Musings and Obsevations of an Old Shooter/Hunter/Reloader..........

mike Crawford said:
But none te less these guys shoot game that does not even know they are being hunted ,, shooting goats on the next mountain ridge over
Click to expand...

I am not saying you are wrong in your observation BUT I can honestly say the guy who can consistently put an animal down at those long ranges has my respect as a hell of a shot. Maybe not as a hunter but as an accomplished shooter he sure does. It’s nowhere near as simple as dial to the appropriate range and fire.
 
My father was a "one rifle" hunter... the gun was just a tool... old school mentality... I had to force him to go out and check zero on his rifle every fall, and he was never a very good shot, he put minimal effort into hunting, but in spite of that, he took his share of game and some nice specimens too... I understand those that are not completely sold out, even though I always have been... right fron my earliest memories... I do give my father complete credit for getting me into the woods as young as three years of age... it has been "white on rice" ever since... he probably would have quit three decades ago if I had let him.
 
^^Yep
I have no idea what I'd be into these days if my father didn't kick me of bed to eat a box of donuts on the way to shoot a bunch of sh!t ducks.
 
My father was also a one rifle hunter, unless you count the inevitable .22 that every farmer has to have and doesn't count. I wouldn't say he was some kind of crack shot, or any kind of avid hunter though. The 30-30 was about his speed. Pure meat hunter, and literally couldn't see the sense in not shooting the first thing he saw. Another (long since passed) 30-30 one-gunner, incorrigable poacher of my aquaintance killed what had to be 100s of deer over the decades. I never noticed that he could shoot worth mentioning, but probably hit most of what he shot at.
 
While my elders were all of the one gun variety, i think that had more to do with the economics of the times they grew up in. You werent going to waste much money on any gun, much less multiples. I knew a few exceptions to that, but not many. Im the opposite, a shooter who hunts. It's like taking my gun for a walk, as the saying goes. I've lost count of the number of different rifles, shotguns, and handguns I've gone hunting with. FWIW - dan
 
I like hunting with a different gun every year. That's part of the hunting mystique - One year it will be with my 6.5 Tiklka T3, next year my Rem mtn rifle in 30/06, then the following year a sporterized .303 enfield, then a Sako AV in .375 H&H and on and on. Somewhere in there will be a compound bow. All my hunting rifles and bow have taken game. That being said, I try to get in as close as possible and really like the portion of the hunt that involves the stalk. For me that's where the adrenal rush happens.

I don't have anything against someone (as long as they are well practiced and qualified with good equipment) who will only shoot at long distance but this unfortunately seems to have taken on a higher importance in the hunting scene over the stalk and a lot of unqualified amateurs are taking shots well beyond their abilities for the bragging rights.

One well placed shot is satisfaction on a job well done. Two shots is a disappointment and three is a disaster IMHO.
 
Last edited:
It’s nice that people have so many different ways to get it done. It’s all hunting.
I like to shoot when an animal is calm and doesn’t know I’m there. I see no benifit in spooking game.
 
Dogleg said:
My father was also a one rifle hunter, unless you count the inevitable .22 that every farmer has to have and doesn't count. I wouldn't say he was some kind of crack shot, or any kind of avid hunter though. The 30-30 was about his speed....
Click to expand...

I wasn't counting the old Crackshot and then 151K, which I stole off him, for which he was glad, because he bought himself a BL-22... and later when I stole his ole pap's 94 .32 Special, he bought himself a Pre-81 BLR .308... of course they didn't call them that until 82' and this was in the mid-70's... now that my dad has hung up his spurs, he passed down his two Brownings to my son... they are my son's most prized rifles because of the stories attached to them... the three of us spent countless days in the woods or on the water... good, good times.
 
My son stole my BL22 from me, along with one Mark V, and a wing master that he decided he liked more than his Browning. Something about guns brings out the intergenerational kleptomaniac.
 
My Grandfather was a one gun hunter so to speak. He used his 94 30-30 from age 8 until into his 40’s when he puchased a model 71 .348. He rarely hunted without it after that except for the odd time carrying an inherited model 64 of his fathers. He wasn’t a shooter or reloader. Bullets weren’t to be wasted. Having lived through the depression had much to do with not wasting ammo I suppose? He was however a hunter first and foremost and when the gun barked there was work to be done. In todays world he’d be admonished as a poacher for I am sure 50% of what he killed was either out of season, had no season , had not bought a license for or was killed from a canoe floating a river on a full moon late at night. Money was scarce going through then coming out of the depression and following the war years until some extra schooling and good fortune landed him a job with Ontario Hydro in ‘47 and things started to improve. But up until the 50’s that questionable hunting fed a young family in need.
 
Last edited:
Dogleg said:
Something about guns brings out the intergenerational kleptomaniac.
Click to expand...

Lol, so true! My dad was very much a one-gun guy. He simply could not understand why I wanted any more than a .22, a 12-ga and a .303 Enfield. He did practice throughout the year with a .22, and the traditional yearly pre-moose-hunt trip to the gravel pit to put a couple boxes through the .303 was always a good time for us. Yet, in his later years, he started to enjoy trying out and then using various of my rifles when we hunted.

I don't know where I fit in the hunter-shooter spectrum. I love shooting almost any rifle, centerfire or rimfire or airgun. I am a big fan of doing mag dumps...as long as I'm shooting a singleshot rifle. :) I detest reloading, but do it because I'm a cheap bastidge. Once I find the load a gun likes, I'll use it for years without a thought towards eking out an extra 50fps or trimming an inch off the long-distance trajectory. If I start experimenting with a new powder or a new bullet, it usually means that I can't find any of the old one available to buy.

So, shooting is fun...but hunting is much more important than that. I like shooting steel at extended ranges, but I simply will not snipe at critters much beyond a couple hundred yards anymore. I don't find it fun or satisfying or appealing at all; when I did it I always regretted robbing myself of the fun of stalking closer. Somebody in this thread was deriding the idea of shooting an animal which is so far away that it is unaware of your presence. I think that getting close to an animal and taking it unawares is the essence of hunting. But...to each his own.

I can't wait to hear what happens to this thread once a certain newer member finds it and takes a big dump in the middle of it. Most of you can probably figure out who I mean; if you can't...stay tuned...
 
My father also used a model 94 30-30 his whole life.He was a terrible shot and even worse hunter. He simply refused to practice. After years of being on his case about it, he finally listened when I told him if he wanted to come moose hunting, he would have to hit the range with me. He went from having a hard time hitting a sheet of plywood a 100yds to comfortably hitting the target offhand accurately enough for hunting purposes. I have brought him bear and moose hunting past few years and he doesn't have to come home from deer hunting explaining why he missed anymore.

IMG_7816.jpg

Oh....and his old model 94 found a new home in my safe :p
 

Attachments

  • IMG_7816.jpg
    IMG_7816.jpg
    154.9 KB · Views: 307
Last edited:
This tread is like my uncle
Know nothing about shooting reload or gun
But the best moose hunter i know
Whit is old win 88 whit fixed tasco 4x
He shoot 4 round each year in a sandpit at about 100 feet hit a pie plate and its perfect 😏
but you cannot imagine the number of moose he can call at bow range and sneak deer under 20Y and he kill each year
I can hit a target at 500m but can call a bull moose lol need more uncle lesson thant range time
 
My father was a one gun shooter for over 35 years. And he could and still can shoot. This is his rifle that he retired a few years ago and you can tell by looking at it that it was used. To say that a one gun hunter is a bumbling idiot is short sighted. And in some cases short sighted by a country mile.

byW6WcA.jpg
 
GOUMFACH said:
My father also used a model 94 30-30 his whole life.He was a terrible shot and even worse hunter. He simply refused to practice. After years of being on his case about it, he finally listened when I told him if he wanted to come moose hunting, he would have to hit the range with me. He went from having a hard time hitting a sheet of plywood a 100yds to comfortably hitting the target offhand accurately enough for hunting purposes. I have brought him bear and moose hunting past few years and he doesn't have to come home from deer hunting explaining why he missed anymore.

View attachment 139021

Oh....and his old model 94 found a new home in my safe :p
Click to expand...

Geez, that is a nice looking rifle! ;)
 
Dogleg said:
My son stole my BL22 from me, along with one Mark V, and a wing master that he decided he liked more than his Browning. Something about guns brings out the intergenerational kleptomaniac.
Click to expand...

Had a good chuckle at this... ;)
 
Dogleg said:
If you give them away there's always a bit of doubt whether it is really what they wanted. Nothing says sincerity and preference like the pieces that get stolen.
Click to expand...

That's one way to look at it, I suppose..........but did you notice they always happen to "reassign ownership" of your own favorite pieces.........

I started a thread a while ago about making #1 son an ultralight rifle and then pondered giving him the one I built for myself.......Well I ended up giving him mine and he really does like it, if he lived closer I know he would have "borrowed" it for his goat hunt this fall. I'm sure in his eyes return would have been optional. He has used lines in the past to show his interest in it like "you're too old and fat to hunt sheep and goats anyway, what good is it to you"

Anyway I gave it to him this summer and he has used it for what it was intended, even if he did get weathered out of his goat hunt.
 
Dogleg said:
If you give them away there's always a bit of doubt whether it is really what they wanted. Nothing says sincerity and preference like the pieces that get stolen.
Click to expand...

The way I look at it is, I am just borrowing it from the kids... it is all going to them in the end anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom