Firearms - Hunting/Target thread

[Krlll Mule]

I want to go back to vegas.

I guess you could never shoot a gun like that (AR-15 in .223?) in Canada?  Not sure what the gun laws are there.

[|iR|Focalor]

I want to go back to vegas.

I guess you could never shoot a gun like that (AR-15 in .223?) in Canada?  Not sure what the gun laws are there.

Maybe he was referring to the famous "Bunny Ranch" they got out there.

[[BTF] Reflex]

You can't even own an SKS in canada..   

[|iR|Focalor]

Had a bad storm come through yesterday in the evening, lots of wind and lightning. Every time it storms real bad like that, all of these old oaks around here end up snapping a lot of the dead branches and leave pieces of trees all over the place. A mostly dead old oak fell over and smacked the side of the tree where I had my trail camera strapped to it looking out into the field where my corn is. Broke my trail cam into 100 little soggy pieces. Really sucks, I dropped over 100 dollars on the damn thing and haven't even had it a full year yet. The past couple of weeks about every other night I've caught a MONSTER probably 4 or 5 year old 8 point buck coming through about 30 minutes after sundown. I think my roommates gonna run by Bass Pro tonight and pick us up another one, hopefully I can get some pics of him to show off before long. Not really sure what he'd score, probably somewhere around 140.

[Krlll Mule]

So you've practiced shooting your bow at 25-50 yards and are ready to collect the NON-growth hormone/antibiotic lased protein? I'm no expert, but there are some new hunting broad heads that are supposed to be quick/humane kill.....no trailing for hours after a wounded deer.  But again, you have to be able to make the shot. 

I'm considering gearing up my deceased Dad's Hawken .50 that has never been fired and using it during the "primitive" season.  We have a pretty long one at the beginning and end of gun season combined. Must sight in and practice first so I can make a clean shot......although I'll have a little more wiggle room with shot placement than you with a bow .   

[|iR|Focalor]

So you've practiced shooting your bow at 25-50 yards and are ready to collect the growth hormone/antibiotic lased protein? I'm no expert, but there are some new hunting broad heads that are supposed to be quick/humane kill.....no trailing for hours after a wounded deer.  But again, you have to be able to make the shot. 

I'm considering gearing up my deceased Dad's Hawken .50 that has never been fired and using it during the "primitive" season.  We have a pretty long one at the beginning and end of gun season combined. Must sight in and practice first so I can make a clean shot......although I'll have a little more wiggle room with shot placement than you with a bow .   

One broadhead is just about as good as another. There are differences in cutting diameters and grain/weight, but there's really no SINGLE factor for getting a deer with a bow. It's a mixture of having the good luck to get a deer in range and in a good position along with having the wind not working against you, and then LASTLY making a good shot. Ideally you want to rip the arrow through the center of the heart, but it's rare that you'll ever get a deer standing still at the proper angle and distance long enough to have that shot. Usually the best you can hope for is to aim where you think the lungs are and then hope you see pinkish lung blood on the arrow when you finally decide to start moving and tracking it down. 30 minutes is usually enough time if you're sure its a lung shot. I'm not some jackass that goes and takes a shot when I know there's a chance that it'll just wound the animal. If the shot ain't there, I ain't gonna force it.

Man, I would LOVE to have one of those 50 cal old style ramrod muzzleloaders. I guess that's what a "Hawken" is. I think I've seen a few made by Thompson Center, but most of the muzzleloaders they make are the modern style with shorter barrels. I'd assume that long ass barrel would increase accuracy though. I'm not sure if you could fit one with a scope.

Although... I dunno how I'd feel about hunting deer with one. It might be fun to use something so primitive, but you'd probably need someone else with to see which direction it runs if it doesn't drop it instantly. All you'll see from behind the gun is a huge cloud of smoke. I'd wanna practice LOTS with it and get a firm feel for how it handles before taking it out on a hunt. I've seen people use them before, and I'd think that the flintlock type hammer would have a little delay to it. That would probably throw me off for a while. When all you've ever shot is modern rifles that fire and recoil the instant you pull the trigger, having a delay would have to throw you for a little bit of a loop I'd think.

[Krlll Mule]

The new powders (i.e. Triple 7) are supposed to burn very clean with no huge plume of "gunsmoke" and the gun is easier to clean afterwards.  I say supposed to because I've never fired that combination. My friends/family that have used them all say they are quite accurate ....and lethal.  And yea, I'm like you on the subject of when to shoot or pass. I detest people with a spray and pray attitude toward hunting.  It should be a viable distance and angle for a clean kill or don't shoot! The idiots that don't respect the resource and what it means to future generations give all hunters a bad name. 

P.S. This gun uses a manufactured primer to kick things off and there is not much delay in igniting the powder charge.

P.S.S.  It will be zeroed and tested before it ever sees the field.

P.S.S.  The motto in my home is.....O, boy this going to sound cruel and unusual to some readers......[.LOOK AWAY.....DON'T READ THIS........LOOK AWAY.....Ii see you peeking.....DO NOT READ!!!!}.....motto is you kill it, you clean it, then y9u e@T it.

[|iR|Focalor]

Yeah, there's a few hunters in Georgia that treat hunting much like they treat fishing: more or less a drinking expedition. They sit in their tree stand or blind while tipping back a couple flasks of whiskey and then fire at any fucking thing that moves in the slightest. I remember when I used to go camping all the time up in the north Georgia mountains just about every weekend back in 06. There was this one lane gravel "road" that went from Highway 75/17 aka Unicoi Turnpike (a little bit north of Helen GA) damn near up to North Carolina. I think most of the land is designated as a National Forest and a WMA. We'd go riding around up through there enjoying the woods and looking for nice spots to pull off and camp for the weekend. Anyway, we'd hear these drunk asswipes flying up and down the trail in their 4 wheel drive pickup trucks. Occasionally they'd pull to a stop and then we'd hear a few shots. Sometimes the shots sounded VERY close to us and we couldn't see where they were coming from. Wasn't too long after that that I started bringing a pistol along with me under the seat of my truck in case one of those drunk assholes decided to fuck with us. It was seriously the middle of NOWHERE. A couple of times just for fun me and my girlfriend started screaming to the top of our lungs just to see if anyone was around to hear it. We were probably 5 to 10 miles away from any other humans though. I used to think to myself, "You know, what if some deranged serial killer comes along up here and tries to murder us?" And that would be the perfect place for some shit like that to happen too. Someone could catch you out there, kill you, drag your body a few miles into the woods and roll you down the side of a mountain or over a cliff, not even bury you, and they'd NEVER find your body. Kinda fuckin' scary, hehe.

Anyway, if I was on private land, and it were just absolutely BALLS COLD in the winter, perhaps I'd bring along a little whiskey to sip to keep me warm, but I sure as hell ain't gonna be getting totally toasted drunk while hunting like I might do on occasion while fishing. It's quite a different story. My biggest fear in hunting is merely wounding the animal, because then it suffers needlessly AND you get no meat. If I were hunting on a WMA or something like that, HELL NO. NO alcohol. DNR game wardens don't fuck around with that shit in Georgia, they'll arrest you in a second. And the LAST thing you want to do is get arrested on their turf. They arrested a buddy of mine for possession of marijuana (less than 1/8th of an ounce) while he was fishing near a rock masonry dam where the state hatchery sometimes releases bass, bluegill, and lots of non-trout freshwater fish. It ended up being a felony (even though it was misdemeanor possession) because that piece of property was designated as federal land.

[jägermonsta]

yeah... guns and drinking. even I wouldn't hunt and get toasted at the same time.

however we do get drunk at my house and break out my mp15, 870 and several handguns to pose for facebook pictures 

this reminds me... should get the range Friday, been some time.

[[BTF] Reflex]

Waiting on next show so I can buy ammo.  Tins of 7.62x.54 are around again,  can save 20 bux buying at the show instead of shipping in....

Although, the show is 5 bux,  and I always have to have a gun show burger while I'm there..  and so many other goodies to look at.
Maybe the 15-20 for shipping is worth it ?

[|iR|Focalor]

Nah, gun shows are ALWAYS worth the price of admission, even if you don't buy anything. Always cheap ammo to find, and usually some decent deals on stuff you'd NEVER find at any of the local shops. I'm not encouraging anyone to do it, but sometimes you can find items from certain vendors that aren't even exactly "legal" in your state.

Bow season is from September 10th until October 14th in Georgia. Can't wait! This year I'm doing things 100% legal. I guess the doe I shot last year in late November might have been harvested illegally since it was no longer bow season or primitive weapons season. I was on private property, so technically I don't think it was illegal (not really sure), but I'd rather follow the regulations to the letter from now on and not risk it.

I've got one REALLY SUPER NICE 10 pointer I've seen on the trail cam visiting my corn plot every couple of evenings. Probably measures about 140-150 inches. Not a really wide spread, but nice long tines. Probably 4 or 5 years old so he's prime to take. A buddy of mine a good bit north of Athens has a shitload of land up there I'll probably do a little hunting on too. He doesn't hunt, but he says he sees pretty big herds of deer out in the pastures damn near every morning when he heads out to work, so I'll probably try doing my rifle season hunting up that way.

I'm not really outfitted with any camo suits or anything. I've got a couple bottles of scent blocker spray to use, but I don't really see a point in paying 500 bucks for some good camo gear when most people are wearing bright orange safety vests over it. If a deer can't see some bright orange shit a hunter's wearing while up in a tree, then I'm gonna assume the fuckers can't see a pair of brown Dickies carpenter jeans and a black t-shirt either and be done with it.

[Krlll Mule]

I'm not a wildlife biologist by training so I let the experts guide me.  It is odd what a deer sees, color-wise, compared to a human.  You could almost say they are colorblind to certain spectrum wavelengths. But they can see the SLIGHTEST movement and smell you a mile away.  Snort, snort and all you see is the pretty white flag waving good bye. I am told the best chance with a bow depends on lots of scouting time and then hunting when the wind is in your favor (downwind).  I think I'll wait and try the smoke pole!       

[|iR|Focalor]

Yeah, I've heard people say that whitetails are simply colorblind to that particular color, but I still don't see that it necessarily matters. Even regarding wind direction and how well you cover your scent. Hell, I'll go a step further and say that sometimes it doesn't even matter if you try to be completely silent. Reason being... I've fucking WALKED UP on deer before in the woods. A few years back, I was on my way home from work one afternoon and pulled over by a bridge going over a stream not too far from the house. I started following the river a good ways back into the woods trying to see if there were any good spots to fish in it. Keep in mind that this was probably sometime in October when there were plenty of dead leaves all over the ground to make shitloads of noise as I walked along. I ended up walking right up on 2 does that were probably less than 20 feet away when I looked up and saw them. They both turned and looked at me as if to say, "Holy shit! Where the fuck did you come from!?!" They just stood there looking straight at me for at least a good 20 seconds. I had my folding Gerber Gator serrated knife on my belt, about a 5 inch blade razor sharp. I slowly pulled it out, whipped it open behind my back, and then started slowly creeping towards them. Fuck yeah, I was gonna jump on one, cut its throat, and drag the meat home for dinner. But I got to within 10 feet of them and they darted up the steep hill behind them and out of sight.

Yes, I'm fucking crazy enough to try to Rambo-kill a live deer, you bet your ass I am. 

Anyway, my point is that you can't always have faith in what people tell you about how "smart" deer are. Truth is... they're actually pretty damned stupid. Not as stupid as cattle, but not as smart as some people want to make them out to be.

[Pr0c3550r]

Lots of Deer chat here.

Here's another way to look at this topic.

It is very common to see deer wandering the neighborhoods here in Victoria.

People use a very fine green mesh to protect their gardens, those silly things will mow down everything in one night !

Perhaps not very intelligent but very nice to see, and somewhat elegant.

Peace   

[[BTF] Reflex]

Wanted to mow down an 8 or 10 pointer in my back yard yesterday. . .  got a 70 gallon container needs tossed out anyhow,  and a big xtra freezer.

So tempting.