Fond memories. Fond, fond memories. And much coffee sneezed from my nose onto my computer screen. I believe he's is black opps now, up there in west Edmonton mall. Shoplifting recovery division.
9mm compared to buckshot for deer hunting - thoughts?
- Thread starter GerardSamija
- Start date
Fond memories. Fond, fond memories. And much coffee sneezed from my nose onto my computer screen. I believe he's is black opps now, up there in west Edmonton mall. Shoplifting recovery division.
I hear you. But I'm leaning towards ###y, at least in the rifle, maybe not so much in the chambering, though something like .300BLK is tempting. Or maybe 6.5mm Grendel. I've a friend who shoots both of those and loves them for midrange stuff.
I missed out on Gecko 45. Sounds like I missed the good parts. Oh well. I belong to enough USA-centric forums to have enjoyed my share of the actual freaks out there, super-secret squirrel guys. Just felt like stirring things up on a Sunday, having a bit of fun with a conversation about a particular question linking physics and anatomy which has intrigued me for some time. I know Bella Twin wouldn't have shot that giant bear with a .22 Long from a rifle held together with screws and a bit of coat hanger if she'd had a choice, but she was poor and out checking traplines and looking for grouse, so had no choice. I have choices. Can save up for something technologically interesting and practical at the same time as delivering enough power for ethical hunting at whatever range, so that's what I'll do, question more or less answered... though it might have been fun if the conversation hadn't gone into the typical mud slinging nonsense. That part continues to disappoint. The Internet should be able to deliver better. I do see a related conversation on Reddit with a whole lot more useful answers, so at least there's that, if one can tolerate a bit of Reddit.
I have quite a few rifles. In the end, 90% of the time I grab the .32 special Winchester '94 that I got for my 16th b-day a million years ago. Fads come and go. I've been through a few. But in the end, classics are classic.
I've seen .32 Special mentioned in a few places lately. What's that like? I'd better go look it up. Somehow not a cartridge I've ever looked at nor seen being shot...
It's old like me. Basically a .32 calibre 30/30 cartridge. Hand grenade trajectory over longer range, but I mostly hunt bush.
If I'm not using the .32, I use a .338win mag, or a 9.3 by 62 in a ruger single shot. Big holes=dead deer. I've got nothing to prove. I want it dead and in my freezer.
Btw, I was veggie for 11 years as well. Until I figured out how unhealthy it was for me.
Btw, I was veggie for 11 years as well. Until I figured out how unhealthy it was for me.
Ah okay, so sort of in the ballpark of .44 Magnum, decent to maybe 100 yards but becoming questionable a bit beyond, perhaps. If I'm diving into something more 'serious' before going hunting I may as well take the plunge and get something which is effective over a broader range. Was thinking of a .44Mag lever, but then I want a scope, and a takedown, so options become very limited... and it's still not going to get me a much longer range shot if that's what I happen to have available. So if getting something a bunch more powerful than 9mm, say jumping to 1,000fpe or more, I'm more likely to be interested in a necked cartridge with a bullet travelling in the 2,500 to 3,000fps range. May as well go for something thoroughly practical on deer, elk, whatever, rather than an intermediate cartridge.
The first hunting rifle I bought myself was a 7mm rem mag. I'll only need one says I to myself, so I'll make it good for everything.
Well. Turns out that almost 100% of my shots have been within 50 yards. I prefer to stalk close. So the .32 is perfect.
Get a cheap gun, and get hunting. Then see where and how you prefer to hunt, and if something else works for you, get it. Don't spend a lot of time figuring out which one will work for a theoretical situation.
But what do I know. It's your money, your time, your hobby. Do what makes you happy.
In my opinion, you're crunching too many numbers and not crunching enough gravel under foot.
Well. Turns out that almost 100% of my shots have been within 50 yards. I prefer to stalk close. So the .32 is perfect.
Get a cheap gun, and get hunting. Then see where and how you prefer to hunt, and if something else works for you, get it. Don't spend a lot of time figuring out which one will work for a theoretical situation.
But what do I know. It's your money, your time, your hobby. Do what makes you happy.
In my opinion, you're crunching too many numbers and not crunching enough gravel under foot.
Yeah. I was stubborn. 38 years and 9 months as a vegetarian before my health was sufficiently weak that I was more or less forced to accept that it wasn't working, no matter how crazy-focused I got about nuts and seeds. 3 years as a strict vegan in the middle there. That was a rough patch, very challenging. Won't be doing that again.
It's funny, an older friend visited back around 2002, Welshman, just around the time he was retiring from decades flying between the Okanagan and New Zealand where he'd pick fruit and sleep under the stars, basically living outside and usually without a tent. Tough old bugger. Funny as hell. He dropped by and brought up the subject of diet somewhere in the middle of the visit. He'd started eating meat a little while earlier and was really enjoying the health boost. He had been a very strict vegan for over 40 years. Thin and wiry, very durable guy, always sharp witted and hard working. But meat made him feel like his life was more enjoyable. He died a few years later as he was walking across Canada, doing oil paintings of the landscape, on his way to live with an old friend in Provence in her seaside villa. Didn't make it, fell ill in Saskatchewan, got diagnosed in Winnipeg with pancreatic cancer, dead within a few months. He told his sons as he died that it was just another step down the road, a new adventure. I knew Bryn. He meant it. Solid guy. But the meat didn't kill him. Back luck and goddam cancer killed that fine example of humanity.
But yeah, my point in telling that... I fought with him a bit about his decision to eat meat after all that time. I was offended, and in hindsight I see why; if he faltered, found that eating meat was necessary for his well-being, who was I to continue pretending vegetarianism was a valid pursuit? Took me another 16 years or so to go back to meat. I'm glad I at least did so, as the benefits have been huge for me. Massive fitness and general health stuff. Just went for a forest run with my wife today and loved every second of it, looking forward to our run next weekend and to trying our legs on the North Shore mountains this summer. I kept damaging muscles and tendons as a vegetarian. Can't say I'd recommend that diet except as an experiment, maybe a half-year thing for a change.
Brain fog, bad gas causing intestinal pain, low energy, low drive....it was a night and day improvement for me. Some people may be capable of that diet and remain healthy, but I could not. I'm pretty much, but not religiously, Palio now. Not by intent, just strayed this direction as I eliminated things that made me feel bad.
Get out there and get your venison. Nothing healthier than eating something that eats the plants that grow here.
Yup. Hence my careful study of that pursuit. I don't want to mess up, want to get it right from the start. Fairly sure I'd be a lot more relaxed about hunting if I were in my 20's, but I'm turning 60 this year, primarily a meat eater (less than 20% of my calories from non-meat sources) and hoping to keep improving my fitness and health for some years to come. Wild game will play a significant role. The elk and moose I've had second-hand has impressed me enough to make it clear this is the kind of meat I need for optimal mental clarity and general health.
I believe the gun is only 30% of the hunt.
Finding the quarry is the rest
An excellent point! I've done a lot of hiking on the North Shore of Vancouver as well as in the Squamish and Whistler areas, bit of time near Pemberton, some hikes out in the Fraser Valley, and have yet to see a deer. When I was 17 and going to grade 12 in Novato, central Marin County in California, I used to almost crash into deer routinely while hill running. One moonlit night I stopped about two steps shy of crashing into a big buck who was guarding a herd of maybe 20 behind him. We exchanged long, dim looks in the full moon light, then he trotted off with his harem. I've seen no deer in BC so far. Been close to 2 bears, riding my bike away from one and quietly sneaking past the other who was busy with a log. It'll be interesting to see what deer are to be found when I do get around to acquiring my license for that.
It’s interesting. When I start hunting, every Fall, I can’t see ####. By the end of the season I can wander past them and they can’t see me. You get into the zone and your senses change and you see patterns that you didn’t, and smell scents that you couldn’t. A blood trail that, early on, you would miss, becomes so obvious. I know, that’s all woo woo, but it’s how it works for me.
Nothing wrong with a bit of 'woo woo' in this context. Training one's intuition, that enormously complex set of sensory input, experience, wisdom and whatever extent of luck into something semi-coherent, culminating in a successful hunt, that's some fairly magical stuff. I'd love to see a hunting version of Norway's slow entertainment experiments - someone knitting for hours on a train or just vicariously travelling on an ocean ferry in realtime doesn't appeal to me, but an un-narrated hunt would be worth watching. Just rig up a GoPro with extended battery, lens pointing exactly where the hunter's eyes point, hit record and watch the adventure unfold. Guess there'd have to be edits for taking a dump and sleeping... Seems to me something like that might provide a halfway decent education for would-be hunters and anti-hunters alike.
- Location
- Blaster land, Okanagan BC
Just my two cents as a relatively new hunter (heading into my 6th season) compared to a lot of people on here, I get the discussion of 9mm vs. buckshot from a theoretical standpoint and I’d take buckshot every time in a deer hunting situation out to 30-35y. It’s just got more payload and with the right choke you can do some real damage to most med/lg sized game, that said in a practical use there’s much better options.
The only way I’d use buckshot to hunt deer is if I was limited to it by a shot only restricted area, thankfully in BC those areas are not that common once you are on the mainland. So I honestly don’t know why you would limit yourself to it unless you had no other choice, if I was hunting deer with a shotgun (which I have in certain thick bushy spots) I would use a slug. I’m good out to 50-70y with my slugs of choice, or there’s plenty of big slow cf calibers I’d pick if I was looking for a bush gun.
Most of the time in my area I end up hunting deer in anything from lower elevation forests, power line cuts or old logging blocks. I’ve shot them from 25ft to 100y but on average it’s been 50-75y, limiting myself to buckshot or a 9mm would’ve meant no shot in most of those. Rifle is the only ethical choice, deer aren’t especially big or tough to kill but everyone but the 25 footer ran some distance after being shot. The 25ft shot was a bang/flop, all were double lung or lung and heart shots. They ran from 40-60y with no lungs or heart, it’s amazing how far they can go on pure adrenaline or when wounded. I’ve had to track a wounded deer in the dark for a friend and it went over a fence and into the woods with a shattered front leg, they’re tough and things don’t always go as you might envision.
I remember before I started hunting, I had all sorts of ideas of how I thought things would play out lol. Man was I wrong for the most part, it’s a lot more waiting and sitting hoping you’re going to see a legal animal than it is anything. I went out everyday one year from the season opener in early sept till I cut a tag mid oct, I saw no bucks that whole time. If you want to be successful at hunting you need to learn patience and persistence, you will hit that moment where you feel like you’re banging your head against a wall and you want to throw in the towel. That’s when you have to push on and not give up, my 2020 deer season was like that. I had come to the conclusion that I was going to likely get skunked, had I given up I wouldn’t have dropped a big late season WT buck. Sometimes you really have to work hard for it and other times it falls in your lap lol.
The only way I’d use buckshot to hunt deer is if I was limited to it by a shot only restricted area, thankfully in BC those areas are not that common once you are on the mainland. So I honestly don’t know why you would limit yourself to it unless you had no other choice, if I was hunting deer with a shotgun (which I have in certain thick bushy spots) I would use a slug. I’m good out to 50-70y with my slugs of choice, or there’s plenty of big slow cf calibers I’d pick if I was looking for a bush gun.
Most of the time in my area I end up hunting deer in anything from lower elevation forests, power line cuts or old logging blocks. I’ve shot them from 25ft to 100y but on average it’s been 50-75y, limiting myself to buckshot or a 9mm would’ve meant no shot in most of those. Rifle is the only ethical choice, deer aren’t especially big or tough to kill but everyone but the 25 footer ran some distance after being shot. The 25ft shot was a bang/flop, all were double lung or lung and heart shots. They ran from 40-60y with no lungs or heart, it’s amazing how far they can go on pure adrenaline or when wounded. I’ve had to track a wounded deer in the dark for a friend and it went over a fence and into the woods with a shattered front leg, they’re tough and things don’t always go as you might envision.
I remember before I started hunting, I had all sorts of ideas of how I thought things would play out lol. Man was I wrong for the most part, it’s a lot more waiting and sitting hoping you’re going to see a legal animal than it is anything. I went out everyday one year from the season opener in early sept till I cut a tag mid oct, I saw no bucks that whole time. If you want to be successful at hunting you need to learn patience and persistence, you will hit that moment where you feel like you’re banging your head against a wall and you want to throw in the towel. That’s when you have to push on and not give up, my 2020 deer season was like that. I had come to the conclusion that I was going to likely get skunked, had I given up I wouldn’t have dropped a big late season WT buck. Sometimes you really have to work hard for it and other times it falls in your lap lol.
