Very exciting first deer hunt for my twelve year old. We put a stalk on this deer from about 1000 yards out. As we went prone however, a string of cattle began coming up the draw we were overlooking. My son had a good broadside shot and wanted to take it but we had to wait a good ten minutes until the last cow passed out of the scope view. He then calmly pulled the trigger of my Swede M38 in 6.5x55. The buck was slightly quartering away and the bullet entered mid section and lodged in the offside cape about six inches back his elbow. The deer dropped his rear, recovered, turned around limping, went down a six foot drop off, laid down and died, all within 30 seconds. We ranged the shot at 293 yards. The bullet was the Hornady 129 grn SST. Lots of internal damage. The scope is a Weaver 6x. My son was elated to say the least. I am very impressed with this rifle, which I got for my son as the 6.5 has relatively low recoil but produces a very flat shooting bullet that really reaches out there. 
