In my binocular I watched the tan-and-white speck loitering at the base of hill transform into a mature pronghorn buck. He stood perfectly broadside among a herd of 15 to 20 antelope some distance from the rise where my guide, Brian Schiermiester, and I were crouched. We’d glassed the herd from another ridge about an hour earlier and had just put a stalk on them, army-crawling the last 100 feet.
“How far is he?” I asked Brian, who had swapped his bino for a rangefinder.
“About 450 yards,” he whispered back.
My heart thumped. Ahead of this hunt in the vast, open country of east-central Wyoming, I’d worried I might have to take a shot beyond my comfort level to succeed. Now it was happening.
While a reasonable shot for some hunters—and manageable with the Nosler Model 21 rifle and Federal Premium Terminal Ascent 6.5 Creedmoor load I was using—it still felt like a poke. As a Missouri guy who spends more time hunting ducks than big game,
