I'm kinda partial to the old former wildcat the .35 Whelen, back in the day the "Poor Man's Magnum". The .358-inch bullets don't offer the highest BC in the world, but I can play around with the 225-grain Sierra Gameking at higher velocities or, if I think I really need it, I can go up to a...
All I know is that I find it rather ridiculous that Peter Paul Mauser's original 1898 design could not discharge accidentally even if the firing pin broke in two but that my new Remington 700 is about as drop-safe as a WWII Japanese Nambu pistol. Some modern sporting rifles have a safety that is...
My first year in Montana I filled my deer tags with an M1 Garand, but that was when I still had vision in both eyes and 20/15 in the good one. Hunted most of a decade with a sporterized Remington-built Model 1903A3 Springfield. When my wife decided that was her rifle (a retired USMC gunny did an...
All good points, guys. I just needed to vent some frustration. I went back one day and blew my own stalk because I'm too old and fat to low crawl within smokepole range. Prolly give it one last hoo-rah today. Start early and ski back to the cover of the sagebrush draws on the very far side of...
For better than 20 years I had an old CVA .50-caliber Hawken replica an old friend gave me that I had never even shot. So I got it out this summer and got to shooting it with a friend who's big into blackpowder and rendezvous. I still had my deer "A" tag leftover from general rifle season, so I...
Not sure yet myself. Been shooting the 212-grain Eld-X in the .30-06 for a couple of years. One-shot kills on deer and last year's big cow elk, shot through the front of the brisket at only 50-60 yards. This year I ran into one of those unkillable elk. Friend's son whacked the 5-point herd bull...
Our big 8-day season opener trip in 500 went down the tubes this year when a visiting in-law brought me the gift of COVID the day before we were going to head into the A-B Wilderness. Now we're trying to make the best of it with a later 4-day trip. This was my reminder to myself from last year...
You used to have to pay the full price of the special tags all up front to go in the drawing and got refunded if you didn't draw. That did a lot to restrict it to the hunters who were really passionate and serious about hunting the big four, and made for better odds. (Not that I personally was...