Neglected

I was a fairly early adopter of 6.8x43mm in SPCII spec.

Dottie was the second AR I ever pieced together.

She doesn't get out much any more.

I couldn't think of a better excuse to drag her out and take some pics.

It's a damn fine round and it's dropped every animal I've shot with it, dead right there.

One animal, total, in fact.

A growling and advancing pit-pull that had just shredded a cat adjacent to my driveway.  At all of five yards.  Got a "good shootin'!" from the responding deputy who also wrote citations to the owners of the dog rather than arresting me as they demanded.

The whole story there was them not getting their yard dog-proofed and the dogs running the neighborhood.

One morning a friend who lived down the block was pounding on my door asking if one of my cats had gotten out, because the dogs were shredding one that looked like Licorice.  Licorice was safe, but the other kitty was toast.

The dogs were defending their kill when I tried to see if it was the next-door neighbor's cat.

Plus!

K-6 grade kids were starting to accumulate at the end of my drive opposite the dead kitty and the dogs were threatening them.

My friend and I corralled the kids into my house and I grabbed Dottie then tried to shoe them away.

That got the smaller one to give the "I'm gonna get you" body language and that got her shot.  The male ran off.

Cops called, accolades received, citations written.

Two weeks later the cops showed up at my door again.  This time asking if I shot the other dog.  "Nope." I replied.

It'd been found shot dead and draped over the owner's fence-gate.

I still have the deputy's card he gave me when he said, "have your lawyer contact me if they sue."  They never did.  It's been 12 and some years, I don't think they're gonna.

They moved out about a month later.