Core

Have you used a coat before? I never knew they existed until I saw your post. I see others like them. I have been walking around with my scope caps off because I want a minimum of things to do before taking a shot (already I have to bring my ear muffs down--even though they are amplified I often just have them above my ears for natural hearing).

Awesome job. Great persistence and impressed it paid off. Also, please get yourself a new and decent scope immediately! I cannot imagine how frustrating it would be to lose a shot because the scope fogged up.

WTH?! That is quite the gentle slap on the wrist. Shouldn't running from police over a legitimate chase at least have some jail term?

Putting scope on soon. It really is super nice to shoulder. When I do it my eye is dead, absolutely dead center looking through the two rings already mounted on it. Super comfortable. I've decided against the powerbelts for now. Reading some iffy stuff about them. I think sabots may be the way to go after all. Blackhorn 209 is THE powder to use but without the BH209 specific breech plug I'm not super confident it will consistently fire, so I may go with the pellets.

I think if I had nothing to worry about I can get to a tree and be at the top ready in about 8 minutes with my viper SD but I'll be sweating!

Yep that part on mine is already rusty just sitting in the box. Going to take a stab at cleaning it tonight.

I've read up on tons upon tons of tree stands and I still have yet to see a single portable tree stand that is really awesome. Really awesome for me would mean: 1) Low weight 2) Quick setup Bonus awesome: 1) Large and relatively comfortable 2) Not loud Many using portable stands either use a climber, which can be made very light, but still take a good 10 minutes for most to get fully setup from disentangling everything from your back, putting it on the tree, climbing, securing, etc. or they use a hang on with sticks, which is also a massive hassle and takes quite a while. In both cases these are probably loud and take a solid 10 minutes, maybe longer. I've seen a guy race up a tree in five minutes on youtube with a hangon and sticks because he forgot all his safety gear. It seems to me the best stand for most scenarios would be a light and compact ladder stand. It could be taken off the back, unfolded and quickly snapped into place, then put against a tree. Something like this (although this one is very heavy at 30+ lbs and it doesn't look like the locking mechanisms are as quick or hassle free as I'd like). I know there used to be some carbon fiber climbers that people liked, but I have to think a carbon ladder stand could be made light and portable with a well designed locking system so that it can be taken up and down quickly. Forget price, assume it doesn't matter.

is the plastic a pain to clean off the rifling from the sabots?I have yet to shoot this thing. I am getting all ready for it, though.

Trump is a loudmouth but nobody else in government is going to speak out about this. Islam is disproportionately represented in terror attacks. Muslim immigrants are disproportionately represented in terror attacks. This is all undeniable statistics. Completely undeniable, and not just a mildly statistically significant observation but a massive one. Few in government want to talk about it because it is not politically correct and many want to shoehorn muslims into a victim class because they are not the predominant religion. As such they will desperately apply cognitive dissonance to how they look at the matter because progressivism has trained them to never criticize anything but the majority. Trump has come in at a crucial time because I do not want to see this country go the way Europe has gone. Four years from now Europe will be suffering even more massively for its unchecked immigration and hopefully by then we can use it as a more present example. I do not hold great hope in that, though, because the progressive left seems to find no problem in taking in immigrants from anywhere, even those with backward cultures that are wholly incompatible with the west and which all too frequently resort to violence in the furtherance of their culture.

That sucks! I have a very similar picture on a piece of land from the 19th because I was a bit slow getting out to my stand. A buck walked right by the camera first thing on the 19th before I was setup.

Goodluck with your knee!

Yep that sucks. I was out at the public land a few days back and I'm positive I heard 12+ shots in a short period of time, so somebody is "hunting" with an illegal magazine, unless they have a friend at the exact same shot with the exact same load and they were both doing who knows what. I do hear a surprising number of shots that are quickly followed up with another one. The snow has been extremely interesting to use to see patterns, though. I was able to confirm that one area I thought was light on human activity indeed is--actually in two cases. And the snow also showed me on one property an area I thought was good is in fact bad and one I thought was bad is actually good.

But take that day you didn't catch a fish and repeat it for another ten days straight. I've now gone out 16 consecutive times, with about 26 hours total travel time (driving, walking) and no shot opportunity. I'm wondering at what point I'm allowed to consider it burning hours. 20 consecutive? 100? I have sat at multiple locations on multiple properties, I have tried still hunting, etc. It's weird because much of this is at the same public land that was hopping with deer last year. I've come upon scat so fresh it was almost steaming, gone through an area that the night before was trampled to death with deer including rubs and scrapes. I've only even managed to scare two deer while tramping through bedding areas (with bow, they ran off). It's possible I stink to heavens of wolf pee. It would explain it! Hunting isn't always about what I kill, but at some point it has to be about that; it is called hunting after all, not hiking. And this year has been a lot of the latter. I'll keep at it through this season on the public land anyway. Luck can change in an instant and I still look forward to getting out there (I think this is how people feel when they are losing money at a casino but keep thinking their luck will change--same psychology, but this one is arguably far healthier and only costs gas! :D).

You ever shoot the powerbelts? At least the claim is they muddy the barrel less due to not being a saboted round. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's lighter than the silly contraption I've been hunting with for the past week and will hit harder, too. Once I get it sighted I plan on making it my primary for hunting. With some liberal electrical tape on the end of the muzzle, have you had any issues in the rain? The only other source of water ingress looks to me like it would be right where the primer seats in the breech plug--water could creep around the edges of the primer with enough time. Would a tiny dose of breach plug grease around the cap be the ticket to ensure that doesn't happen?

Interesting seeing this now, it seems it all worked out for you

Yikes, I just looked up Texas heart shot. Now it makes sense. Sounds like it all worked out, and with some Christmas venison to the boss you get to keep your job!

Last year I kept it in an online spreadsheet but have been very lax this year. It seems like a good idea. One good thing I did was use "my maps" on google maps, you can make custom maps with a bunch of stuff overlaid over google maps and even pull it up on your phone. This way at the public land I have made notes about paths, areas, etc. i started noting sightings but it would be hard to effectively show sightings as a percentage of visits in an effort to identify high frequency areas.

Some people will shoot at anything in any scenario with as many bullets as they can get in the general area, but I bet we'll find most/all of these recent shootings are not because people got worse than last year, but just playing the odds. Last year was low in fatalities, this one will be high. Even if these happened with rifles, would they not have with shotguns? Were the people wearing orange, were the shots taken outside of legal hunting hours. You could make laws mandating orange. You could also make a mandatory manslaughter conviction in the case of accidental shooting of a person if it took place outside of shooting hours, to encourage people to think twice about what I assume is otherwise a slap on the wrist (if that--seems to me a ton of people do it). But long term no-fatalities may not be possible. With these shootings on the news people will be more vigilant. If you had a few years of no shootings people would get lax and then the risk goes up again.

Is that from current 265.00? A couple of links I find either don't show a section 24 or one of them, like here http://codes.findlaw.com/ny/penal-law/pen-sect-265-00.html says subsection 24 deals with the definition of a "seller of ammunition". This thread even gets at that: http://nyfirearms.com/forums/laws-politics-firearms-self-defense-weapons/42273-did-they-define-detachable-magazine-post358815.html#post358815 and gets onto what the 24 above actually is--an amendment: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2013/S1422 But it doesn't appear it was actually signed into law if this link is up to date, which would mean there is still no legal definition of it. If it's not law I suppose it would still hint at the thinking of the almighty legislature and perhaps would hold sway in court (I have no idea, though).

Looking at maps it seems to me LI would get insane, just insane pressure because its public land has to support thousands upon thousands of hunters. is it really not that bad after all? I've definitely seen some big bucks taken there.

Nice! I wouldn't have been able to pass on the 4 pointer, and would therefore have lost the chance on the 8. If you really sat during that storm on Monday you earned this.

If this keeps up I could see them mandating a minimum coverage of orange, though there was no minimum last year and no deaths.

I'm positive I'm not the first hunter to get tired of putting time into it and seeing nothing (in fact I've seen lots of posts relaying the same). Not sure what your particulars are, but I drive 40 min plus another 10+ min walk each way + 10 min to setup climber on public land, and after doing that for almost two months and not having a single shot opportunity since the first hour of the first day it gets pretty old. At some point it turns from putting in time to burning hours, though that would be different for everyone. Going to find some land to rent for next year for sure.

Good God I hope so. I absolutely cannot get a deer in view of me and I'm just burning up hours now in the woods. I have no idea where the freaking heck they have gone. I have a couple more vacation days I'll save until MZ. I'd be thrilled to nail a 90 lb doe right now.