Deer Season XP Ammunition Review

The 2016-2017 hunting season was when we first started to utilize the Deer Season XP here at Ranch Review and Outfitter Connection. Prior to the season we had picked up a couple of boxes of the 30-06 Deer Season XP. This 30-06 round has a bullet weight of 150 grains with a muzzle velocity of 2920 FPS. The couple months before the start of the season we like to go to our local gun range and shoot our rifles to make sure they're still on target and to make any adjustments if need be. This time we were shooting the 30-06 Deer Season XP rounds and we were getting a feel for this new ammunition and to make any adjustments necessary for this round. Let us say that we were more than impressed with the results that we got from shooting this ammunition. Even up to 100 yards away, we were experiencing very tight and accurate shot groupings with this round and had to make very minimal adjustments for this ammunition.

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Now it is the 2016-2017 hunting season, and I was more than ready to put this ammunition to the test. This season we were hunting in South Carolina, and I was in pursuit of harvesting a whitetail buck. After finding a really nice funnel that the animals use, I had set up my tree climber about 130 yards away from this funnel. The first time I sat in this location it was an evening hunt and I didn't see any whitetail deer, but I did see a very nice trophy boar roll through, but I didn't have a decent shot, so I let him walk, just in case any deer were working their way through still. As night fall was approaching and no sign of any deer moving in, I decided to come down from the tree and move my tree climber closer to funnel by about 20 yards for the morning hunt.

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I arrived at the new spot I had moved my climber to, with about 30 minutes till sunrise, and I proceeded to climb up the tree about 30 feet to the position that I wanted. It wasn't until about 8 in the morning when I started to hear some movement from inside the oak hammock, which was about 10 yards from the funnel I had set up on to watch. Then all of sudden a nice 6-point whitetail buck walks out of the hammock and begins to follow this funnel. As soon as I spotted him, I pulled up my rifle loaded up with the Deer Season XP ammunition and I got him in my cross hair. He walked for about 5 yards and stopped in a small opening and was standing perfectly broadside at 120 yards away. With him still in my cross hairs I placed my sights right behind his front left shoulder aiming for his opposite right front shoulder and I began to slowly squeeze the trigger. At the exact same moment when I fired my rifle, he had taken a slight step to his right, away from me, and he was now quartering away from me. After I shot, I couldn't see him anymore; at that moment I began to question myself on whether or not I hit him.

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About 20 minutes after I shot, I decided to climb down the tree and start making my way over to where he was standing when I shot. When I got to where he was standing when I had shot, it was filled with all these 2-3 feet high grass. As I approached the grass where he was standing when I shot, I began to get filled with excitement because there was a massive blood trail like I have never seen before. I followed the blood trail for literally 2 yards and there he was dead and laid up in this tall grass. After further investigation I could see how even though he had turned and was quartering away from me when I shot, since I was aiming at his opposite shoulder, the bullet had entered through his back left hind-quarter and exited through his front right shoulder, resulting in a quick and humane harvest. This hunt truly put Winchester's 30-06 Deer Season XP to the test, and it passed with flying colors due to the massive knockdown power and the precision accuracy that this round has to offer.