Ray,
First let me start by saying “I don’t have a horse in this race”. I don’t own a hair on any of the deer discussed although I would give my eye teeth to own either one of these deer. They are two different “styles” of 500 inch deer. Some people will like one, some will like the other, still others will like neither.
I guess here is the part where some people might get offended. I guess I will start with x Factor. X Factor was not scored on his head as stated by others. When he was tranquilized, his inside spread, mainbeams and first mass measurements were taken by SCI Master Scorers (plural). He was then cut off and the rest was scored. So, X Factors score was a green score as it did not go through the drying period. That is the fault that I see in his score. Other than that, he was scored by SCI Master Scorers at 509.
Free Agent – Looking back through the old posts on here, someone wrote that Mark cut him off before he “damaged his rack further” (maybe not exact words). The inside spread, mainbeams and first Mass measurements were taken by the owners. I am sure they are right, but they weren’t taken by a SCI scorer. Were there points that were repaired? It appeared to me and I may be wrong that the rack that was scored at NADEFA was a replica or at least a repaired original. At the very least the bases were replicated. He was then scored by SCI Master Scorers at 528.
Like I said before, they are both INCREDIBLE DEER. Congratulations to both owners and anyone associated with the deer. They should be proud. The cold hard facts as scored by SCI is that Free Agent is 528 and X Factor is 509. Final. The other cold hard fact is that NEITHER of them is a world record. Unless there is some organization that I don’t know of out there that keeps records on farmed deer that get cut off and are still alive, neither is a “world record”. Call SCI, they only put deer in their “record book” that are shot by hunters. I think the words “world record” are used in place of “The biggest deer ever scored” which is clearly Free Agent. The cold hard facts are that neither is a world record. Maybe I’m wrong and there is a record book out there somewhere that I haven’t heard of, but its not SCI.
Like I said, I don’t have a horse in this race, I know all of the owners involved and I am envious of all, they raised some incredible deer, the two highest SCI scoring deer of all time. First place Free Agent and second place X Factor. Both were scored by SCI Master Scorer panels and both had issues in the gray areas.