Maven's Day at the Range with "Helga"

[Maven]

All, I hadn't really given the 6.5 Kurtz a fair test in my "as issued" Swedish Mau. before. What testing I did do, however, was impressive enough to make me want to try the 6.5 Kurtz again. The load was my usual charge of 15gr. WC 820 (thrown with a Lyman pistol powder measure) in annealed, neck sized (Lee collet die) and M-die'd. (I know you're not supposed to need the M-die with collet dies, but the 6.5 x 55mm one that I have isn't so forgiving.) Primers were Win. LR. The CB's were sized to .267" nose first and then nose up (GC added), but were unweighed and unsorted by cavity. I also used Lyman Super Moly lube, mostly because it was handy, i.e., in the lube sizer. Since it was windy and the 100yd. berm was already deeply shadowed, I set up my targets at 50yd. where it was nice and sunny. My initial shots were OK, but I didn't pay enough attention to the wind or how I held the rifle and so was "rewarded" with too much dispersion. Having learned my lesson, I was about to fire my last 13 rounds at a clean target when I happened to look down range (95yd. from my bench) and was a bit surprised to see a 140lb. black bear ambling across the line of fire. Bears in New York? some of you are thinking. I live upstate in a rural area and black bears just love what people have to offer (BBQ's, garbage cans, etc.: sort of a supermarket for them!). Anyway, with cornfields and apple trees not far from the range, bears are present, but not aggressive. It was the 2nd one I've seen on the range and the 5th I've seen in the county.

Back to the range: I put 12 of my last 13 shots into 1 3/16" x 1" with a 13th opening the group to 1 1/2" x 1". The 6.5 Kurtz is proving to be a very accurate bullet!

[StarMetal]

Paul,

First off good shooting. Second, you had me worried there for a second, I thought you were going to say "...and put two slugs in the bear......".. :veryconfu

Joe

[Maven]

Joe, Not to worry as I immediately engaged the safety and then sat back to watch him mosey along...away from me!

[StarMetal]

Paul,

Yeah, they are awesome to watch. Lot different, I think, then watching a deer. TN is pretty well polluted with black bear. From reading about the two most densely populated states, I believe they overlooked TN. Some real brutes here too. Like I mentioned before they shot a 410 pounder about 150 yards from my driveway. That same year in two neighboring townd they took a 615 and a 627. Those are nice size bears.

My wife is scared to death of them. We make sure not to have anything laying or thrown around outside that they could eat. From talking to the locals here I decided not to hunt them. The opinions were about 10 to 1 in not liking the taste of the meat and they said they are doggone stinky animals too. Anymore I don't think it's cool to kill a majestic animal. You won't ever see a griz head or rug on my floor. To me that's wrong to kill anything for a trophy.

Joe

[Oldfeller]

Joe, what were you thinking?

Maven had just told us he wasn't sighted in yet for them longer distances -- give him a few minutes to get comfortable with that there new skinny bullet. THEN he might be tempted to stick one into ol' Mr. Bruin's ear pocket.

<g>

Oldfeller

[DOUBLEJK]

Maven it musta been a day for wildlife today....
We were washing a coal handling belt at werk thats 23' underground but we had left the big doors open up on top for a little breeze as it was hot n muggy down there...
Anyway a buck mule deer fawn still in spots took a high dive off the ledge just inside the door and hit that rubber conveyor with a thud n bounced off onto the cement floor...
Just layed there while I shut off my hose and as I leaned over ta check him out he jumped bout 3' over my leaned over head n crashed into the steel beam holding the tension pulley...
Well I hollered fer reinforcements n 2 co-workers come runnin' n we finally got the little guy cornered with no more bumpin' around....got ahold a him n nothin' was busted just scraped up a bit n scared bad...went plump limp in my arms like he was a possum...
I carried him up top n about 200yds. away from the buildin' n set him on the ground...he jumped up n looked around a bit then baby stotted away....hope he finds his Ma soon enuff...
The deer are purty much captive on our plant site as we have a 6' chain link fence around the whole 2300 acres n lotsa cover fer em...they seem to do right well as we've had the fence fer 27 years now and they are pretty tame...

[Buckshot]

...............I'm a heathen! I sure wouldn't mind having a bearskin rug (long as it wasn't stinky :-)).

Nice shooting Maven. As a matter of fact for the Burrito festivities manana I have a 50 round box of 6.5x55 loaded up with the Kurtz over 10.0grs of Unique. Should do well (I hope) in this M96. I'd shot some of'em with the same load in another M96 I had and sold a couple months ago.

These were some of the bunch I'd lube-sized up to begin testing for velocity and then had a brain fart and loaded those in brass for the M38. Smart move on my part (sarcasm here). So I figured I'd use the balance of'em for offhand stuff.

..............Buckshot