Playing Favorites

[su_heading size=”30″]How one rifle and load became a go-to combo for deer-sized game.[/su_heading]

STORY AND PHOTOS BY MIKE DICKERSON

[su_dropcap style=”light”]A[/su_dropcap]s an outdoor writer, I’m often asked what my favorite rifle is. My standard answer, especially when I’m in the field, is whatever rifle I happen to be holding in my hands at any given moment.

But that’s not entirely true. We all have our favorites. For some, it may be a beat-up rifle that’s been handed down from generation to generation. It may be one with high-grade wood and fancy engraving. Many prefer turnbolt-action guns. Some swoon over a fine double gun, while others may shoot only an AR platform rifle. A favorite may be a rifle that shoots tiny little groups, or one that’s light enough to pack up steep mountains. For some, it might be the only rifle they own – or one that literally saved their life.

One of the author’s favorite rifles for deer-sized game is an original Weatherby Vanguard chambered in .257 Wby. Mag. It’s been much modified from its original configuration with the addition of a fine Timney trigger and a Fiberguard stock.

In truth, I have several favorite rifles for several specific jobs. For deer-sized game, however, one rifle in my collection has accounted for more animals than all of the others combined. It’s not the fanciest rifle in the safe, nor is it the most expensive. It’s the one I’ve made more great memories with than any other.
THAT RIFLE BEGAN ITS LONG RUN with me many years ago as an original Weatherby Vanguard rifle, chambered in .257 Wby. Mag. It had a Tupperware stock and creepy trigger, so it did not long stay in its original configuration. I installed a fine Timney trigger and swapped the stock out for a pillarbedded Fiberguard stock, in an attractive tan color with black spider web finish.

I long ago lost count of the number of deer and hogs I shot with this rifle in the coastal mountains of central California before I left that state for more gun-friendly environs. It was with me when I shot my first pronghorn antelope in Wyoming, and it was the rifle I used to bag a record-book pronghorn in New Mexico. There’s a nice axis deer on my wall, thanks to that rifle, and a snarling javelina. The rifle has taken mule deer in several Western states, and was the one I used to take my best whitetail buck, a barrel-chested 11-pointer nudging the 160 Boone and Crockett mark.

It was also the rifle I held when I made a running shot on a whitetail in the state of my birth, Kentucky, a number of years ago. He was an old buck, with thin, broken-up antlers,
and wasn’t much to look at. But it was a hunt I’ll never forget. It was the first time I had seen many of my relatives in nearly two decades, and I was able to share a venison dinner with them from that homecoming hunt, surrounded by the warmth, laughter and happiness I remembered so well from my childhood. Sadly, many of those relatives are no longer with us, and I think of them every time I pick up the .257.

This large axis deer fell to the author’s Vanguard pushing a 120-grain Nosler Partition bullet out of the muzzle at 3,300 feet per second.

And that, as Forest Gump would say, is all I have to say about that.

LAST YEAR, I REALIZED THAT the rifle had become something of a safe queen. I was spending so much time testing and hunting with new rifle models that I had little time left to shoot or hunt with my own guns. Determined to remedy that, I carved a day out of my schedule last December and visited my friend, Bryan Wilson, of Frio County Hunts. Bryan runs a great hunting operation on his family’s lowfence, high-quality hunting ranch in south Texas.

He had been keeping an eye on a big-bodied, 5½-year-old, eight-point buck that made regular appearances on game cameras. His antlers weren’t going to get any better, and he was bossing around some younger bucks with greater trophy potential, so that made him a prime candidate for my freezer.

Sitting in a blind with Bryan in the predawn darkness that December morning, we watched deer filter out of the thick south Texas brush and into an open field in front of us. It took some time before we had enough light to make out antlers, and bit more time before we could count points. There were a couple of younger, promising bucks in the field, and far down a sendero to our left, we spotted a truly spectacular young buck. But none of them were on the menu. We were after the boss eight-pointer.

And then he appeared, walking slowly and confidently down a long path to our front before entering the field. The younger bucks watched him nervously, and it was clear that this old fellow ruled the roost. I watched the buck feed for a while, and then reached for my old friend with the words “.257 WBY MAG” stamped on the barrel. I centered the crosshairs of the Leupold scope on the buck’s vitals, and touched off the Timney trigger, which is set to break crisply at a trigger pull of a hair over 2 pounds.

The author used his Vanguard to take this recordbook pronghorn antelope in New Mexico.

AS IT HAD SO MANY TIMES BEFORE, a 120-grain Nosler Partition bullet found its mark. The buck ran about 20 yards, staggered for another 10 yards, and fell over. That bullet, in factory loading, is all I’ve ever fed the rifle, and it will shoot sub-MOA groups with the load all day long. Launching the 120-grain Partition at .257 Wby. Mag. velocity, the rifle has proven to be nothing less than a death ray. The vast majority of animals I’ve shot with that rifle and load simply dropped in their tracks. A few made it 30 yards or so, as this big buck did, but none have ever required any tracking to recover.

I’ve been on several hunts where people, after watching the rifle perform, have offered to buy it from me on the spot. Needless to say, it’s not for sale.

The .257 Wby. Mag. was reportedly Roy Weatherby’s favorite caliber, and it’s easy to understand why when you take a close look at the ballistics. The 120-grain Partition load I favor steps out at a bit more than 3,300 feet per second from the muzzle. Using the old-timer’s trick of zeroing the rifle to place bullets 3 inches high at 100 yards, it is dead on at 300 yards, and a bit less than 4 inches low at 350 yards.

This means that, for the vast majority of hunters and the majority of hunting situations, you need only hold steady on the vitals to make a clean kill out to 350 yards.

Notably, that .257 isn’t the only Vanguard in my safe. I also have a Vanguard sub-MOA model chambered in .300 WSM. It has the same Timney trigger installed and the same stock, albeit in a different color. I also have this rifle zeroed at 300 yards, with a 150-grain Winchester XP3 load grouping 3 inches high at 100 yards. The trajectory is nearly identical to that of my .257 zeroed at the same distance. Picking up that rifle is, for all practical purposes, the same as picking up the .257. It, too, has accounted for its fair share of game, including a scimitar-horned oryx in Texas. These are large animals, weighing up to 460 pounds, and the Weatherby handled the job nicely.

You may, by now, not be surprised to learn that I have yet another Vanguard rifle in my safe. This one is the newer Vanguard S2 Back Country rifle, a featherweight rifle weighing just 6 pounds, 12 ounces. Chambered in .30-06 Springfield, it’s a real tack driver, especially with Federal’s VitalShok 165-grain Trophy Copper load. I also have this rifle zeroed to group bullets 3 inches high at 100 yards. They’ll impact less than 4 inches low at 300 yards, allowing for a dead-on hold at that distance, and I’m looking forward to putting the rifle to good use.

All of this, I suppose, lends a lot of truth to the old adage, “Beware the man with one rifle.” Or, in my case, two or three. ASJ

The author most recently put his old favorite Weatherby Vanguard rifle, chambered in .257 Wby. Mag., to good use on a whitetail hunt with Frio County Hunts in south Texas.

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