Harvested two forest rats.

[MarkT]

Filled both tags, 8 point buck and a doe.  Made the buck into summer sausage and brats and the doe into hamburger. All 3 recipes have some bacon in them - gonna be tasty!  Took both with my Weatherby 300 win mag.  Shot the buck in the boiler room through the heart at 60yds 30 min before sundown  - he ran a hundred yards like his ass was on fire and collapsed at full speed. Odd he could run like that with his off shoulder GONE. Lost a bit of meat.  So I shot the doe through the neck at 90 yds right at sundown, while she was facing me.  Had to pick a path through the brush - turned up the scope. Blew out a big hole where the spine was - she dropped before the rifle recovered from recoil - no running with your spine gone. No meat lost there.  One friend asked if I shot her with a HOWITZER. Gotta be careful with that 300 win mag.

[Valker]

As a fellow rider....thanks. I wish 75% of them were harvested! Come to Texas and get your fill of feral hogs, too.

[DIGGER]

Good shot on the doe.   Manoman that 300 mag does some damage

[Rams]

As a fellow rider....thanks. I wish 75% of them were harvested! Come to Texas and get your fill of feral hogs, too.

Agreed!  As a fellow rider and driver, my deepest gratitude.  But, I'd try for 90%.   

Rams

[cookiedough]

in the hamburger,  did you use at least 20% or more of pork fat?

We tried going lean one year in fat added in our grinder and was very dry and not very good, too lean.

Assuming you do the hamburger yourself of course, but do you do your own sausage and brats, guessing not?  

We use to can our meat long, long ago and thought that was better than sliced bread,  very yummy.

.300 is a tad bit of overkill for a deer IMO, but will get the job done especially longer distance shots over  250-300 yards.   Use to have as my first deer gun a .30-30 winchester 6 shot with top ejection having to have side mounts for my scope making it tad bit odd to see thru the scope offset to the left like that (luckily the .30-30 does not kick much),  but much past 100 yards and was not very accurate, but great brush gun under 100 yards and could unload that gun like The Rifleman did on the TV show.    .30-30, .243, .308,  .270, and .30-06 are the most standard  calibers around me.  My uncle had the flatter, faster,   longer distance shooter .243 and does not look like much of a shell, but never had an issue and blew a nice size hole in the deer more often than not.  

[MarkT]

Here on the Kansas plains near Wichita the local grocery has hamburger "tubes" 10# of 80% ground beef.  Just add that into the grinder and mix it up, one per animal. This doe is about 35# of chunked meat - all of it, not saving the steaks or backstraps; still have some of those from last time. I didn't do the math but you get a nice mix with that.  Now this time my meat processor said add bacon into the burger - 20%.  Well that would be too much IMO so I bought 4# and hope it's good. He did my summer sausage and brats and for the sausage, for 20# of venison he adds 8# of meat with seasonings, and 2# of bacon.  In that meat is pork fat; I didn't ask the ratios.  There's also some jalopenos in there but not enough to be offensive to sensitive palates, just a nice additional bite.  At least I hope wifey is OK with it - she'll eat some heat.  He uses pretty much the same ratios on the brats - yeah they are a bit greasy but I like the taste - doesn't suit everyone.

One of the guys in our group is shooting a Savage .204 something that is incredibly fast - 4,000fps he said.  Never heard of that with deer.  It's like a varmint round.  I'm not familiar with it.  Says it makes a big exit hole and anchors a deer. Looks pretty small to me - much smaller than a .223 shell.  I don't recall if Kansas specifies minimum calibers.  Most of the calibers here are .30-06, .243, or .270.

The 300 win mag I acquired earlier this year.  Did some work on it.  It has guaranteed 1 MOA accuracy from the factory but I wasn't getting that. So I installed a Boyd's laminated stock, floated the barrel, installed a Timney trigger and a 20MOA picatinny one piece scope mount for the Leopold VX3, and  Decelerator recoil pad as this thing kicks a lot.  Now it's shooting 1/2 MOA with a Lead Sled and cold barrel (3-shot groups) with 180gr Winchester Power Point factory loads.  Pretty good I'd say.  But be careful where you put the bullet it will ruin meat.  I'm going for neck shots when I can, now. Since it's shooting where I aim it.  This is the caliber Chris Kyle preferred for under 1,000 yds. (.338 Lapua Mag for longer work). BTW, Have you looked closely at the 6.5mm Creedmore shooters?  Pretty impressive specs; it's being used in competitions and it's the hot new long range shooter for hunting too.

[The emperor has no clothes]

Here on the Kansas plains near Wichita the local grocery has hamburger "tubes" 10# of 80% ground beef.  Just add that into the grinder and mix it up, one per animal. This doe is about 35# of chunked meat - all of it, not saving the steaks or backstraps; still have some of those from last time. I didn't do the math but you get a nice mix with that.  Now this time my meat processor said add bacon into the burger - 20%.  Well that would be too much IMO so I bought 4# and hope it's good. He did my summer sausage and brats and for the sausage, for 20# of venison he adds 8# of meat with seasonings, and 2# of bacon.  In that meat is pork fat; I didn't ask the ratios.  There's also some jalopenos in there but not enough to be offensive to sensitive palates, just a nice additional bite.  At least I hope wifey is OK with it - she'll eat some heat.  He uses pretty much the same ratios on the brats - yeah they are a bit greasy but I like the taste - doesn't suit everyone.

One of the guys in our group is shooting a Savage .204 something that is incredibly fast - 4,000fps he said.  Never heard of that with deer.  It's like a varmint round.  I'm not familiar with it.  Says it makes a big exit hole and anchors a deer. Looks pretty small to me - much smaller than a .223 shell.  I don't recall if Kansas specifies minimum calibers.  Most of the calibers here are .30-06, .243, or .270.

The 300 win mag I acquired earlier this year.  Did some work on it.  It has guaranteed 1 MOA accuracy from the factory but I wasn't getting that. So I installed a Boyd's laminated stock, floated the barrel, installed a Timney trigger and a 20MOA picatinny one piece scope mount for the Leopold VX3, and  Decelerator recoil pad as this thing kicks a lot.  Now it's shooting 1/2 MOA with a Lead Sled and cold barrel (3-shot groups) with 180gr Winchester Power Point factory loads.  Pretty good I'd say.  But be careful where you put the bullet it will ruin meat.  I'm going for neck shots when I can, now. Since it's shooting where I aim it.  This is the caliber Chris Kyle preferred for under 1,000 yds. (.338 Lapua Mag for longer work). BTW, Have you looked closely at the 6.5mm Creedmore shooters?  Pretty impressive specs; it's being used in competitions and it's the hot new long range shooter for hunting too.

Mark, it sounds like you have a meat processor doing your work. So I imagine you are stuck with what he uses. If you are grinding yourself, you can buy 10 lb. boxes of frozen bacon ends and pieces pretty cheap. We sell them $20 a box. They are excellent for moose burger. I've never tried it with deer, but I'm sure it would be just as good.

[MarkT]

We're skinning & butchering the deer and my friend Van does the blade work if steaks and such are desired. In my case this year we just chunked out all the meat of the buck and took it to a processor (small operation, individually processed, you get your meat back - I worry about that; wouldn't use a factory type processor) for sausage and brats. That got me 60# of meat from 42# venison.  He is OK with custom orders so will do the ratios you want but I'm inclined to go with his formulas. Next year I might have the fat reduced a bit in the brats - we'll see after I eat a few. We are doing the hamburger ourselves.  I bought 3.8# of sliced, cured with sugar & salt, bacon for $11.50.

[cookiedough]

I probably would not use 80% hamburger to deer meat for I would want all deer meat just adding pork fat (beef talo (spelling?) as some would say)  Good idea if can find a local butcher or processing plant or grocery store and ask the meat dept,  since the local one in town use to give me the pork fat for free since did not need a lot for 1-2 deer, but should have used MORE though.

Good idea on the end pieces of bacon if a local grocery store/butcher has that as well....

Brats need grease/fat as only WI residents know, get them too lean and not very tasty and too dry, especially if overcooked.

[MarkT]

You misunderstood.  I used hamburger that was 80% lean not 80% of the end mix being beef.  The mix was 24# venison, 5# 80% beef, 4# bacon.  That's less filler than the processor uses on the sausage & brats which are both at 2-1 ratio.   This is a proven recipe used by lifetime experienced hunters and beef ranchers - not a guess as to a good recipe. We cooked up some burger patties and they were GOOD.  Could taste the bacon and the venison.

[The emperor has no clothes]

You misunderstood.  I used hamburger that was 80% lean not 80% of the end mix being beef.  The mix was 24# venison, 5# 80% beef, 4# bacon.  That's less filler than the processor uses on the sausage & brats which are both at 2-1 ratio.   This is a proven recipe used by lifetime experienced hunters and beef ranchers - not a guess as to a good recipe. We cooked up some burger patties and they were GOOD.  Could taste the bacon and the venison.

that's a good mix

[3fan4life]

I decided a long time ago to grind most of my deer into burger.

I tried mixing it with beef fat but didn't like the end result.

So, I just started grinding the deer by itself.

I didn't need the extra fat if I was using it in spaghetti or something similar and if I wanted burger I would just buy some cheap hamburger to mix into it then.   

[DIGGER]

Gonna try to get a doe next week and try a new mix my buddy uses.   He grinds the deer and grinds a brisket and mixes them together for hamburgers, chili, or spagetti.    We'll see how it turns out.    Taking my 10 yr old grandson.....he is a really good shot and handles my AR-15 223 well.   He already has taken a spike and a hog this yrs deer season.

[The emperor has no clothes]

Gonna try to get a doe next week and try a new mix my buddy uses.   He grinds the deer and grinds a brisket and mixes them together for hamburgers, chili, or spagetti.    We'll see how it turns out.    Taking my 10 yr old grandson.....he is a really good shot and handles my AR-15 223 well.   He already has taken a spike and a hog this yrs deer season.

There is nothing wrong with using brisket, but around here it's $4.99 a lb. Hopefully it's cheaper in Texas.

[MarkT]

Gonna try to get a doe next week and try a new mix my buddy uses.   He grinds the deer and grinds a brisket and mixes them together for hamburgers, chili, or spagetti.    We'll see how it turns out.    Taking my 10 yr old grandson.....he is a really good shot and handles my AR-15 223 well.   He already has taken a spike and a hog this yrs deer season.

We've found a .243 is a great starter deer rifle for teens.  Especially a Savage bolt rifle - one of my hunting partners has given several of them to his teenage grandkids - 2 are girls.  Knocks the deer down right quick, has good range and mild recoil.  A sporting goods store in Hutchinson had a good sale on them - like under $300 for a .243 bolt Savage with a decent scope.  Cheaper than Dirt has the .243 Savage Axis with a 3-9 Weaver scope for $327 at https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/product/savage-axis-xp-bolt-action-rifle-243-winchester-22-barrel-4-rounds-detachable-box-magazine-weaver-3-9x40-riflescope-synthetic-stock-matte-black-finish-011356572585.do?sortby=priceAscend&refType=&from=fn&ecList=7&ecCategory=486045

.223 is considered marginal and even proscribed by some states, for deer.  Just sayin...

[Patrick]

Most of mine goes into mason jars. Don't hear of too many doing that anymore.

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

Congrats on deer and the good shooting. That front facing neck shot is my favorite.