As you may remember, my dear friend Bob passed away over the winter. His widow let the Shamanic Dream Team have dibs on his collection. Bob was a collector, mostly of Rugers and mostly pistols, and most of these were well outside my budget. I chose two deer guns. The … Continue reading →
I sent the Mauser from Hell out for a new safety. Hibberd’s Armory suggested I try Nathan Fleming at Legacy Gunsmithing. That was just a few weeks ago. I called Nathan, and he sent me a quote, and two weeks later, the Mauser is back and the new Timney safety … Continue reading →
Let me be clear: This season sucked. It sucked in so many ways it hurts to think about it. Not everyone in Kentucky feels this way. That’s fine. I can believe our problems were localized, possibly self-inflicted, whatever. It still sucked. I’m looking at the final harvest numbers for November. … Continue reading →
At 0915 Sunday, I was just putting the finishing touches on what I thought was going to be the last post of the season. The fog had started to roll in before 2200 the night before. It had been an iridescent pea soup at 0600. A full moon and fog … Continue reading →
It says over in the right column, “On this day nothing happened, ever.”  That’s not entirely true. I just don’t write about it all that much. The Shamanic Deer Team woke up this morning with just 10 hours left of the season. They’re all out trying one last try. I … Continue reading →
For the first time in a week, the Shamanic Dream Team went afield this morning with reasonably good weather. From Sunday to Friday it was cold (about 15 degrees below normal) and wet. Along the way we have had to face rain, drizzle, graupel, freezing rain, driving rain, snow and … Continue reading →
Deer Camp opened this year with a new addition. Mooselette turned 6 this year. She has been out with Daddy Moose and myself to hike and hunt squirrel. However, yesterday afternoon marked the first time our youngest camper has officially donned the Orange and gone afield. This day has been … Continue reading →
I just wanted to give you a quick story about my Savage 99 at the range today. First off, though, I need to give you a bit of history. KYHillChick bought me this Savage 99 in 308 WIN in 2003 for my birthday. I’ve used it every year as my … Continue reading →
Angus and Moose brought some from friends out from town, Keith and George, the new guy. Everyone had a good time, but you wouldn’t know it from the expressions. It was a hot one for September. Temps were in the high 80’s. Update on The Mauser From Hell Before they … Continue reading →
I turned 60 last week. Things have been fairly quiet down at the farm. I went down and mowed last weekend. I’d like to write something dramatic about it all. However, this has been a rather boring summer. Edit: I deleted a list of the highlights of my summer, because … Continue reading →
I looked back and found my first mention of Ed’s Red clear back in the first month of this weblog. Rude, Rusty Surprises in your Smokepole. Since then, I’ve gone through many pints of the stuff. I whipped up a batch a couple weeks ago. Much like I was doing … Continue reading →
It was about ten years ago I wrote a series of articles on buying deer rifle for Deer & Deer Hunting. Of them, the one on cheap deer rifles has stayed one of my most popular. It dawned on me the other day that the topic needed to be revisited. … Continue reading →
I spent Saturday reading in John Barsness’s book, The Big Book of Gun Gack. You have probably read the author, he’s published in a heck of a lot of magazines, and he’s got a slew of good books on Amazon.com. This one is a collection of articles about a select … Continue reading →
Now that everyone is home safe a-bed, I thought I would go through the season and give you all my impressions of why it went so well, and what worked and what did not. Overall, this was the most spectacular deer camp we’ve had. Everyone got their buck. Everyone got … Continue reading →
The Kentucky Early Primitive Weapons Season 2017 is in the can. No deer were harmed in the making of this weekend.However, we all seemed to have a good time. I left straight from work and missed the traffic. Both Angus and SuperCore left a bit later on Friday night and … Continue reading →
Strap in, guys. This is a long and bumpy ride down the bunny hole of rifle loony-ism. It all started back in 2013. SuperCore was cleaning out his gun safes and I picked up his K98 Mauser in 8X57. He’d been having trouble getting it to shoot. He’d taken it … Continue reading →
In a last minute turn-around the Indiana legislature has changed its mind on the use of centerfire rifle on public land: Indiana deer and waterfowl hunters need to be aware of two important changes in the print version of the 2017-2018 Hunting & Trapping Guide. Due to recent legislation passed … Continue reading →
I know. This is about 5 years too late. However, a good fellow at 24hourcampfire.com saw I was asking about the Thompson Center Strike and offered me a NIB LHR Redeption at a remarkable discount. It was too good of an offer to let it go by. Just so you … Continue reading →
There has been a change in what constitutes a legal deer rifle in Ohio. From the ODNR Website: Straight-walled cartridge rifles in the following calibers: New this year! All straight-walled cartridge calibers from a minimum of .357 to a maximum of .50. Shotguns and straight-walled cartridge rifles can be loaded … Continue reading →
I only write this to mark the passing of KY’s Early Muzzleloader Season. It’s over; that is about all you need to know. All in all, it was not as lousy as it could have been. It was not the hottest, although we had temperatures in the mid-80’s. It was … Continue reading →
This past weekend, I got my Hawken checked out for deer season. Not much had changed from the previous year. However, I had a wee bit of Hodgdon Triple-7 left over from 2013. The previous week, I had used it in my .54 Hawken and found that it had gotten … Continue reading →
From the 24HourCampfire: jr1968 Offline Member  Loc: Bolivar,NY I know each White tail is different. Under 200 yard shot trough the lungs, what cal. and bullet grain has been the shortest recovery? Just wondering. Thanks, jr1968. Dear jr1968: One of the nice things about whitetails is that they … Continue reading →
I just watched the countdown timer cross the 8-week mark. It’s now exactly 2 months to the start of Kentucky’s Modern Weapons Season. I stayed home from the farm overnight. It was going to be hot and muggy and thunderstorms have been moving through since sundown Friday. I’ve been busy … Continue reading →
Back when I was wringing out the new Ruger American Predator in .223 REM, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. There was a lot of wind, and my groups were getting spread out horizontally a good 4 inches while the vertical difference was less than an inch. I looked into it, … Continue reading →
Now that Indiana has decided to take the great leap ahead and embraced modern centerfire rifles for deer, the question is going to be what rifle to buy. I have had a lot of thoughts on that very idea over the years. Dig around on this weblog, starting with the … Continue reading →
