- Location
- Prince Albert, Sk
Moose 30-06.
- Thread starter hatman1793
- Start date
The 180 is good moose medicine and does not blow up a lot of meat on a deer, the way a 150 does. I have switched to 180 for everything (in a 308).
The problem with a 150 on a moose is that it is perfect on a lung shot, but a shot at a poor angle may not penetrate if it touches a bone.
The problem with a 150 on a moose is that it is perfect on a lung shot, but a shot at a poor angle may not penetrate if it touches a bone.
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
Okay, guns that aren't accurate are crap and not worth hunting with. But accurate when measured how? Accurate when fired at what target? Accurate when fired by whom? And accurate under what conditions? "MOA or its junk," doesn't reflect what a big game rifle must do or the conditions under which it must do it. Somewhere along the line after Townsend Whelen stated that only accurate rifles were interesting, we lost perspective. The tight group fired from a bench became the dominant requirement of the hunting rifle, when shooting groups from a rest was never what it was intended to do. We need to rethink how we define rifle accuracy as it pertains to big game rifles and practical field marksmanship. Once we do that, we'll produce better marksmen and better hunters.
pisces-guy
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- West Kelowna, B.C.
I got a big bull moose last October, bang flop with one round...I used a Barnes Vor-tx 168 grain TTSX cartridge. The penetration is incredible and will out perform any copper jacketed lead bullet of 180 grains. If your rifle likes them, they're deadly. 165/168 grain bullets are the ideal bullet ballistically for a 30.06.
Well Boomer, all your posts combined here have certainly told it like it is. What more is there to add?
I maybe sort of started it, by saying a rifle/bullet combination in 30-06 that grouped three inches at a hundred yards was just as good for moose hunting as was a rifle that would group half inch. But you added all the finer points.
As a young boy, I grew up in a land where the man of the house shot game for the family to live on. If he was unscuccessful, the family went hungry. And I have seen a family on a literal starvation diet, when the dad couldn't fine a moose for a period of time. I've seen our family give wild meet to someone, to tide them over until they found an animal.
Going to a crude country school we boys, before we were old enough to talk about girls, talked about the rifles our families had and how many moose and elk each rifle had shot. By the time I was twelve I could rhyme off every calibre of rifle in the area and how each they faired on big game.
A box of 30-30 shells may only have cost 75 to 90 cents at the country store, but IF a man had a job, he might make a dollar a day. No ammunition was wasted. One homesteader, a good family friend, bought a box of 20 shells for his 351 Wincheater self loading. By the time the twenty shells were gone he had brought nine moose home.
No hunter had the foggiest clue of how good a group he could shoot, because it was never tried. On the rare occassion when someone decided to check their rifle, it usually consisted of firing only one shot. The target was anything from a stump to a blaze on a tree, maybe 60-70 yards away. If the bullet hit near centre, the shooter would remark, "That's good enough," and that was it. They were all using standard open iron sights that came on their rifles, usually Winchester 30-30s, so being a bit off target meant usually being a bit hgh or low. If a shot went high, the shooter would remark that he would have to take a "finer bead." If it went low, he would mark it in his head to hold a bit high.
When the meat hunting days were over, a friend told me he had shot 30 moose with his 30-30. I asked him how many he had wounded. He gave it careful thought, then said, "I can't think of any that I shot and didn't kill."
Most of the men I am talking about were excellent hunters, thus they didn't take extra long shots.
They didn't take long shots because of the chance of wasting a cartridge!
Men would go hunting with sometimes only two or three shells. The worst I saw was a man hunting with only one cartridge! He said he would only shoot if he knew it would kill the animal.
I remember a family visit at a household where the man stated he was OK yet to get meat, as he still had three shells!
Yes, times change, but the hunting of long ago and the fine men who regularily and faithfully brought food home for their (our) families, is burned deep in my memory.
And no, I am not advocating we go back to those days.
I maybe sort of started it, by saying a rifle/bullet combination in 30-06 that grouped three inches at a hundred yards was just as good for moose hunting as was a rifle that would group half inch. But you added all the finer points.
As a young boy, I grew up in a land where the man of the house shot game for the family to live on. If he was unscuccessful, the family went hungry. And I have seen a family on a literal starvation diet, when the dad couldn't fine a moose for a period of time. I've seen our family give wild meet to someone, to tide them over until they found an animal.
Going to a crude country school we boys, before we were old enough to talk about girls, talked about the rifles our families had and how many moose and elk each rifle had shot. By the time I was twelve I could rhyme off every calibre of rifle in the area and how each they faired on big game.
A box of 30-30 shells may only have cost 75 to 90 cents at the country store, but IF a man had a job, he might make a dollar a day. No ammunition was wasted. One homesteader, a good family friend, bought a box of 20 shells for his 351 Wincheater self loading. By the time the twenty shells were gone he had brought nine moose home.
No hunter had the foggiest clue of how good a group he could shoot, because it was never tried. On the rare occassion when someone decided to check their rifle, it usually consisted of firing only one shot. The target was anything from a stump to a blaze on a tree, maybe 60-70 yards away. If the bullet hit near centre, the shooter would remark, "That's good enough," and that was it. They were all using standard open iron sights that came on their rifles, usually Winchester 30-30s, so being a bit off target meant usually being a bit hgh or low. If a shot went high, the shooter would remark that he would have to take a "finer bead." If it went low, he would mark it in his head to hold a bit high.
When the meat hunting days were over, a friend told me he had shot 30 moose with his 30-30. I asked him how many he had wounded. He gave it careful thought, then said, "I can't think of any that I shot and didn't kill."
Most of the men I am talking about were excellent hunters, thus they didn't take extra long shots.
They didn't take long shots because of the chance of wasting a cartridge!
Men would go hunting with sometimes only two or three shells. The worst I saw was a man hunting with only one cartridge! He said he would only shoot if he knew it would kill the animal.
I remember a family visit at a household where the man stated he was OK yet to get meat, as he still had three shells!
Yes, times change, but the hunting of long ago and the fine men who regularily and faithfully brought food home for their (our) families, is burned deep in my memory.
And no, I am not advocating we go back to those days.
I agree completely!!
Sometimes a scope is more hassle then its worth. If you wish to get closer - then get closer if you can. Irons can be wonderful in many situations.
The handwringing over 'sub-moa" is over done and akin to the arguement over short mags vs. everything else or 30-06 vs. .308.
Get a rifle. Go hunting.
Practice is great now that generally we can afford it compared to the dirty thirties.
Practice standing, sitting, laying, shooting at rolling targets. Shoot at rocks in fields, stumps, gophers.... Learn your rifle and learn how to like it.. no matter what it is.
There is no perfect rifle, no perfect shot.
IF you want to shoot many hundreds of yards at animals-then things change a bit-you have have to practice a lot more. But even then, you only learn by trying.
Sometimes a scope is more hassle then its worth. If you wish to get closer - then get closer if you can. Irons can be wonderful in many situations.
The handwringing over 'sub-moa" is over done and akin to the arguement over short mags vs. everything else or 30-06 vs. .308.
Get a rifle. Go hunting.
Practice is great now that generally we can afford it compared to the dirty thirties.
Practice standing, sitting, laying, shooting at rolling targets. Shoot at rocks in fields, stumps, gophers.... Learn your rifle and learn how to like it.. no matter what it is.
There is no perfect rifle, no perfect shot.
IF you want to shoot many hundreds of yards at animals-then things change a bit-you have have to practice a lot more. But even then, you only learn by trying.
I believe the times were simpler as they had less of it.
Free time and money.
Worked from dawn to dusk.
Mind you, eye sure can see some irony here, eh H?
- Location
- Prince Albert, Sk
Just make sure you hit the friggin moose!!!
I was born in 1974.
oh, ok ok, now that explains it!
now you know I'm just kidding don't you, Kelly?
- Location
- Prince Albert, Sk
Although you are kidding, I know that some out there do wonder what happened!
oh, ok ok, now that explains it!
Well, if there were some girls from Hooters pushing bush for me I may slip a little.
well now, I never thought of that, Hooter's gals pushing bush! How cool! I know some of the Hooter's gals from the Hooter's dragster pit used to come around and hang out at our race car pit! Young Jr magnetted them over!
I didn't mind!
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Thank you.
I believe you had my book a few years ago, also. When thinking back about all these things, I realize I was at the right place at the right time. All I had to do was write what I had done, seen or new the person who had done it.
I even had the right timing in the dawn to dusk work Kamlooky talks about also, because I was a bit too young, in the worst of the depression days! Most kids my age had to milk cows, but miraculously, I always talked my way out of it. One advantage of being the youngest sibling.
A painfully true adage of the time was, "A mans work is from sun to sun, a womans work is never done."
mahony1977
Regular
- Location
- Frelighsburg Qc
If it were me I'd be packing some 165 grn mono metals , such as GMX's TTSX's or Nosler E Tip's .
I totally agree. love to read all about it, keep on writting! we were never in dier despert need back in the old days in rural Sask, we always had raised beef and fowl on the table right from the farm, if no one in the family got any wild meat, but that was extremely rare to not get anything, back in the days of plenty. The deer herds in some cases were just as big as some beef herds around. all hunter's back then wore total white hunting suits that Grma and my Mom made from the white flour bags that were so plentifull, anyone remember that? All White was the in thing for hunter's wear! My Uncle Willy was one of the best know hunter's around the area, he sported a Savage 99 in 250-3000, which brought many a venison home! Dam, the good old days, brings a tear to my eyes, just thinking back! on deer butchering night we used to sit up threw 1/2 the night sipping on home-brew and eating only fresh meat, venison sliced super thin and quick fried in a cast iron pan with homemade butter, salt and pepper, all you could eat, yummy!
I know what you're talking about because I had a spoiled younger brother that talked his way out of doing chores, too. But if you can remember the "height of the depression" then you must be well over 80 years old by my reckoning.
"But accurate when measured how?" - Seems we shooters like to use 'minute of angle', I'll buy into that... What an accurate rifle does for me is give me the confidence that my equipment will do the job if I do my part. If I'm hunting with a rifle that throws the odd flier (which I have done), my faith in my equipment isn't there.
Accurate when fired at what target? - Range time helps me build confidence. If I can make tight groups with a particular rifle, it gives me the courage to make shots in the less than ideal conditions that as we all know are the norm when hunting.
Accurate when fired by whom?" - I'm not a great shot, and I admit it! That's another big reason that range time with accurate equipment is important to me. Building confidence and improving my accuracy with an MOA guaranteed rifle is what I feel makes me a better marksman...
Here's another story from last year: After we filled my buddy's elk tag last December, we went out the next morning for bucks. I had brought a rifle that at it's best at the range last year did about 1 1/4 inch at 100, which is more than enough for most hunting applications. Working up a side-hill in the overcast and snow , the sky opened up behind me to light up the opposite side of the draw shining directly onto a beauty buck that was at least a 3x3, it was moving in the same direction and approximately 350 yards away. I can't (and wont) make that shot, especially with that rifle so I did the logical thing and kept working up the draw following in the same direction as the rutting buck. At one point, I lost sight of him and sat down in the snow with the glasses and tried to find him once again. After a few minutes I could hear steps in the snow beside me so I put down the glasses and looked into the face of a big fork at about 15 yards! Being the carnivore that I am I took the easy road over the bone collection, although if I had faith in my capabilities as a marksman, and in the rifle I happened to carry that day I might have come home with a nicer buck but in the end, it meant very little didn't it?!
http://s1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc423/photocontest2010/?action=view¤t=011.jpg
Accurate when fired at what target? - Range time helps me build confidence. If I can make tight groups with a particular rifle, it gives me the courage to make shots in the less than ideal conditions that as we all know are the norm when hunting.
Accurate when fired by whom?" - I'm not a great shot, and I admit it! That's another big reason that range time with accurate equipment is important to me. Building confidence and improving my accuracy with an MOA guaranteed rifle is what I feel makes me a better marksman...
Here's another story from last year: After we filled my buddy's elk tag last December, we went out the next morning for bucks. I had brought a rifle that at it's best at the range last year did about 1 1/4 inch at 100, which is more than enough for most hunting applications. Working up a side-hill in the overcast and snow , the sky opened up behind me to light up the opposite side of the draw shining directly onto a beauty buck that was at least a 3x3, it was moving in the same direction and approximately 350 yards away. I can't (and wont) make that shot, especially with that rifle so I did the logical thing and kept working up the draw following in the same direction as the rutting buck. At one point, I lost sight of him and sat down in the snow with the glasses and tried to find him once again. After a few minutes I could hear steps in the snow beside me so I put down the glasses and looked into the face of a big fork at about 15 yards! Being the carnivore that I am I took the easy road over the bone collection, although if I had faith in my capabilities as a marksman, and in the rifle I happened to carry that day I might have come home with a nicer buck but in the end, it meant very little didn't it?!
http://s1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc423/photocontest2010/?action=view¤t=011.jpg
Yes, we in rural, northern Saskatchewan were never in dire straights. We really had so much of what we needed. Good garden soil, lots of wood for making buildings, for heat and cooking, plus cutting and selling cordwood in the winter to make some money. A tremendous amount of wild berries, including the very healthful wild blueberry, in unbelievable amounts, lots of water and such a variety of meat that no one I knew ate rabbits, except maybe for a short, fill in time.
The term dire straights fit the people who lived in cities, or a broad area of southern Sask. where the soil was litterally blown away. Many of those unlucky people stuck it out until nothing was left, then started for the north, about 300 miles away, with a skinny team of horses hauling a wagon with a hay rack on it. Mamma and the kids on the wagon along with the few bare nescessities and bringing what tiny bit of hay they could muster to last the horses and the cow tied behind, until they could find green feed for the animals. Families along the way often provided food and some sort of lodging for them, as they slowly worked their way north.
Many of these families ended up in our country, which was about sixty miles north east of Prince Albert and they were in their glory.
You talk of lots of deer and drinking moonshine. Now, let me think. A great belt of moonshine country ran from the Yorkton area north west and up past Wadena. Hmmm. Maybe you were some where in that area?
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
Measuring by MOA is fine, but once you have the rifle sighted in, shooting groups doesn't tell you what you need to know, and in fact sometimes ends in frustration, accomplishing nothing. Instead, try putting up a target that has no aiming point, that is a neutral color, bisect the target with your crosshairs, and fire one shot. At the shot cycle the action without moving the rifle from your shoulder as fast and as hard as you can and reacquire the target, as you would in a game shooting scenario in case you needed an instant follow-up. But we'll assume you made a killing shot so don't fire the chambered round. You should do that each and every time you fire. Now, go to the target and measure how far your bullet landed from the dimensional center of your target, you may convert to MOA from inches if you like. Now here's the important part, record what happened and under the conditions that it happened. this record can be referred to again and again in the future.
What you're doing is measuring your sighting error, which is relevant to making you a better field shot rather than measuring the rifle's theoretical accuracy which has no relevance to your success in the field. Concentrate on shooting from the positions that give you trouble, and mix up the ranges you shoot from. Seeing that you hunt in the mountains, try adding elevation problems, but with each shot, be concerned with it's placement with respect to the dimensional center of your target.
Next, you can shoot from an angle that sharply diminishes the apparent width of the target, as a quartering shot does. When you check the target, would your bullet have passed through the center of the chest of a 3 dimensional game animal or would it of received a grazing hit? Now you can begin to add ranging problems, and put up shoot and don't shoot targets, where the don't shoot target partially obscures the shoot target. Your target might be partially obscured by brush. Once you targets are placed, rather than shooting from a static firing point, walk along a "trial" and when you observe the target, drop into a suitable position and make the shot as quickly as possible, a game animal won't stand around all day waiting to be shot, so including a time constraint on the shot is prudent. The shooting scenarios should allow for the use of natural rests in some circumstances, but barriers to shooting from prone in others. Some scenarios might have multiple targets which require a different shooting position for each. You can set up close range snap shooting scenarios, you can set up moving target scenarios, particularly ones where the target moves towards you in a rapid fashion, the idea is scoring as many hits as possible by the time it reaches you. If you don't practice in the wind, if you don't practice in the rain, if you don't practice in the snow and the cold, you will only know what you can do on a nice day.
If it sounds like it will be very difficult to arrange some of these scenarios at your local range you're right. Big game hunting doesn't take place across a long expanse of manicured lawn, so why should your training and practice. Get out and shoot where you would hunt. Use the local range to work up loads, sight in, practice position shooting (one shot at a time), and to work on the finer points of rifle marksmanship, breathing, natural point of aim, sight alignment, trigger control etc, but get out to your hunting area for practical realistic shooting problem solving.
This type of training will provide you with positive confidence in yourself rather than in the false confidence of unproven equipment and gimmicks. Your argument suggests that a 1 minute rifle will make you more confident than a 2 minute rifle, that a half minute rifle will make you more confident than a 1 minute rifle, and that a quarter minute rifle will make you more confident that a half minute rifle. In big game hunting where a large target must be engaged with a single shot, in perhaps miserable weather, from a field expedient position, and at an only approximated range based on target size, the size of group a rifle shoots is irrelevant, provided it always puits the first shot into the middle of what you're shooting at. Don't be the guy who upon missing the trophy of a lifetime stands there looking at his rifle like he's never seen it before. Not only will your prowess as a practical marksman improve, but realistic practice will quickly point out any deficiencies your rifle has. Does the rifle fit you and does it shoulder and point naturally? Does it feed the particular ammo you've chosen? Is the scope too low or two high for the height of the comb? Does your scope have enough field of view or does the target get lost due to its magnification? Is there enough eye relief to ensure you don't get tagged by the ocular when making a quick off hand shot. Is the trigger manageable or is it, too heavy, too light, or does it exhibit excessive creep and/or over-travel? Does you sling provide you with a shooting aid, or is it simply a carry strap? Does a bi-pod make sense for you particular situation? Would a shorter handier rifle be beneficial or would a longer rifle point better and allow you to make a faster shot? Can you live with the deficiencies, or do they have to be solved before the rifle can be used the way it was intended to be used? If the deficiency can be ignored spend your money on ammo or components, but if it can't be ignored get it fixed quickly so you can get back to shooting.
