Texas Aoudad

[CAH]

The guys I know that have shot em say that they are the toughest animal to kill out of all of them. Said they can soak up rounds. I would want heavy bullet with good penetration.

 

[luvcatchingbass]

FWIW, while I get the quest for accuracy and lethality, I think we often put a little too much thought into it. I drew a ND moose tag this year and if everything goes well, I plan on shooting my moose with a 0.50 caliber, patched round ball. About 183 grains and lethal as hell to roughly 100 yds.

The Aoudad is roughly the size of a large muley or WT buck, anything that can kill a deer should serve you just fine once you are familiar with whatever load/bullet you choose.

Note, my backup rifle will be my 7 mm Rem Mag loaded with Barnes' TSX in 120 grains.

Really looking forward to reading about your overall experience with the Aoudad hunt!

Oh I am great at making things more than what they need to be and like I said I just enjoy trying different things. I'm familiar with Barnes and know what I have had success with but the Badlands has my interest and I have never played with Swift bullets. In all actuality a bullet is the cheapest part of hunting when you think of it, and I think I kind of have overloaded myself with information and started to over analyze things. One common thing that I have read, listened to and watched about Aoudad is though you can compare them to a large deer they are thick, vitals are tucked further forward (this doesn't concern me), and their will to live is high.
With Barnes the only bullets I never could get to group well at all in my 7mm were TSX 150gr, TSX/TTSX 140gr were no problem usually till one day I tried some Federal Ammo Berger 168gr I found on sale (can't remember why I switched when I did.
I have lots of memories with this gun and look forward to adding another one with it, I have tried to talk myself into a big .30cal of some sort .300 Win/Wby/PRC then I look at what I am trying to accomplish and my 7mm will handle the job just fine. Maybe if I ever go moose hunting that will be my excuse to get a big bore of some sort, 338 interest me or a neat classic would be a .35 Whelen

 

[SDMF]

Load, tinker, new bullet, tinker, new powder, tinker, seating depth, tinker, new lot of brass, tinker, new stock, start over, tinker, bed the stock, tinker, everything is just right, pop the bipod on, POI changes, tinker, gonna use a yolk on the tripod instead, shift scope back to original POI/POA, tinker.

Rifle/ammo are now tuned as one can make them. Set up some steel and practice practice practice. Get the dope-chart and actuals correlated and you're as ready as you can be.

Morning of the 2nd day, shoot your quarry (in my case, deer) @ 50yds........

Just a short synopsis of a few variables one can change and the rabbit-hole gets deep in a hurry.

Regarding the Badlands bullets. Accuracy came easy, I've got loads worked up for .308 175 BullDozer II in 300Win Mag, .277 140 Super BullDozer in 270Win, and .257 95 BullDozer II in 257Wby.

I've shot exactly 1 animal, a Mule Deer @ 50yds w/the .277 140's. Entrance/Exit looked just like a Barnes. Caliber in, golf ball out, nothing but goo in the chest. The deer ran about 30yds and died. I'm going to continue to load, shoot, practice, and hunt with them to get more data-points before I really form an opinion regarding lethality. Accuracy however is a non-issue and was easily obtained.

 

[luvcatchingbass]

Load, tinker, new bullet, tinker, new powder, tinker, seating depth, tinker, new lot of brass, tinker, new stock, start over, tinker, bed the stock, tinker, everything is just right, pop the bipod on, POI changes, tinker, gonna use a yolk on the tripod instead, shift scope back to original POI/POA, tinker.

Rifle/ammo are now tuned as one can make them. Set up some steel and practice practice practice. Get the dope-chart and actuals correlated and you're as ready as you can be.

Morning of the 2nd day, shoot your quarry (in my case, deer) @ 50yds........

Just a short synopsis of a few variables one can change and the rabbit-hole gets deep in a hurry.

Regarding the Badlands bullets. Accuracy came easy, I've got loads worked up for .308 175 BullDozer II in 300Win Mag, .277 140 Super BullDozer in 270Win, and .257 95 BullDozer II in 257Wby.

I've shot exactly 1 animal, a Mule Deer @ 50yds w/the .277 140's. Entrance/Exit looked just like a Barnes. Caliber in, golf ball out, nothing but goo in the chest. The deer ran about 30yds and died. I'm going to continue to load, shoot, practice, and hunt with them to get more data-points before I really form an opinion regarding lethality. Accuracy however is a non-issue and was easily obtained.

Thanks. Yeah first goal is to get load developed and then don't screw with it. Practice on my range which can get 600-800yds if I want before the corn gets tall and then get out in more terrain and shoot some angles in some hills on property we own, and practice different positions (bipod, tripod, pack, etc).
Beings it is supposed to be a 3 day hunt I'm ok with 2nd day.