I made it down on Thursday– it’s great to be retired–and was able to spend Friday morning at the bench without interruption getting two projects figured out.

25-06 Mauser

When my buddy, O.T., was about to pass, he let me buy his 25-06 custom Mauser. It is an easy rifle to shoot, but the terminal performance on whitetails has not been what I would expect. Now that I’ve got all the time in the world, I figured I would bear down and get this rifle sorted out. I compared 117 grain Hornady RN and SP vs. 100-grain Speer Hot Cor and 100-grain Prvi Partisan. The Speer Hot Core ended up providing the best group I’ve ever had with this rifle: under an inch in a 5 shot group. This rifle is definitely getting put back on the active list for this coming deer season.

The second best group was the 117-grain Hornady RN. I’ve used the SPs before but did not like the terminal performance. Everything I shot with it ran a considerable distance.

‘Bess

After the 25-06 was settled, I went about testing roundball loads in the Brown Bess using the SkyChief Method only substituting a ball for shot.

see: Skychief’s Shot Load Link

I had a hurried time of it last year and did manage to get a few balls down the barrel before KY’s Early Muzzleloader Season. I simply duplicated the historical paper cartridge load with .69 cal balls. That was all I could manage with Chemo taking a big chuck out of last year’s range time. This spring, I was more worried about getting ready for Turkey Season. Sadly, the birds did not cooperate. Now here it is, Memorial Day Weekend, and I’m finally getting back out to test round ball loads.

I have .715 ball cast from a mold I purchased from BallMoulds.com. Blacksmith went to Friendship last summer and snagged me some .735 balls as well. This is for deer hunting, so I’m throwing History out the window for the time being. I just want an accurate load that will put the animal down.

.735 loading the SkyChief way definitely gave me spot-on accuracy. I’m going to order a mold from BallMoulds.com this week. I still don’t understand why SkyChief works so well. Having that big oil-laden wad in front of the ball is pretty counterintuitive. It does work.

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Five Decades in a Tent

After I was done with all my shooting chores, I set out for the family’s campground on the back end of the property. I had along with me, my trusted Eureka Timberline 4-man, and while I was setting it up, I realized I had now camped in 5 different decades in this tent. That is a bit of an achievement for both me and the tent. I used to pride myself in being able to pitch it in pitch dark in under 10 minutes. In broad noonday light, it took over a half-hour and most of that was trying getting up and down.

Around Five, I declared happy hour and built a fire and had Scotch, and listened to Keith Jarrett. Team Moose, Angus, and MooseWoman and her Spawn all finally showed up and after a flurry of activity, we got down to some serious camping that lasted until Monday at midday. A good time was had by all.

The only dark patch came the first night when Moose lost air in both of his air mattresses, leaving himself and Moosewoman on the ground. I offered up my double foam mattress and went back to the house to sleep. By then I had proved my point about still being able to camp.

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