The Big Kahuna

That's a Weatherby Mark V, left-handed and chambered in .338 WinMag. I found it at a local pawn shop, the original owner had traded it in for something else.

As I've been wanting to get into distance precision rifle work (and have done a wee bit with a friend of mine), I took the plunge and picked it up.

It's my first left-handed rifle. The action is smooth like silk. The trigger breaks crisply at about 3.5 pounds with no creep at all. It's heavy and fit me like it was designed for me. Is this what right-handed people feel like all the time?

I took the Nikon 3x9 scope it came with off of it and replaced it with my Nikon 4.5x14. Found a day to take it to the range for bore sighting and trial run.

To be honest, I've never boresighted before. It took a long time and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get the crosshairs to line up with the bore picture - until it was pointed out to me that the ass end of a Leupold STC Mount has "windage screws" that you use to line up the scope before even bore sighting.. and I hadn't set them properly. We fixed that, got the scope lined up and then it was time to test it.

Oh good lord. That first round to go off rocked my world. It was also pretty close to zeroed at 200 yards. Excellent work from my friend that helped me boresight it. Within 5 rounds, we had it dialed in and I fired two consecutive rounds that overlapped in the X-ring.

I loved it.

Sadly, it's way too much rifle for what I am doing right now. I noticed that I was starting to flinch while pulling the trigger. I know that I could get a recoil pad, but I thought about how much it'll take to feed this beast and the fact is - I'm shooting sub-1000 meters right now. I'm not hunting with this rifle. It offers almost no advantages in that useage case than a number of other options.

So, it's my first sale up on GunBroker. It's a hell of a good rifle and someone will love it, I'm sure. click here to check it out

Tuning up for the hunt

  My big hunt this year is going to be elk - getting together some friends, camping out in the very heard of the wilderness, and hopefully filling the freezer with a few hundred pounds of meat.

  In preparation, we've inventoried our gear (need to fix up the stove and the lantern, maybe acquire a ground cloth for the tent), found a place to hunt, and now it's all down to the details.

  Part of those details are getting back into shape with my shooting. I'll be honest, folks, it's been 20 years since I've shot with any regularity and I wasn't exactly a marksman back then. After working out a nice recipe for my inherited Remington 760 .30-06, I took a box of homemade rounds out into the field this past Saturday and proceeded to learn how to aim.

  A buddy of mine that went with us (and who will be on the elk hunt) brought his armor-plated steel targets. We set them up about 250 yards out from our firing line. These things are VERY cool; I haven't shot steel very often, but the feedback you get on a successful hit is nice. He hung the 18", 12" and 6" plates for us to play with and with a few shots, I was semi-consistently hitting the 18" plate. At the end of the day, I was about a 60% hit rate - not good, but much better than it could have been. My buddy did me the favour of taking a few shots with the rifle, hitting the 6" plate and proving that the accuracy problems were all shooter, no gun. 

  I also pulled out the Model 99 Arisaka, put a box or so of rounds through that. I aimed at a stump about 50 yards out and figured out where the gun was shooting - then swung up to the 18" plate and rang it on my first try! I should have stopped there, of course, but I tried to do it a second time... and failed. Ah, well. It's a very fun shooter. I'll be playing with it a lot more.

  Mama Bear got a spherical reactive target for working on her shooting skills, and WOW! That thing is nine kinds of fun. It's made of a self-healing rubber and the card says it'll handle anything from .22LR up to .50 cal... but I rather doubt that last one. We're gonna have fun with this thing for a LONG time.

  All in all, it was a great day out in the woods with friends. 

I'm still standin....

Wow, it's been months and months since I posted something here.

Folks, it's been a long, hard summer and the latter half of the month of August sucked like two things that suck a lot. I won't go into too much detail and I apologize for the lack of content, but I had to tend to my own house before coming here and sharing cool things and news stories that make my hairs stand on end.

Mama Bear and I DID manage our first woodlands trip yesterday, we drove out into the mountains and scouted out the area I've identified as a likely place to find elk come the middle of October. Boots on the ground, it looks exactly like the world-class-elk-hunting area from the Old Country. With just a bit of luck, I'll connect with my first elk that WASN'T felled with a 1970 Ford F-100 California pickup truck.

Took a few guns out, Mama Bear had her Single Six (Jayne) and Remington 518 (Vera) to play with. I took Papa's Remington 1100 shotgun and 760 .30-06 deer rifle. I had the box of handloads for the 760 and intended to do a good ladder test - but I didn't bring stuff to make a stable shooting rest. I tried using the bipod against the rear hatch frame of the van and that would have been functional for an elk shot, but not for something like a ladder test. Also, the lightest loads seemed to perform the best (all of them hit within a 5" circle) while the heaviest loads missed the target box ENTIRELY.

Had a lot of fun with the Rem 1100 - I'd never shot it before and after teaching Mama Bear how to throw clay pigeons, I managed to tag the VERY FIST THROW.

Then I missed the next 5

Hit one.

Missed three more and we called it a day, we had to head back.

All in all, it was a fun time and it looks like elk camp's going to be a success.

Pre-hunting season is upon us!

  One of the biggest reasons I shoot is for hunting - I grew up in a hunting family and every fall, we'd tramp out into the woods and (hopefully) bring back game. My father is far, far better at it than I am. I shot my first deer when I was 11, my second at 13, and then... nothing. I'm 35 and haven't connected with a big game animal in almost 23 years. I'm hoping to change that...

  So, new state, new group of shooting friends, and I'm going hunting. Two different camps this year, deer and elk.

  Dear season is sometime late September (depending on where you go), and elk is late rin October/November.

  Preparations have begun! I've picked up maps for two of the units I'm looking at for hunting. I'll study them carefully and lead expeditions to scout them out. A day in the woods with friends is always a blast.

  I'm also starting to load up some ammo for my venerable Remington 760 in .30-06. It's a tiny, vengeful god that speaks great fire from the bore and punishes the wielder. Only the pure of heart and dedicated of intent may use it safely.

  Misremembering the recipe for the gun, I bought the wrong powder AND the wrong bullets. I meant to get IMR4064 powder and Hornady spire points, and instead came home with IMR4350 and a box of Nosler AccuTips. How I got so confused, I'll never know. I just need to smile and take my medicine - working up a ladder test to see which rounds are the most accurate for my purposes. At least I got the bullet weight right - 165gr. I'll post results from the ladder test.

  Reloading will get its own series of posts, I'm still pretty new to it and have rookied just about everything I can. I got a case stuck fast in the depriming die(got it unstuck with the RCBS stuck case remover), I failed to seat a primer fully (got that fixed when I got the depriming die unstuck), mashed the necks on some cases... spilled powder. It's been one big Learning Opportunity, but I'm enjoying it.