Pygmy

What's idpa ?

Sounds like there is a story with your moose.. Don't hold us in suspense..DO TELL !!..<<smile>>...

I have no experience with either model, except that the Legion post that I belong to has raffled off a couple of the Marlins and outwardly they seem like a pretty decent rifle for the money. The blind mag might be a show stopper for me, as well. I dislike detachable box mags, much preferring a hinged floorplate, but a box mag is certainly more convenient to load and unload than a blind mag. My favorite deer rifle has a DBM, and I tolerate it,although I wish I could have got it with a drop floorplate instead. You'll love the 7mm08 for deer..There may several chamberings as good for whitetails, but you won't find one any BETTER. Enjoy your new rifle.

Paitience is DEFINITELY a virtue when hunting rabbits with a dog, Paula...<<smile>>...

I doubt that someone night hunting the property would have much effect on rabbit behavior. The three most important factors in rabbit hunting are cover, cover, and cover. Although they do sometimes use woodchuck dens for refuge, they don't live in them. If the rabbits are present, there will always be some above ground. They will be in the densest, thickest cover available.. Multiflora rose clumps...Brushpiles... Deadfalls...Thick, nasty stuff that keeps the predators from finding them. Either you or your dog need to get into that stuff and kick the rabbits out. Some dogs, especially those that do not have a history/parentage of hunting stock, don't seem to have the instincts to get in there and root the bunnies out. When I was a teenager ( just after the last Ice Age) my Dad had a beagle named George. George was dumb as a box of rocks. He never figured out how to find rabbits. Two of us could be working a strip of cover surrounded by plowed fields and George would be out in the plowed ground looking for rabbits while we thrashed the brush. If he crossed a fresh track, he could do a pretty fair job of running it. Nearly all the rabbits that I ever shot ahead of him were ones that I kicked out and called him over to the track.. Wait a minute..Maybe George wasn't so dunb after all..He let ME do all the hard work busting the brush..LOL..

Good shooting...GREAT eating... One of those greenheads makes a good meal for The Mermaid and Me... Mallards and early season blacks are among the very best tasting of waterfowl, at least to my palate.. Teal are the VERY best, but it takes at least two of the little buggers per person to make a meal.

And what does THAT have to do with small gun shops closing ?? I'll bet that you have a stupid haircut, too !! Yeah, and I'll bet that your breath smells and you don't love JESUS !! You know Mom liked you BEST !! Yeah !! I'm just getting STARTED !!!

GORGEOUS brown trout, Rooter..Congrats...

Yeah I'm looking forward to getting out with my friend and his beagles again soon..I have a lead on another property to hunt, supposedly with lots of rabbits and the owner only hunts deer. Our goal is not to kill every rabbit we see..We never shoot at them on the jump, preferring to get the dogs on them and let them make at least one circle. In the dense stuff where we hunt, they often make several circles before we can get a shot.

Probably 4-6 inches...Enough so the rabbits are easier to see in the brush but not so much that it is hard walking.

I did a morning hunt for rabbits this morning with an old friend and his two beagles. My buddy had a dentist appt, so we only had a couple of hours to hunt, but it was nonstop beagle music.. We jumped the first rabbit about 5 minutes into the hunt. The cover we hunt is extremely thick, which of course, is why the bunnies like it. The first one made 3 circles before I got lucky and somersaulted him with the second barrel of my S/S 20 as he flew across a clearing at about MachIV. Before I had the first one skinned, disjointed and in my vest, the pups had another one going..The chase lasted about an hour and a half before my partner finally dumped the critter with his weathered old Lefever 16 gauge S/S. They were both nice big hoppers, fat and free of grubs and tapeworm cysts.. AND we never moved more than 100 yards into the patch of cover for the entire hunt. There should be lots of bunnies there to exercise the little hounds on our next hunt.

Due to my antique computer system, ( it consists of an elderly squirrel in a cage and an abacus) I can't view the video, but I remember one I viewed in the past of a hunter shooting driven European boars, also with a Blaser 9.3x62. It sure looked like more fun than I have ever had with my clothes on. I own and hunt with a 9.3 x 62 ( CZ-550) and I wouldn't hesitate to shoot it 20-40 times a day under hunting conditions ( not off the bench). The recoil is stout, but it would not be nearly as punishing as a good morning of duck or goose hunting shooting 3 inch 12 gauge shells through a fixed breech gun, like a pump or O/U.

It would be for sure, but I'm learning not to recommend it anymore.. Nobody ever listens to me.. I'm going out in the garden and EAT WORMS...<<sigh>>...

Why go halfway..? Get a Weatherby Mk V in .240 Weatherby Mag.. Isn't MORE of a good thing always BETTER ? Kinda like dynamite...If one stick is GOOD, 3 or 4 sticks oughta be GREAT !!

They are down considerably in these parts....We did NOT have a favorable nesting season here along the SWNY/Penn border this spring.

That Ruger looks to me like a hell of a deal for someone.. My two main hunting rifles are a .280 and a 7mm08, so ballistically I have the .270 bracketed, otherwise I would jump on it...

One of my hunting buddies has used a Tang safety R77 in .270 as his main deer rifle since about 1970. It shoots tiny little cloverleafs with any load he puts through it.

Well the pigeon shoot was a resounding success..for the PIGEONS..!! There were a couple hundred birds around, but they stayed high and wide..I managed one for four shots and my partner got two... Oh well,there's always next time..The breasts are enough for a treat for The Mermaid and I and they are currently wrapped in bacon on low heat in the oven, braising in a bit of chicken broth !! I'll bake up a sweet potato to go with them and wash it all down with a Labatt's Blue...

Good to hear from you, Eagle.. The 2 x 7 x 32 is a good choice for a light, handy rifle..No point in ruining the handling qualities of a hunting rifle with a heavy, big objective scope. I have a 2 x 7 x 33 Burris on my Rem 700 Mountain rifle. The Leupold is always a good choice..If something is wrong with it, they'll either fix it or replace it. I have never owned a Nikon, but a couple of my buddies run them and are happy with them.

Yeah, they're not dumb, and I always try to take advanatage of the first shooting because it's probably going to be the best I get..That's one reason I am using the Browning with the 5 shot mag rather than one of my doubles.. However, if you are near the areas they want to get back into, I.E. feeding and resting areas, being patient and sitting still will usually get you some more good shooting.

I'll wave my hat and give a post hunt report tomorrow... Hoping to be able to warm my hands on my gun barrel in the morning...<<grin>>...

I have an invite to go shoot pigeons tomorrow at a local dairy farm.. The farmer has a couple of hundred hanging around and told us to " Kill'em ALL"...hehehe.. As if THAT would happen... I'm hunting with a handicapped friend of mine..He has a permit to shoot from his ATV.. We'll hang around the feed yard and the silos and shoot 'em when they pass in and out.. Looking forward to it..I haven't had a good wingshoot in awhile and pigeons are "el primo" wingshooting targets..Fast and manueverable..They are also mighty tasty when crockpotted with some red wine and onions.. My buddy inherited a sizable quantity of 20 gauge shotshells and has offered to provide the ammo, so my Belgian Browning A-5 Light twenty gets to go play tomorrow.

I have not had much experience casting bullets, except for a few muzzleloader prjectiles, and I am not a metallurgist although I worked for a period of time as a lab tech in an industrial metallurgy lab. However, I was always of the assumption that the "hardness" of lead was determined by alloying, adding amounts of tin or antimony to pure lead to make it harder. Simple casting vs. swaging, as I understand the process, is merely a forming method, rather a method increasing hardness.

No you don't Larry...You can't pack down there. I haven't been east of the Tappan Zee Bridge in NY since 1977 and I don't miss it a bit.

REAL fine catch... Yum yum YUM !!