airedale

Tracking down the "SKIDMARK" Murderer YIKES!! Get those cheesy drawers out of my face!!

I am somewhat biased! Below are a few photos I pulled off the Traditional Working Airedale forum posted by members from all over the US and Canada.

I did a lot of Coon hunting in my day, the methods used most are calling and with dogs. Not too many things more fun than hitting the timber at night with a good Coon dog. It is all about the skill and work of the dog unraveling the track, no matter what tricks the Coon pulls trying to fool the dog and making that Coon tree. Along with my Airedales I bred and trained English Coonhounds for Coon hunting and also did some competition hunting, some of the best times hunting I have ever had. As for eating, like anything else it is how they are prepared and cooked, it can be very good. Al

Hoppes Bench Rest 9 is my favorite, I have been using this stuff for a good long time, be it plastic, lead, powder or various bullet jacket residues it will take care of most stubborn bore fouling with good results quick and easy. Al

Merry Christmas "Hunting NYers"

When I was a impressionable young fellow I subscribed to and read all the major outdoor and gun magazines and was intrigued with hunting with a handgun. Back then hunting with a handgun was pretty much a novel idea, the old firearms writer Elmer Keith was handgun hunting's biggest proponent and he surely had me on the edge of my chair reading some of his escapades. Some of those tales were pretty tall but were good reading and had me fired up to give it a try myself. Back 50 years ago it took about a year to get approved for a permit, so during the long wait I had a S&W model 29 44 mag on layaway, bought all of my reloading components and loaded a bunch of shells and was totally ready for some action when that permit finally came through. Problem was it was approved in late winter and I was bummed out knowing I had to wait until fall to get some hunting in. Well a couple of hunting friends who also got into handguns the same time as myself suggested one of those PA preserves for a hog hunt. I was chomping at the bit so bad to use my new revolver on something other than paper targets I was all for it. So we booked a hunt at a preserve called The" Black Boar". We all took what they called "razorback" hogs , we also took a couple of other what were called non trophy animals, a couple of goats and a sheep. I took and used my best shooting 44 handload, a 225 gr Speer half jacket recipe that I found out of a magazine and they shot and performed as advertised with perfect mushrooms on the recovered bullets, still use that same load today. To sum things up, no it was not the same as what someone terms real hunting wide open space wild animals. Still with handguns we still had to get close and take good shots and the animals did not pose for shots. With rifles it would have been a cakewalk as getting within 100 yards was fairly easy but with handguns it made things interesting. The whole point was to actually see how handguns performed on a real animal and for me I came away with some worthwhile knowledge but zero desire to ever do it again. That knowledge paid off in the following Deer seasons hunting with a handgun as I took several Deer with the lessons learned. As a side note I took a trip to Tennessee to hunt a real so called European wild Boar with a handgun booking with an outfitter that used Dogs. It was an exciting hunt and I enjoyed it but the fact of the matter it was easier for me to take the big Russian in the so called wild than it was the little Razorback in PA on the preserve. Not for everybody but for a youngster, a rookie hunter or for testing out a bit more challenging weapon like a bow or handgun the preserves have their place especially off season. Al

No argument from me!

Smoking and putting anything into your lungs is going to promote health problems down the road guaranteed, be it vaping, tobacco or marijuana, all are no good! Al

Real nice setup with a lot of class! Al

I have shot recurves for many years, I love their simplicity, their tradition and like you found out with your new recurve, "they are a ton of fun". I am no expert or instructor, I can recommend Byron Ferguson's book "Be the Arrow" and plenty of practice, practice, practice and practice more. Good luck to you with your new bow. Al

The wife's hobby is folk art and paintings which she is pretty good at, she hand painted the "Michigan Autumn" paint scheme on my Oneida Eagle bow below. So I figured I would upgrade her crafting supplies and equipment with a comprehensive Air Brush painting setup. Al

So I have been working on a shooting shack for my back 40 range to keep me out of the winter weather. Needed some light inside to brighten things up and having no electricity out there I started poking around for something battery powered to light up the inside. Found this D cell powered lantern on Amazon with rave reviews so I bit and purchased one, also purchased some rechargeable D cells. Anyhow I charge up the batteries and fire this thing up, holy smokes this light will burn out your retinas!! Thank goodness it can be dimmed! It is by far the brightest lantern I have ever seen so if you are needing some real lighting power this baby does the trick! Al

I have friends from all walks and do not like to put labels on anyone to denegrate, to me it does not make a difference how much money one has or the home they live in. Be you rich, poor or in the middle somewhere I don't much care, it is about the life one lives and how they go about treating other folks. Good people are just good people no matter what their means or background is. Al

Getting the trigger done so that it is light and crisp was the best single improvement I did on any of my pistols. Shooting with one hand makes a bad trigger much more pronounced and will pull you off target. I have been out of the competition loop for many years but I know the old Ruger Target pistols with a little tweaking and with good ammo would shoot in the same hole at 50 feet from a rest. There was a local pistol smith that installed Clark steel triggers adjusted down to a couple of pounds, very crisp with zero over travel, don't know what options the newer Rugers have. A set of target grips that fit your hand may help put your gun in better position for both holding and sighting and add to your score and unless you have razor sharp vision a good optical sight will help add points also. I did not go crazy on fancy match ammo, CCI standard velocity grouped fine and was almost totally reliable with just a couple of misfires during many years of matches. And of course any practice reaps huge benefits, I did a lot of practice just dry firing on a snap cap. Al

I never miss LOL. Just for the record I would not own any firearm that shot so far off on the second shot or third shot from the first that it would cause a miss. Al

All true but when I am Deer hunting with a muzzleloader that is what I stick to, the Coyotes will get their day another time. Al

You are totally right, while there is no doubt shooting 3 or 5 shot groups gives a good overall assessment of a firearm's overall accuracy the fact is the first shot placement out of any hunting firearm is the most important one, I can think of only a couple of times when I shot more than once at a Deer. Where your gun places that bullet on the first shot out of a cold clean barrel is an important one to note. Al

I shot Bullseye for 10 years and it was one of my best teaching lessons on learning marksmanship and increasing my abilities to shoot all firearms better. especially sight picture and trigger control. As they say "practice makes perfect" and I did a lot of that increasing my scores slowly and incrementally each year and eventually hit the wall and knew I was going no farther score wise no matter how much more I practiced. It was fun and something to do in the winters along with making some good friends. Good luck and keep at it DB, you will have good and bad matches, as time goes on hopefully your scores improve and go up with practice and experience. Al

That I would not do, there are morons in this world that will dismantle your vehicle to get at a gun case. The way the laws are these days you would probably get the blame for leaving a weapon unattended. If I had to have a secondary backup firearm on the same day I would carry an appropriate handgun which I do sometimes myself when hunting small game with a shotgun. Al

Put me in the old sidelock camp, shoot 45 cal lead TC maxi balls over 75 gr of pyrodex in both the Cherokee "middle"and the TC Hawken top with stainless green mountain barrel. Bottom gun is a 50 cal CVA Hawken kit gun my boys got me and I put together, it is a wall hanger. Al

Congrats to your Son, a big time and worthwhile accomplishment in my book. Al

Those old Conetrol rings and bases pictured above are about as clean looking as it gets and were a touch of class on a fine rifle in their day and today for that matter. I mounted a scope on one of my Dad's rifles using the Conetrol system, it was a sweet looking setup. Al

I use both the plastic and metal ammo cans that have rubber gaskets to store ammo, as long as it is kept fairly cool and completely dry it lasts for a very long time in fact I read not too long ago some of the very first modern ammo manufactured that was stored under ideal conditions for many decades fired reliably. I fired some Varmint ammo I loaded some 40 years ago a little while back, it was completely reliable and grouped pretty much the same as it did the day I loaded it. Al

You got that right Dan, I just hit the big Seven O and am not half the man I once was. Hope it was just some kind of a minor fluke deal and a speedy recovery back to normal. Al

I see them at night on the bird feeders. Cleaning out my Blue Bird nest boxes one spring I reached in a accidently grabbed a sleeping Flying Squirrel, scared the Hell out of me, let out a scream that would have made Fay Wray proud. Al