Rifles for the brutal hunt.

My long-time hunting buddy, Bert, has a "little" first generation Remington 600 with an 18 1/2" barrel. It is chambered in 358 Winchester, has the adjustable factory iron sights, and a Weaver K3W with a post and crosshair reticule. He loads 250 gr Speer spitzers at a tad under 2300 fps, and is good for anything from 20 feet to 200 yards.

He has put literally tons of moose, big mountain caribou bulls, and bear in the freezer with it over the past thirty-plus years. Can't think of anything much handier, or lethal, for what your are discussing.

SuperCub has seen and covets the rifle. :rockOn:

Ted
 
For the last 20 or so years it's been a stainless bolt action, first with the facotry tupperware stocks then upgraded to B&C, MacMillan etc.

Since 2005 it's a 300WSM that Bill Leeper put together for me. Stainless M70 with Smith barrel, Bansner stock. And I also take my stainless 375 Ruger with a McSwirly stock.

I often hunt in thick coastal rainforest jungle for blacktails.Even hough the 375 is heavier, sometimes I reallyl like that 20" barrel.
 
Some of the cartridges here would blow a deer in half unless carefully loaded with the right bullet. I've hunted with the 338WM loaded down to 30-06 specs. It still does more damage than any '06 I've used.

Lets see, here's another story

Here in Ontario, party hunting is allowed, we just need to be close enough to be in contact with the tag holder, and be licensed ourselves.
Hunting with the 44-40 in a 92 Winchester, not dogging, just still hunting in an area where you can't see more than 50 yards at best. It's a cedar swamp, punctuated with Glacial debris, big rocks etc, very rough ground and on top of a ridge. What I had intended was to check a gut pile from a small buck I had shot the day before while dogging, walking further in to take a seat on a pail someone else had used many years before. I was rewarded by two fishers scurrying up a tree and staring down at me as I passed the gut pile.
I was watching them, and trying to get a camera shot when I heard a small rustle behind me. That turned out to be a black bear, he was about fifty feet down slope, and looking straight at me. He didn't move as I swung the rifle around and took the only possible shot, a brain shot. Didn't move much after the shot either.
Nothing special in size, he sure surprised me. He went about 150lbs. Nice eating bear. I even managed to drag him out and get him into my Jeep alone.
I drove back to camp, hung the bear, and came back to hunt the afternoon away. The guys got a surprise when they came back to camp. The all heard the shot, but the report of the 44-40 is so light, they thought it was further away.
 
Funny JYC, this 44-40 story.
I just purchased all the goods necessary to load ammo for a Marlin in 44mag I just bawt off here.
I also own an old 92 in 44-40.
The brass on both are remarkably similar.
I wonder how heavy a load one could push the 92?
There is a box of Bullet Barn 44-40 in 200 bullets I purchased for my 44-40.
Then along came this Marlin.
Dang that Mr. H.
He's a bad influence on my bank account............. :wave:
 
kamlooky said:
The brass on both are remarkably similar.
I wonder how heavy a load one could push the 92?
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The limiting factor is the .44/40 brass; it's usually much thinner brass, and won't take the same pressures as the .44 mag. The rifle will take it, lots of 92's have been rebarrelled to .44 mag.
 
9.3mauser said:
The limiting factor is the .44/40 brass; it's usually much thinner brass, and won't take the same pressures as the .44 mag. The rifle will take it, lots of 92's have been rebarrelled to .44 mag.
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I'm going to call nonsense on this.
I found some old Dominion brass in 44-40 and this brass is almost identical in size to the Starline 44mag brass.
In fact, the 44-40 is slightly larger by a few thousand.
I have been sent a reload sheep I'll see if I can put on here.

[URL=http://s614.photobucket.com/user/kamlooky/media/44-40/44-40200053_zps6lhddqby.jpg.html][/URL]
 
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Yes, the 44-40 in a 92 can be steamed up plenty. In my case however, accuracy fell off very quickly above 1500fps. I think I went up to 1650 or so when I was playing with it. But groups were all over the place. Tried about 10 different powders, nada. So I stick in the 1400s with 200 grain bullets for the most part. I found I can take Hornady .430 bullets and run them through a .427 Lee sizing die for cast bullets and get them to chamber much better. Just lube with case lube. They 'grow to about .4285 after a bit.

Back to the tough stuff
Slogging through black spruce I came upon a stand of young trees, I could not penetrate. Black spruce, are the weeds of the forest IMO. They can grow successfully mere inches apart, and thin themselves as they get bigger., webbed together by branches killed off by the canopy above to form a web of hard sticks. I usually go around such stands, but this day I was determined. I threw myself at the young trees a few times, and they threw me back. #### it, and I went down to the water and walked the shore of the low water beaver pond to get around. As i rounded the bend, I slipped on a mossy rock, and fell on my ass in the mud. Of course right then a nice buck and doe jump up and vanish into the 'impenetrable to me' black spruce. Damn! and all i got was a wet arse.
 
I've only ever fired one shot while moving to standed hunters. It's a rare occurance theses day's, but a BLR81 in .308 was up to the task in the day. A Marlin 336TS as well. Never saw a wet day that ever hurt a well protected rifle that was allowed to dry and come to ambient temp before getting it's next shellacking of oil.
Right now I have a Marlin 336Y that would fill the bill with a 2-7 WA scope. I still hunt rather than crash around, it's about my hunt as well as the ambusher's. Never beat up rifles either, your bush must be worst than ours. All my dents and scrapes come from the GD safes.

The funniest one I did was in 1984 I need to relate this. Had the guy up the tree stand on a new chopping on a Saturday morning after a full week for me without success in the area. I had seen the buck three times during the week and had fired three rounds at him running through the fir from a 7400 243Win on one of those encounters.
So now it's Saturday and I have help. Sure enough the buck spooks much closer to my truck this morning, so I sit my wife down to cover the hauling road with my scoped 7400.243Win and I take her M-1 Carbine with a 15 round mag to make sure Mr.Swamptail either crosses back on her road or out to the chopping to him, or I wack him in the head or neck with the .30 M-1..
So I hear him crashing up ahead,...about 2 minutes later ka-pow!!!:rockOn: I exit the ticket as fast as possible,maybe 10 minutes later and see no one in the tree stand.:rockOn: I glass the chopping and see him bent down in the far bottom. :rockOn: I move quickly the 200 yards or so and seeing him dressing the deer was excited I had executed the plan perfectly.:rockOn: I said "you got the SOB",..he said "well no,.. this other guy did" as he :rolleyes: at me.:confused::confused:

The hunter, a man about 40 at the time, had came from the main 102 highway from his Corolla up a skiffer road leading to the chopping, placed apples in the chopping, and 30 minutes later the deer had run right up to them or so he says:HR: and he flattens it with an old iron sighted bubba'ed No1MkIII LE. His first Deer. He doesn't know the whole story to this day of how the Deer ended up in front of him I was so mad at my buddy who was probably napping in the treestand and missed Mr Buck skirting the edge of the chopping.:HR:f:P:
 
Many years ago, one of our guys says he knocked down a nice buck. There was lots of blood, but no deer. He waited for his old man to show up, and they set out to track down the deer.
Some 20 minutes later, they found where the deer had fallen, a few yards from a logging road. Nice puddle of blood, drag marks, and tire tracks. Never did find out who got the deer.
 
John Y Cannuck said:
Many years ago, one of our guys says he knocked down a nice buck. There was lots of blood, but no deer. He waited for his old man to show up, and they set out to track down the deer.
Some 20 minutes later, they found where the deer had fallen, a few yards from a logging road. Nice puddle of blood, drag marks, and tire tracks. Never did find out who got the deer.
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Well that is just rotten.
Low life scum.
 
Why not? said:
Here's Bert's "little" 358, standing beside my 21 inch 9.3X62.



As you can see it a very handy rifle, and the 358 has plenty of power.
Ted
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Very nice picture Ted, Thanks for sharing with us.
Bert's 358 and my little 16.5" Ruger 358 would nearly pass for twins were it not for the Remington's bolt handle.
I have always felt that the 358 itself is a highly underrated cartridge capable of more than a lot of people realize..
 
kamlooky said:
Well that is just rotten.
Low life scum.
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Hard to say without being there, but who's to say what the second hunter saw, or believed? Could just be that he saw a deer run up to a logging road and shot it again.

Some years ago I was hunting with a buddy on the last day of the season. I was tagged out and he was getting ready to hang his either ### tag on a last day meat animal. As luck would have it, we saw a little buck (little to us anyway) chasing a couple does across a wide open field in the middle of the day while we were eating our lunch. Buddy scratched it down running, and it staggered maybe 50 yards further and bedded down with its head and antlers being the only thing we could see due to the slight roll in the terrain. It could still hold its head up though. In the time it took to decide whether to take the head shot, give it a moment to die or approach immediately a green Chevy came up following a trail on the edge of an irrigation canal. Oh, Oh, there's no way this can end well. Well they spot the bedded buck in the middle of the snow covered field and one of them proceeds to jump out and literally shoot it to rag dolls with a .243. There wasn't a part of that deer that didn't have a hole in it. Must have shot 5 times and by the looks of things probably hit it every time.

We went out into the field where the excited hunters were looking at what they evidently thought was a monster. Since from our point of view it was ruined there was no reason to debate the ownership, but we did tell them what happened. What was interesting was the lengths they went to keep believing what they wanted to believe, despite the story being spelled out in the snow so clearly that blind man could follow it. Things stayed friendly because we were quick to say that they could have it, but I'll bet that by the time they got home they'd convinced themselves that some guys had tried to steal their trophy and how they prevailed through sure strength of character and righteousness. Same deer, two stories. Their story is a drama and our story is a comedy. If it happened to someone else it might have been a tragedy ;):confused: 'Course we just went and shot another one later. Two-for-one day.
 
Why not? said:
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That 9.3 looks naked standing there with no checkering.

Back to the subject at hand, if you're really that hard on your guns, the logical choice would be a stainless bolt action in .308, shortish barrel, maybe 20", synthetic or laminate stock... something like the Canadian Ranger rifle.
 
y'know gander mountain used to sell a thing called a gun-e sack or a gun sock- just put one of those on and your precious wood and metal aren't exposed- moreover, it has anti- slip panels where the checkering should be
 
When we moose hunted near Sudbury, and I had to go to my watch by canoe every day, I figured it was time for a stainless. I bought a Browning Stainless stalker, in 338WM.
The rifle was brutal to shoot, stock didn't fit me well, I could have added a recoil pad without shortening the stock.
The stock on that rifle developed a sort of fuzz along all the hard corners, and the finish sort of greyed.
I also quickly noticed that the stock did not return the warmth of your hands as wood does. It was akin to holding a cold bar of steel.
It was, I guess, an early design, the action was gummy feeling, and it never got better as I thought it might. Later designs had 'Teflon' on the bolt or something, they are much better.
Traded that rifle off after about ten years. Some day I'll own another 338WM, I like the cartridge, but it won't be in one of those.
I just wasn't impressed, it was an expensive rifle, and it should have been better.

Previously in that spot I had hunted with a Swedish Mauser in the traditional 6.5X55. It was a nicer firearm. Only cost a hundred bucks too.
 
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