nice buck if the chance presents itself but the primary mission is to fill tags and that means that any ethical shot on a good sized meat animal will be taken. After all you cant eat the antlers. Just as Jack has stated this is just my personal experience and perspective on why and how I deer hunt. I dont feel that with out direct knowledge of what others are doing in other places that I need to judge what is going on. If one chooses not to hunt thats fine too. For those who do unethical things and break the law that is what game wardens are for and we do turn in those whom we see breaking the law. Beyond that its to each his own to enjoy.
texassako
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by texassako »

Controversy Jack? Elsewhere those comments and the ones that would follow from the trolls would usually lead to a locked or vanishing thread. Rimfire is illegal in Texas for taking deer. There may be some who can safely take deer with one, but the state is more woried about the masses that could leave wounded deer in the woods. On the other side of the coin are the larger and magnum calibers like DWalt mentioned. It is tough to kill a deer deader than dead; so I wouldn't want to subject my shoulder and wallet to any more punishment than required. The range I go to has a pretty brisk business sighting in magnum caliber rifles at hunting season time for people that don't like the recoil. My father is currently a magnum junky, but at least he is shooting it and working up different loads for our puny deer and a future elk hunting trip. Also, you can hunt all different ways here if you have access to land, but canned hunts are definitely big business in Texas from $150/gun weekend hunts on hunted out ranches to $25k pick your trophy from the catalog hunts.
User avatar
81police
Posts: 2613
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 12:12 pm
Location: TEXAS

Re: Hunting With the M81

Post by 81police »

We're definitely off-topic. Sorry Wildgoose! We love the pictures you posted, great shooting and we can't wait to hear more about you using your M81 in the field! :D

Oh and best of luck to your grand-daughter, hope she's successful!
Cam Woodall
Site Co-Administrator
Locked