7MM TCU

The cartridge was designed by a fellow named Wes Ugalde. The cartridge itself was the Thompson Center Ugalde, or TCU. It was a 223 necked down and blown out pretty straight. It was said to be plenty of punch for deer size game and I wanted to try it out.
At the time I had my shop in Sarasota Florida and we had probably 25 or 30 guys that were interested in handgun hunting. We went on a hunt every 8 weeks somewhere in the U.S., mostly to Tellico Junction, an exotic game preserve in east Tennessee. It was owned by Joe Meeks who was a good friend and we spent a lot of weekends there with Joe hunting the various exotic animals.
After reading an article about the 7TCU I decided to give it a try. I called my good friend Bob Milek for some advice, who was about the only handgun hunting gun writer around in those days. Bob was off on a hunt so I called and ordered a reamer and started on my new project.

About 2 weeks later we had a hunt scheduled for Tellico Junction so I rushed things and by the time of the hunt I had everything ready. I had the 7 TCU round fire formed and loaded up with a 130 grain soft an 21 grains of 4198. It seemed a bit weak to me but the gun magazines were saying it was the best thing to come around in a long while. The silhouette shooters gave it a good write up so why not.
When our next hunt came around, about 10 days after I got the bug, I had my gun and ammo ready. Kase was with me with his trusty 30 Herrett Contender. He was 10 or 12 at the time but had taken quite a few animals with that 30 Herrett. My gunsmith Mike Thompson was with me too with various guns he had loaded up for. That was the good thing about working for a handgun hunting crazy boss. His favorite animal to hunt was Spanish goats and he had taken a bunch of them.
When we got to Tellico about noon on a Friday (our hunts were Friday, Saturday and Sunday and leave out to come home late on Sunday. Tellico is in east Tennessee, maybe 10 hours from my shop.I had a 12 passenger van that we used for our guys and all our gear. If we had more than the normal 8 or 9 hunters I pulled a small U-Haul trailer behind the van.

When we got there everybody was ready to hunt, except me. For some reason that new cartridge just felt weak to me, but I was willing to give it a try. I always liked to give my guys the first shots at the game of their choice. Joe always had a big group of exotic game there and it was a handgun hunters dream.

Kase spotted a big grey and black Spanish goat and did a sneak on him. It took a while as the goat was spooky and probably had been hunted before. Kase finally got within about 50 yards of him and the first shot with his 30 Herrett put him down.


Mike was up next and he had spotted a couple of critters that he needed for his collection. By later that afternoon he had decided to try for an off white Spanish goat he saw across the big ravine. Kase and I sat down and waited while Mike got into a sneak and about 30 minutes later we heard a shot. Mike had a custom XP-100 with him in 308 and by the report it was obvious that was what he was using.
A few minutes later he came up dragging a goat. We asked him what did he get. He told us he got the goat from hell and the goat looked like something from hell.

That was it for the first full day of hunting. Several of my guys got hogs, Merino sheep, and a couple more Spanish goats. I had spotted a nice full curl Corsican sheep that afternoon and went after him the next morning.

We spotted the Corsican by mid morning but he was spooky and hard to get up on. I did a couple of sneaks but he was just smarter than I was. Finally we managed to get up on him. The Corsican had heard a shot from over the hillside from one of my guys after a big hog and he was spooked but didn't run off. That was his downfall. I laid the 7 TCU on an old log and laid down flat behind the log. At the shot the sheep slammed to the ground but got right back up and ran down the hillside. Not knowing if I had put a killing shot in him or not I gave it a minute or so before going after him. He was about halfway up the next ridge before I spotted him again. He was limping but still moving. I put the TC in the crook of a tree, sat down behind it and when the Corsican paused for a moment gave him a shot low in the back as he headed uphill. The shot was probably 75 or 80 yards but the only shot I had.
We took the time to skin the sheep out and checked the two entrance holes and found very little damage from the little 130 grain soft point at maybe 1900 FPS. That bullet and cartridge combo just didn't have the punch for a hundred pound Corsican.

After we got back I called Bob Milek to let him know how my TCU hunt went. He chuckled and said I could have told you so. He said he had a new 6mm/223 cartridge he was doing some testing on. But even on that one he said it was a varmint cartridge, not a big game cartridge. I had told him about my 41 GNR that I had used on a few deer size critters in the last year or so. He told me to forget the TCU and stick with the 41 GNR, that there was no way the TCU could match the power of the 41. After that I took his advice and stuck with the 41 GNR.