Good Day Ladies and Gentlemen:

After months of fiddling and farting with my Merkel 141E in 9.3x74R, I put it to the test and, it was good.

Over the summer I had my gunsmith mount a set of Leupold quick detach rings to the rifle, to which I affixed a Leupold VX3 1.5-5x20 scope. Then it was off to the range to work up a load. The load ended up being a 270 grain Speer Hot Cor with 53.0 grains of Varget. The rifle was sighted in at 50 metres with a 1/2 inch spread from both barrels shot twice. The rifle was sighted in one inch high at 50 metres.

Fast forward to the last week of November and what followed was for me, heart-stopping.
I had a Bull Moose tag however my wife and I never saw one.
We had two deer tags to fill and that we did.

The first deer was shot at 4:00pm. I was in a ground blind I had constructed out of spruce bows and fastened to three trees making a triangular cover. I am sitting in the blind gazing up at a beautiful crystal clear blue sky when out of the corner of my eye; a white tail doe comes down the trail towards me. She is looking behind her as she passes my blind 10 feet away. She stops to feed for a moment and moves on.

Of course my heart is pounding and I know there will be a buck to follow. Sure enough approximately two minutes after she moved on, the buck appears from an adjacent, parallel trail. He stops thirty feet in front of me. He has his nose in the wind and does not know I am 30 feet away. I raise my rifle to my shoulder and pull the first trigger. The bullet hits home as the deer jumps and starts off on a run.

Now I have time to pull the second trigger however, due to a brain fart, and never having hunted with a double rifle, my mind goes kind of blank. In a split second, I am thinking to myself, "I know I have a second shot but this is not a bolt gun so what the hell do I do? Oh yeah! Pull the second trigger” Isn’t it amazing what happens when you don't practice important movements under stress.

By the time I regain my composure the deer is moving fast and through thick cover away from me. I fire the second barrel but it is a Hail Marry shot.

The reload went very smoothly and by the time I had the gun to my shoulder the deer had stopped approximately 30 metres from me and was standing broad side. There was a perfect line of sight through the bushes to the deer's vitals. I fired again at the region where the neck meets the body. He went down like he was pole axed.
On examination, the first bullet hit both lungs and the second hit, damaged the spine.

First deer

After field dressing, the deer was moved back to where the first bullet hit. If you look in the background behind me, you can see the ground blind.

Two days later at 2:00pm, I am in a tree stand, double rifle in-hand with a set of antlers for rattling.

At 3:40pm I start rattling my deer antlers in an attempt to bring a buck in who may be spoiling for a fight.

Sure enough, at 3:45 pm, (yes I am actually checking my watch during all of this), a white tail is coming in from a trail off to my right, quartering in straight to the sound and again, unaware I am in the high chair.

The brush is fairly heavy with openings here and there. As the deer moves to within 30 feet and behind some brush, I slowly raise my rifle and disengage my safety. At this, the deer stops behind the brush and for a very long moment surveys the area. My heart is pounding and I am doing everything I can to control it.

I have had this tree stand up for three years and have yet to shoot anything from it.

After what seemed an eternity, the buck turns around and starts to walk away back the same way he came. I have the feeling his sixth sense kicked in and he thought better to get out of dodge.

At forty feet away the deer exposes himself, on the trail, to a clear shot through the brush. I gently pull the first trigger and he jumps and starts to run.

There is blood on the ground and the deer is doing everything he can to stay upright. Slipping and falling twice, he gets up and continues to run for approximately 40 metres where he collapses in to the brush. All of this is visible from the tree stand.

I come down off the stand and follow the very noticeable blood trail straight to the animal. A clean shot through the lungs.

What an enjoyable hunt. And my first blood with my Merkel side-by-side.

Another childhood dream fulfilled.

I guess the scope was a waste, but what the hell. Good thing it is detachable.

Kind regards and a big thank you to all of you who helped me with your kind words of wisdom in acquiring my double, working up a load and a lot of other silly questions I thought rather important to fullfill my dream of first blood with a double rifle.

Carpediem

P.S. We had deer tenderloins for supper that last night and they were to die-for; every pun intended.