This is the 8 point buck I shot this past fall (2005). It gave 92 pounds of meat and is the biggest deer I ever shot. I know there are other places I could hunt were I could get deer twice this size, but that becomes way too expensive. For my neighborhood this is probably among some of the biggest buck usually around. Most of them get shot before they get any older. I lost track how many deer I have gotten, but this one is somewhere around number 12 or 13, all of which were since I turned 16. This is the 3rd antlered buck I got and has a 15.25 inch outside spread. Because I'm in college I didn't get much chance to hunt this year. The deer population seemed to be significantly lower this year, and this was one of only two deer I saw all season. The first was a doe that I spooked out of a brush patch. It ran and I narrowly missed it at about 90 yards. The second deer I saw was this one. I shot this buck on a farm about 3 miles from my place. I was hunting by myself and just walking along the edge of a long narrow patch of woods that is between two fields. The buck was ahead and to the right of me in the bush. I never saw it until I got too close and spooked it, just like the doe. It started running fast up out of the woods and into the field on the other side. I was facing south and it was headed northwest, to my right. I fired free-arm through the woods and dropped it on the first shot at about 50 yards away. The bullet clipped the top of the lungs and, due to its mushrooming effect, did some damage to the vertebrae above the front shoulders. The gun I used (pictured) is a Ruger M77 chambered to a .338 Magnum. I fired a 215 grain Nosler/Winchester combined technology ballistic silvertip bullet, and suprisingly enough there was no exit wound. The bullet passed through the animal's right shoulder through the thoracic cavity and lodged in the muscle tissue just medial to the left scapulla. The bullet fragmented apart too much causing lost velocity and destroying excellent venison. Needless to say, a .338 magnum is a fairly large gun for whitetail hunting and instead of the bullet clipping through the animal and out the other side and expending the rest of its energy in the dirt, the full force of the bullet was discharged into the deer. In other words it took a full grown buck that was running wide open and nocked it flat over on the spot. I will be experimenting with reloading other projectiles in the future. I'm not impressed with the ballistic silvertip ruining that much meat although it did the job, and on the target range the same bullet shows decent consistency. I think the ballistic silvertip is better suited for varmint hunting in a smaller caliber rifle. Regardless of all of that though, I got the big one!!