My Ranch Hand project is now in good company.The Rossi above it is my .454 Magnum and the one below it is my .44 mag. that I swapped the lever and carbine stock from to create the .357 Baby Carbine.
The .44 now has the big loop lever and Boyd's stock that I just finished.
I slicked up the actions, installed Steve's ejector springs on 2 of them
(The .44's was fine as is.) and replaced the magazine followers with
Steve's stainless ones on the .44 & .454. I made my own one from
brass for the .357. All these rifles wear Marbles Bullseye rear sights.
The front sights on the .357 & .44 are Marbles .538" tall units. while
the .454 retains the original sight which I thinned out into a pin sight.
I love these Rossi 92's! I only need one of the .480 Ruger chambered
buggers to round out the collection. The search is on!
went out with some friends today, good thing I brought the ranch hand, not that it would have done any good had we actually run into this big bastard.
I've never had a problem with bears in BC or 'Berta. Back in my surveyin' days,
I had a hundred + pounder black bear as a "pet". Little bugger would greet our
crew outside the back door of the trailer every morning to get some snacks
we'd give it before heading out to the job. After work, I would hang out with the
fuzzy fella and take pics of him, pet 'em and give 'em some more snacks. That
critter was easy going and almost like a dog in it's demeanor.
One day, to get to one of our more annoying co-workers, we led the bear into
the guy's room while he was workin' OT, and shut him in for 3 hours.
When "Stinky" got back and opened the door to his hole, the fat f**k near had
a heart failure as he squealed like a little girl, and went sailing out the back door
of our unit, with the bear right behind him. The bear just wanted out, so it did'nt
hurt Stinky, but we sure were howlin'. Did'nt figure a 300+ lb. guy could move that quick.
Should've seen the carnage that bear did to the guy's room! Every thing nuked, all
his homemade beer drunk and all his stuff piled in the center of the room. To top
it all off, the critter crapped all over it!
Man, I wish we had digital photography in those days. Youtube woulda payed for
that one for sure. Silly me, I was too pissed & stoned to think about pullin' out
the Kodak to get shots of the action. Oh well, the memory of that gag will be with
me forever.
As for pistol cartridges for bear defence, .44 magnum and better will get the job
done in the hands of a cool shot. The main thing is to be "bear aware" and not
to stupidly blunder onto a bear kill or get near a bear with cubs.
Feedin' bears ain't too bright either, but we were young.
Nothin' will make your winky pucker like having a bear cub come flopping out
in front of you in dense brush!
For the skeptics, here's some pics of the critter as well as the camp trailer we
lived in back then.
I fully agree about bears being grumpy when they come out of the den.
Early this spring,a friend of mine had one come running a couple hundred yards down a hill to challenge his presence.
Good thing he was sitting in his pickup at the time. The bear got right up to the truck and was stamping its' feet and woofing.
Buddy drove away without further incident.
Anyone using a Ranch Hand for bear defence should definitely have a
decently long enough butt stock on it for proper control when aiming
and cycling the action.
I was toying with the idea of a Ranch Hand (backed-up with a big can of pepper spray) as an OK option for fly-fishing on the rivers (upper Oldman, Livingston, Castle) around here. I usually fish alone.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that ... if you're ever only gonna need the hardware even just once ... it may as well be the best possible.
Even if "the best" is a bit more inconvenient and heavier.
So I'm gonna stay with what I've been using for the last five years ... my Remington Marine Magnum (topped with a Tru-Glo front sight and loaded with 00 Buckshot and several hard-to-find 600 g Brenneke Black Magic slugs.
In case (because of wind or urgency) the pepper spray isn't a do-able option ...
I just knew that we could turn this into a "bear defence" thread!
