airedale

I have zero problem with anyone using a crossbow as long as traditional archery hunters can get to hunt alone one lousy week out of nearly a four month deer season! Al

A friend of mine has a Sears Ted Williams firearm and asked me if I could find out who actually manufactured the gun as he needed a part to get it fixed, some research turned up this site that cross references many of those defunct store brands to the companies that manufactured them. This will help out those who may want to know who actually made Grandpa's old JC Higgins 22 rifle or Dad's old Western Field shotgun. Al http://proofhouse.com/cm/house_brand.htm

I find it interesting that someone who does not like hunters would join, frequent and hang out on a hunting forum whose members are hunters. Al

I have zero experience with the Creedmoor but it has been getting a lot of press as of late and all of it positive, many call it the perfect Deer cartridge. The same should actually be said about it's ballistic twin the 260 Remington. As with the 243 Winchester and the 6 mm Remington when you have two cartridges so close in performance there always seems to be one that ends up falling by the wayside and it looks like the 260 Remington is going to be the one doing the falling. These cartridge discussions I always find to be interesting as to the way they can evolve. Joe Blow asks if a Deer can be killed with a 22? Joe Slow says too small, have to use at least a 22 Hornet Joe Glow says too small, have to use at least a 223 Joe Snow says too small, have to use at least a 243 Joe No says too small, have to use at least a 25-06 Joe Ho says too small, have to use at least a 260 Remington Joe Low says too small, have to use at least a 7mm Mauser Joe Moe says too small, have to use at least a 308 Joe Crow says too small, have to use at least a 8mm Joe Zoe says too small have to use at least a 338 Joe Bo says too small, have to use at least 35 Whelen Joe Doe says too small, have to use at least a 405 Winchester Joe Flow says too small, have to use at least a 458 Winchester Joe Soul says too small, have to use at least Browning 50 BMG ========================================================= In the end I believe if the truth were known that the wounding and losing a Deer or any big game regardless of the weapon being used is due to piss poor shooting and lousy bullet placement along with not matching the bullet to the game more than anything else. Al

I am a big fan of the 243 Winchester and the ballistic twin 6 mm Remington, both cartridges are true dual purpose Deer-Varmint propositions, had several rifles chambered in both. All manufacturers chamber their rifles in 243 so it is pretty easy to find a weapon that suits your taste. I loved and did a lot of woodchuck hunting in my younger days and the 243 - 6 mm, hand loaded with light thin jacket fast stepping varmint bullets. They both lived up to all the hoopla in spades that was written about them in the gun rags back in the day. Gentle on the shoulder with a fairly mild report makes those two shells a pleasure to shoot which goes a long way to instill accurate shot placement and shooter confidence. Both cartridges were also used for Deer hunting and both performed extremely well. When using lighter caliber rifles for bigger game like Deer I believe it is imperative to stay away from the varmint bullets and use a dedicated premium big game bullet matched especially for the task., it is cheap insurance. My favorite get serious bullet back then and still to this day no matter what the caliber is the "Nosler Partition" , it works reliably at short to extreme ranges, and it is impossible for it's design to fail. My brother and one of his hunting partners both own Browning BLR lever action 243s, I loaded them up a batch of 50 95 gr. Noslers using the same recipe I was using. If I remember right after using close to 10 rounds to zero their rifles in with them, their final tally from that original batch of 50 rounds through a bunch of hunting seasons was 37 Deer with no losses, pretty good I think. Personally I would never feel under gunned hunting Deer with a 243 Winchester loaded with quality ammo. Al

Tracking dogs have little or nothing to do with lousy hunters and poor shooting, they have always been in the woods. I would bet most of the guys that do this stuff will take the same poor shot time and time again with tracking dogs available or not. Probably are hearing about more incidents because they are dumb enough to admit to what they are doing on a public forum asking for tracking dog owners help. Al

MAY BE? There is a tax or fee on just about everything one does or buys in this bloodsucking state! Starting with state income tax, then state and county sales tax that lops off close to 10% right from the get go, then we have local property and school tax, throw in the endless tax and fee parade like the Thruway, Gas, Booze, Tobacco, Phones, TV, vehicles, restaurants etc, etc, etc etc, etc, etc, ! If there is a way to bleed another penny from it's citizens this state will surely come up with some kind of innovative way to do it. The high tax liberal state politicians have been piling it on for years and the chickens are coming home to roost. Al

I have a couple of mad bombers and would rate them as being the best hat for keeping the old coconut warm in extremely cold weather. I have chores to do here on the farm and have to go out every day and get them done regardless of the weather and when it is snowing, blowing and cold I wear the Bombers. Al

Here is an update on my Kingston M1 Garand 22 LR rifle I picked up during the summer, it has been an adventure for sure right from the get-go, in one word a "JAMOMATIC!" after my initial go around with this rifle. So it's a long one, let's start at the beginning and the timeline, I started out by going to RimfireCentral.com for some research, I have been a member there since it's beginning and it is the source for information on Rimfire firearms. There are several members that purchased M1s and all had somewhat similar problems as myself and we all tried putting our heads together diagnosing the maladys these rifles possessed. I started with an attempt to contact Kingston Armory, below is an email I sent to Kingston after trying a bunch of times get them on their contact phone number that is always giving a busy signal,and the email I sent to them.. Hello, My name is Al from Central NY, I have tried to contact you by phone but keep getting a busy signal so I will give an email a shot. I purchased one of your M1 Garand 22 LR rifles from Herb Philipsons in Oneida NY a few days ago. Yesterday was the first chance I had to shoot the rifle, and as per instructions I cleaned the gun up well of any excess packing grease wiped the barrel clean and with several brands of different ammunition proceeded to try this new rifle on my own back yard range. I know new guns especially autoloaders require a breakin period to gain reliable function but this rifle showed to have serious problems right from the first magazine shot through it. Failure to function properly came in every possible form I can think of. Stovepiping, failure to feed, failure to eject, weak firing pin strikes, I had another Ruger 10/22 magazine on hand and the results were the same. So after around 150 rounds with no improvement I quit for the day and decided to see if I figure out what the problem was. I have been a big time shooter my whole adult life, I can usually diagnose most firearms problems. I cleaned the rifle up extremely well and the only thing I could come to and see possibly wrong was that the bolt was not going completely into battery after every shot. I hoped that maybe being a steel receiver gun it may take a little more shooting than an aluminum receiver Ruger 10/22 does to smooth out. (wishful thinking) But I believe precise bolt face and chamber alignment may just off by a just a tad or the extractor size may be off ever so slightly. Next day it was back to the range with three different brands of ammo for another try. Malfunctions did start decreasing from the previous session to around one or two every magazine full, still way too many but I was hopeful and especially happy with the accuracy I was getting. The last two magazines full fired flawlessly. I thought to myself maybe after a couple of hundred more round she will smooth out and work properly. I went into the house and brought out a new box of Winchester 555 32 gr hps and a box of Federal Champions and loaded up the magazine with Federals to start. When I fired the second shot KABOOM!! the magazine flew out and the steel plate glued to the bottom had been blown right off. The case head on the cartridge had fractured most likely from not going completely into battery. That was pretty much it for me, I own a couple of dozen various rimfire rifles, many that are autoloaders and several autoloading pistols and never had anywhere near the function-reliability problems this rifle has. There is no possible way this rifle was inspected properly by quality control in house at the factory for function and reliability before being boxed up and released to be sold. Any other time would not have been able to box this rifle up fast enough, send it back and tell the outfit that made it to shove it where the sun don't shine and give me a refund. All that being said I absolutely love shooting this rifle, I have a 100 yard range set up especially for rimfire shooting and I was making music on the reactionary steel targets when it functions, I could not miss with this thing. Somehow I will get this rifle to fire reliably. So in the back of the booklet that came with this rifle instructions say to call first with any problems, I just tried calling again and again and keep getting a busy signal so here is an email. Epilog, several days still getting busy signals and no replies to any emails yet. ======================================================================== It is a pretty good bet that not many of these rifles were made and released because of the problems it has, one of those deals where everyone was in a big hurry and they failed to get the bugs out which ended bringing down the works. Because of having no success contacting anyone from this outfit I smelled a rat and from where I stood as time went by with no response the hand writing looked to be on the wall. The life time warranty did not mean squat to me and there was no way I was going to box up and send this rifle in for repair. I knew if they folded I would not see my rifle again and possibly not be compensated at all. The saving grace is the Ruger 10/22 design this rifle has, I know it can be made to function with some extra tinkering and to me it is worth the effort because as bad as it has malfunctioned I still love the gun and it will work 100% when I get done with it because I will do whatever it takes ========================================== My gut suspicions were correct and sure as heck this Kingston Armory folded and sold off whatever assets they had a few weeks ago, I have been trying hard to make contact with anyone affiliated with this outfit with zero success,there is nobody to complain to or get help from. ======================================================================== At first I was just going to pack up the barreled action and send it to Connecticut Precision Chambering, they are top notch Ruger 10/22 gunsmiths that will make the Kingston work like it is supposed to. But I decided to give it a shot myself and see if could get it done myself. After reading what the Kingston Garand owners on RFC diagnosed as their possible jamming problems I sat down and disassembled my rifle again and proceeded to address all of what has been discussed as a perceived problem. First of all I gave the action a good cleaning again and then polished all moving surfaces of the bolt and receiver where there was contact with very fine crocus cloth first and finished up with a buffing wheel on a dremel. I then replaced the extractor with a Volquartsen. I also have a Volquartsen firing pin but it would have required some slight modification as the pin hole is not the same so I polished up the stock firing pin and made sure there was no burrs and tried it before messing with the Volquartsen. Put in an extended length JW charging handle along with spring and polished charging rod. Put everything back together and fired off several magazines full of various ammo and the rifle performed without one hitch, so far so good. When I get a little better weather temp wise I will give her a good test. I think I may have got this rifle straightened out, this is a great rifle that with a little better quality control and better parts sourcing could it have been a real winner, Too bad! Al

Would not bother me to cut it back and I mean way back! When I started hunting in the early 60s Deer season opened October 25 - December 5 in the Northern zone. In the Southern zone November 20 - December 5. These days there is some kind of Deer season going on from September 27 till December 19. Deer management permits back then were called party permits for the reason 1 extra Deer of either sex was allowed per party, that deer was split between usually 3 or four hunters named on the permit. Now as the op posted in some cases it is possible to shoot seven Deer. In my opinion you have to be pretty greedy to be killing 7 Deer but that is what Deer hunting has spawned in recent years greed and a lot of posted land. These long dragged out Deers seasons have virtually wiped out small game hunting during fair weather periods in the fall. Deer hunters think they trump all other kinds of hunting as something spoiling their hunts with little to no tolerance rabbit and bird hunters especially those that hunt with dogs. Al

It is all about bullet performance and matching hunting bullets to the game that is being hunted. Large caliber big game cartridges are designed to penetrate large animals and break through big bones (Moose, Elk, Big Bears, African game) consequently their jackets are heavy and will take a lot of resistance to make them perform properly. There are also many calibers used for Deer hunting that are also used for larger game and there are some loads manufactured with heavy duty bullets for that job. A Deer is really not a big animal and does not require that heavy duty type of bullet at all, those bullets made for larger game with thick jackets just make a pass through with little or no expansion on Deer. High velocity along with explosive controlled expansion will provide the best drop em in their tracks performance. Take the popular 30/06 as an example, for me I would be using the thin jacketed 150 gr bullets for Deer hunting and maybe the 180s if I was in Bear country with an opportunity to take one. For large bodied big boned stuff like Moose and Elk heavy constructed 180s, 200s and maybe even 220s depending on the terrain and cover. Bottom line when you match your game to the right bullet and make a good shot it is all over. Al

I grew up in the culture liking everything about hunting and believe I have a natural born predator mindset doing what I was born to do and lucky to have had the opportunity and means to do so. Al

Like firearms for different types of hunting I have acquired different weight, styles and power binoculars for the same reasons. Open open country big game and varmint hunting I will use a good pair of 10X for glassing long distances. If I am doing a lot of walking I like compacts. For the woods it is all about field of view for me, the distances are relatively short so a good quality 6X or 7X is plenty with as wide an angle as possible. As far as brand I have been using the high end Bushnells for many years with zero complaints. Al

There is a point of having a debate because unless all hunters are truly educated on all of this it is far from being some simple yes or no matter. As long as every faction thinks they are right they should have nothing to lose with such a debate and demonstration and totally welcome the scrutiny. As for the DEC their position is nothing about being fair it is all about adding coins to the till. Al

Been watching this "FULL INCLUSION" banter for years with all factions entrenched in their positions on the matter with no positions being changed. I say before making any laws the DEC should put forth something like a trial judged by a large panel of actual hunters that do not hunt with archery equipment or have any connection to archery. Let each faction (Traditional Bow, Compound Bow, Crossbow) present their position to that panel on what they believe the essence of hunting with archery equipment is and their give opinion on how fair for all archery seasons should be implemented. Each faction should lay it all out on the table giving a live in depth demonstration on how their equipment operates including firing arrows and bolts at target of various distances. Also I think it would be good for each member of the panel of hunters to give each weapon a try for themselves, nothing like first hand experience! After all factions make their best case for fairness let that large panel of hunters decide on resolving all this as to when each weapon's season should be allowed with fairness to all. Al

Type in a google search for central NY Rod and Gun Clubs and you will come up with quite a few that have shooting ranges that are within reasonable distance of Syracuse, most have a website and or contact info. The Rod and Gun clubs I have been involved with require you to be a member to use their facilities, some will allow members to bring a guest. I have belonged to a couple in central NY, the Toad Harbor club in Hastings north of Syracuse and the Camden Rod and Gun club north and east of Syracuse both are decent clubs with rifle ranges and have nominal membership fees. I did not really use either facility for rifle shooting much myself, Toad Harbor was affiliated with a Coon hunting club I belonged to and I shot winter league Bullseye pistol on a Camden team. That being said I did shoot a couple of times on both club rifle ranges and they were decent. Al

Never shot one when hunting but I have seen Buffleheads from time to time on rivers when fishing, they are small and are mostly B&W. Al

I have always considered myself to be as much as a shooter as a hunter, these days I probably lean more so a shooter-firearms buff and just like messing around with different guns. Some of my guns have never been fired at game because they were purchased to be shooters-plinkers or dedicated target firearms as I competed in both rimfire pistol and rifle matches. Any new big or small game hunting firearm I acquire goes through the wringer to find out if it is something I like and want to keep or send down the road. When it comes to my big game firearms I must say once I find one I like and get them settled on suitable ammo then dialed in they are not fired a whole lot other than to check them for zero or the occasional shot at game. My shotguns get fired quite a bit at clay targets which I enjoy doing and that helps keeping my wingshooting skills halfway decent, just got me a new electrically operated thrower this past summer to replace my old manual cocking thrower. I am a believer in practice , I just like pulling the trigger and doing some shooting-plinking. I am a big rimfire fan and over the years have assembled a nice collection of good quality rifles that duplicate the feel of my centerfire rifles in dimension, weight and trigger along with their scopes or open sights. Many are capable of putting a bullet in a Squirrel's ear at 50 yards if I do my part. These firearms do get shot a lot at my back yard range on reactionary targets, paper targets and used for small game hunting. This type of method works well for me as I can enjoy myself and keep honing-maintaining my shooting skills for a much lower cost with firearms that mirror my centerfires saving them wear and tear. When I get wound up I can easily go through a brick of 22s in an afternoon, also the noise factor firing rimfires does not have the countryside far and wide sounding like a war zone. Al

When this kind of logic is put forward why not just quit messing around and use firearms! What has become long lost is the original premise for "PRIMITIVE" hunting with archery and muzzleloading equipment. you know like Indians and Daniel Boone! Hunters were to be pitting their skills in woodscraft and stealth along with deep dedication to learn to use their "primitive" weapons with enough proficiency to take game, "IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HARD" and that is why in the beginning these special seasons were allowed to be implemented in the first place. But oh no!, seems like there always has to be an angle to water things down and get that edge for those that do not want put in the time, it is now coming to the point where special seasons will mean zero to hunters and just a cash cow for the DEC and state to make sure keep it keeps going. It seems in today's world anything that has the slightest hint of being exclusive must to be torn down to include "ALL" for one half assed excuse or another. Comes down to just plain old greed and laziness, today we have sports participation trophies for everyone on the team, pissing in the opposite gender's bathrooms, now Girls in Boy Scouts and soon to follow vice versa, the list just keeps going on as " ALL and everything MUST" be allowed no matter what it is. Can't wait to see white people running the NAACP! Al

Was going through freeing up storage on my computer and found these photos a fellow Airedale man from Arizona sent me some time back from a game cam set up on a ranch water trough.

I read a question asked one time in one of the gun rags about how long ammunition in storage could be expected to perform at optimum performance. The gun writer's reply was he did not know what the shelf life of modern ammo loaded with smokeless powder could be as that question was still up in the air.. He said the very earliest modern ammo that had been stored in optimum dry conditions without huge temperature swings had shown to work and fire perfectly fine, pretty much the same as when it was manufactured. So a while back I got out of mothballs a couple of my old timers a Ruger 77 Varmint 220 Swift and a Ruger Number 1 222 mag along with some handloads I made up back in the seventies. I fired a few fouling shots and then shot for groups interested in seeing if the old gals and that old ammo still had what it takes. Surprisingly in all that time that has past both rifles and ammo still shoot pretty much the same as in their heyday when they were smoking woodchucks and crows. So it is true that ammo stored properly lasts a good long time. Al

That is pretty much true of the current lineup that is being aired these days, I have tried to watch them but they just can't hold my interest and are just plain crap for the most part to me. The best outdoor shows ever produced were the old American Sportsman Show on ABC hosted by Curt Gowdy. ESPN Outdoors had several shows which aired on the weekends that were very well done. Of course when one of the biggest animal rights outfits on the planet ("Disney") purchased ABC and ESPN that was the end of the line those shows. The Nashville Network ("TNN") had some really good shows on the weekend also, everything went downhill there when taken over and renamed "Spike". The Old Outdoor Life channel aired my all time favorite show "Hunting With Hank" is long gone. Unlike "animal rights Disney" which will not release any of the American Sportsman Shows on DVD I got to purchase all the old Hunting With Hank Shows. Comparing what is shown today as a hunting show and what was shown on those old classics listed above, well there is no comparison! Al

While I can certainly could get by with just one knife from woods to freezer I prefer knives to suit the situation at hand. For field dressing deer I want fairly compact and light, my favorite for many years has been an old American made 2 blade "Western" folding pocket knife with clip-toothpick type blades, I use the same blade style in a smaller version knives for small game that many may call a muskrat, skinned out many a coon in the woods with those and the bird hook style for birds in the field. They all have the same blade shape as a common denominator and I have have found it to be one of those blade designs that is about perfect for that type of work. There are plenty of makers and sources at fairly modest prices for those types and choosing a good USA made model you should not go wrong. For butchering I have been using one of those reasonable priced and decent quality wise "Outdoor Edge" sets that do a very good job as long as they are kept sharp same as with any knife. Al Old Western Pocket Knife