airedale

Thanks for the compliments guys, one more thing I can't wait to give those Leupold quick detachable rings a try to see how they hold zero. Always used conventional type rings this is my first set of this kind and I have always wondered how well they would work. Al

The bottom line is with the gun hating administration we have along with all the other gun haters and animal rights groups out there and there are a lot of them with resources, if there was the least and I mean the "LEAST" amount of traction they could get by using the excuse that hunters are lead poisoning themselves along with their families there would be a full court press to push for the ban of lead bullets. The media would jump on it in a heartbeat and the blitz of any propaganda they could prove true would be unrelenting and monumental. Believe me do not think for one moment this has not occurred to them, the reason it has not happened is simple. There is no concrete evidence that hunters eating a deer that has been taken with a lead bullet is poisoning people to the point of any significant consequence. Al

That little Leupold really makes this rig right, it fits the gun, it does not weigh hardly anything and has huge eye relief and nice big field of view. I picked it up used on ebay and saved $70, from the looks I do not think it was ever mounted. That being said I still liked that receiver sight an awful lot. Al

There is a huge difference between smoking cigarettes and a person eating a deer shot with a lead core bullet. The hard evidence was insurmountable showing millions of people through the years having lung cancer, heart problems emphysema, so on and so forth and dying. An idiot could see the tobacco companies were lying. You show me hard evidence that millions of people eating millions of tons of deer and other game meat for several hundred years that have been shot with a lead bullet that has been properly butchered and prepared that are sick from lead poisoning? Al

When one starts to get a little age on them you tend to start looking and thinking light weight. I picked up this little Marlin 44mag a few years ago, it has the 16 1/2 inch ported barrel. It is amazingly accurate with some ammo I purchased about 20yrs ago put out by an outfit called Top Notch. 300 gr Noslers that will all group touching at fifty yards. I had a Williams receiver sight on it and I had no problem putting them in there on target in decent daylight. But I had it out hunting a couple of years ago and had a doe meandering around in front of me at about sixty yards when the daylight was fading early with all the leaves still on the trees. With no intention of shooting I lined her up in the sights and had a very hard time seeing her clear enough where I would take a shot. If that had been the big one in her place I would have been in trouble. Now I really loved that receiver sight because it contributed to the overall handiness of the rifle but I had to get real, I knew that I needed a scope in the above conditions. So keeping with the theme of the rifle I looked up the lightest most compact scope that Leupold makes and found their Vari 2 2,5 lightweight. I also got some quick detachable Leupold rings and got this gun set up right I think and hopefully will get a chance to try her out and kill one this coming fall. Al

For the record I use steel shot where I have to, because my shotguns were purchased before the late eighties and not proofed for steel I had to incur the extra expense of purchasing another shotgun so I could hunt waterfowl. I have also loaded some copper bullets and tried them out but in my case they did not perform as well as I would have liked accuracy wise when compared to conventional bullets. I am not a rich person but I have a taste for double shotguns, it took awhile but over many years I scraped and saved enough money to get myself several. Because I can not use steel shot in them it costs me a small fortune to obtain non toxic ammo so I can use them for certain types of hunting. It raises my hackles when the holier than thou tell me "tough crap", retire those guns and buy yourself something you can use. easy to say when you are not the one left holding the bag for several grand in shotguns! I have no problem switching to and hunting with non toxic shot in my doubles, I would just like to see a more concerted effort by the ammo manufactures to produce non toxic shells at a reasonable price for the hunters with shotguns from the late eighties and back. Al

There is no dispute about the harmful effects of lead on human health, the dispute is how much lead is being consumed from game that is killed with a lead core bullet. I maintain that the amount of lead consumed from a properly butchered deer would be insignificant to a person's health over their lifetime. Al

I don't bet my life on what some retarded kid does, how about you, if your life depended on it would back the tall tale you came up with? More likely than not that kid was purposely trying to harm himself and did, I do not know of any hunters that claim eating lead shot is perfectly OK and will not cause some harm, Like I pointed out earlier if that kid had swallowed a handful of non toxic shot he would have still more than likely clogged up his appendix. had it been non toxic shot I doubt the photo would have ever been posted! I do not know any hunters that find any lead in the game they take and purposely leave it there to be eaten. Standard procedure 101, butcher your game properly, remove all bloodshot meat and any bullet fragments and discard. Fire up the grill and enjoy your venison. Al

The "Walking Lead Zombie Apocalypse" that is what some seem to being trying to imply. Humans have been eating game shot with lead bullets for hundreds of years. Millions and Millions of tons of meat shot with those lead bullets have been consumed, can anyone show me any incidents of people getting lead poisoning from eating game harvested with a firearm using lead. Where are all these sick and dying people because by the way some represent lead bullets there should be thousands of them? The picture of a retarded kid's appendix who swallowed a handful of shot and the corny speculated story to go along with it has no sway with me. Every stinking thing we eat these days seems to have somebody coming up with something in it that is bad and will kill you. The least of my worries is eating a deer I killed with a lead core bullet!! I will butcher properly and enjoy with zero fear! Al

Like guns you can't have too many scopes Al

Waste from any game animal or farm animal I butcher is buried, What I consider to be good bones are given to my dogs. I would not consume any bloodshot meat regardless of the type of bullet that is used be it copper or lead, it is cut away and discarded. Al

What I am saying is place the blame where it belongs, "lousey butchering", not taking the time to cut away any questionable meat around the wound area where there may be some lead. Al

This lead tainted meat crap is caused from piss poor butchering practices. Bloodshot meat and anything else questionable around the wound area is easily seen, it should be cut away and discarded instead of being put into the grinder with the good stuff. Implying that a deer shot with a conventional lead core bullet is unsafe to eat is pure baloney! Al

It is a Pigeon.

Country boy so all that I had available was farm work, mostly on a vegetable farm. Everything from planting, irrigation and harvesting, $7.00 a day and glad to get it. Al

Is there anything that is safe?, seems like copper has it's own dirty little secrets, I have not read anything detrimental about copper based bullets YET! http://www.arltma.com/Articles/CopperToxDoc.htm

One could also speculate that this kid was maybe trying to commit suicide by consuming a large quantity of lead, the complete opposite of thinking it was harmless because his Dad said so. Unless the exact facts are known the whole story is open to speculation! Al

Well like red meat, booze, sugar, butter, eggs, etc. etc, consuming just about anything in excess is going to be bad for you. The fact of the matter is the results would probably been the same had this kid swallowed a handful of bismuth, IXT or steel shot. Al

When it comes to shotshells nobody seems to want to step up to the plate and get serious about manufacturing a lead substitute shot.Very conservatively there are tens of thousands of older shotguns that are not proofed for steel shot and would be ruined by shooting steel through their barrels. Hevi shot is even worse. The only shot these older firearms can use is Bismuth or IXT shot but nobody wants to produce factory ammo. I looked all over the place last summer and fall and could not find one box in all of central NY. I could not even special order it. I ended up having to buy IXT shot and load it myself at $153.00 for a seven pound bag. As bad as that price is it is still less than half of what factory shells would have cost me if I could even find any. Al

Yikes!!, that was a hot one alright, to blow the cylinder and the top strap like that she had to be way over. Al

You did good, nice job! Al

I have been seeing a few in my yard under the bird feeders for the past few days. Al

"Sharpshooters" in Pulaski comes up for me as does "AXtactical" in Utica they are pretty much equal in distance from me. I price checked both outfits and "AXtactical" does a little better on the stuff I compared. Al

I saw an advertisement from one of my local gun shops that has an affiliation-partnership with this outfit called the National Firearms Dealer Network. I went to the site and checked it out and they seem to have a pretty good inventory of firearms, scopes, accessories and ammunition at fairly decent discounted prices. The way it works is you hit the buy now button and it asks you to put in your zip code. It will then show a listing of affiliated dealers that are closest to you with the selling price they want to get for the item. It looks like you pay with a credit card along with a fee, what ever you purchase is then shipped to the dealer of your choice. The dealer will call you when your order comes in and you just go and pick it up. I checked out a couple of different dealers and apparently they set their discount because prices varied. Once you decide on a dealer you can save his home page to your favorites and the next time you check in you will go directly to his affiliate home page. It is a good site just to get an idea of what stuff is going for. http://www.nfdnetwork.com/ Al

I am well aware of the potential problems due to recoil when scoping break barrel air rifles, the NP Trail will be a good test for the Bugbuster, if she holds up I should be OK. When it comes to problem guns like this Benjamin I can and will usually come up with a solution and fix myself, been at this kind of stuff for a long time and I like the challenge. Al