hunting season is almost on us

[The Nyack Kid]

Bear season starts on september 15th here in montana . im ready for hunting season . I've got a few good loads for the 1886 45-70 that uses lead boolits . i plan on using three of them this year for hunting . im going to use a 475 gr FN NEI mold #346 on top of 45 grs of IMR 3031 for 1620fps . i will us both air cooled and head treated boolits with the same load . i will also use a heat treated 460 gr wfn Mountain mold custom on top of 47 gr IMR 3031 @1710 fps. i use the same sight setting for all three loads . the wider nosed custom boolit hits at the same point of impact at 150 yds . i will not hesitate to use these out to 200 yds on elk or 150 yds on deer or bear. i was wondering who all is planning on using lead boolits for hunting this year and if the would share that information ( and hopefully results) with us .

[waksupi]

Nyack, I'll be shooting cast, although I'll be starting out bow hunting for elk the first couple weeks, at least. Didn't even buy a bear tag yet, got a couple days to decide. I'll use my .358 winchester again this year for rifle season.
Have you hunted up around Challenger cabin early season for elk? Seems like I heard the road was closed into there, earlier this year. Only time I've really been in that area, was when I was headed on into the Bob on the Morrision trail.

[The Nyack Kid]

i honestly havn't done any fall hunting hunting up challenge creek area in years ( did some sping bear huntig up there this year ) the road was open all the way back to morrison creek train head . the road that you are talking about being closed is probably the twenty-five mile creek road . it starts next to the cabins , it has been gated for years ( along with dang near every other Forest Sircus road in the state) been planning on taking horses back up the 25 mile creek road but i dont have the time to do a proper job of that . probably the worst thing with logging is that the best time of the year to be logging ,is in the fall . smack dab in the mildle of huntin season i would love to do the back country early rifle hunt but see above about the time problem . BTW what boolit are you go to use ?

[waksupi]

Kid, I'll be using the Bator Heavy custom, no doubt. 277 gr. when ready to shoot. If I have time, I may work up something with the Bator Lite, 237 gr, ready to go. I do have one load that shoots well at 1950 fps, that is really all I need for elk.
It's been some time since I penetrated that country very far. After I had my back broke swamping on a deck, long horse trips are not something I look forward to. I wouldn't mind going in a ways though and calling for bulls. I've seen more elk sign near the trail head, than I ever did deep inside. I suppose they wander out of the park more.
Last time I was on the Morrison trail, the holes were so deep, the horses were nearly jumping from one to the next, and the stirrups were dragging the ground. Absolutely miserable, and our knees were so bad, we could hardly stand up when we got off the horses. There was absolutely no safe place to stop for over 17 miles. I've hunted Dolly Varden Creek, up by Pentagon divide, in about 28 miles, and still go into Spotted Bear and the Great Bear Wilderness early in the season.
The only decent part of the trail was right near Schaffer Meadows, by the ranger cabin.
Heck, you're a strong young logger, I should call you to pack meat for me!

[BruceB]

One of the rifles going to Alberta with me in late October will be zeroed for a cast-boolit load. That is my .416 Rigby #1 Ruger, and the load will be one of my newly-developed high-temp softpoints, which weigh 365 grains. Velocity will be around 2100-2200 fps, mostly in the interests of a reasonable trajectory for shooting to 200 yards or LESS...preferably a good bit less. Zero will be at 150 yards, I think.

The hunt is for both elk and their BIG white-tails, and right now, I'm inclined to hunt with the .338 and 225-grain TSX Barnes bullets until I fill either one of the tags, and then switch to the .416. However, circumstances have a way of dictating what we do, so I'll try to keep an open mind on the subject.

I'm also taking along a family-heirloom 1903 Springfield, beautifully sporterized by my Grandfather for one of my departed uncles back in the late '40s or early '50s. It's set up with a Williams Foolproof aperture sight and an old post-reticle K2.5 glass. It will be zeroed at 200 yards with Nosler 180 Partitions.

I could happily and confidently hunt with any one of these rifles for this hunt. Why take three? Because I CAN!

[carpetman]

BruceB--You most likely know this already--That 30-06 with 180's sighted in at 200 will be about 200 if you sight it in at 25 yards. Sight at 25 and check--somewhere 200-to about 215 should be back on.

[waksupi]

Bruce, Al tells me you guys have been discussing the horse meat subject. Talking to my friends from Alberta today, they could think of lots of horse feed lots, and not many for beef. I've warned Al to beware of the burgers and sausages! Watch what you feed him!

[Trailblazer]

Deer season is one week old here in southern Kalifornia. In fact I got one Friday morning and he went in the freezer yesterday. Not killed with a cast bullet however. I hope I will be forgiven and will try harder in the future.

[9.3X62AL]

Nice work, Trailblazer! You A-zone guys REALLY hunt in the heat.

[Trailblazer]

Thanks, Al! We got lucky on the weather. It was in the low 90's so it wasn't as hot as it usually is. My wife still has a tag and I am sending for a second "A" tag. We are going back out Labor day weekend. I hope the weather is as nice then!

[9.3X62AL]

Yeah, not likely to cool off much before the D-14 season gets under way, either. I might have the first and last weekends of the D-14 season this year, "straddling" the Alberta trip. I live about 15 minutes from some pretty decent deer country. I'll likely use the 10mm and dive into the brush in a couple places where the deer concentrate when the Santana winds blow hunters' scent all over the mountainsides. I've tagged more than one muley using that tactic when the winds "blow the buckbrush flat".

[RugerFan]

After bow season I will be primarily be carrying a CVA Optima Pro .50 cal inline ML and a scoped .41 mag Ruger Super Blackhawk Bisley Hunter. Out of the ML I will be firing 255 gn Lyman .429 CBs in sabots (at least until my new mold arrives). 100 grains of 777 will push those.

The .41 mag will be loaded with 240 gn keith CBs (Mountain Molds) ahead of 19.4 grains of IMR 4227 (although I've been having good luck with H110 and 2400 also). I may switch to my 255 gn WFNs if I get the itch.

Will do my part to anchor whitetails and hogs up to 100 yards. Work promises to cut my season short and send me out of state for a while, but I'll harvest what I can.

[Trailblazer]

Al, are you going to Alberta with BruceB? Should be a fun trip!

I didn't know the 10mm was a deer cartridge. I guess you are looking at shooting very short ranges!

[BruceB]

BruceB--You most likely know this already--That 30-06 with 180's sighted in at 200 will be about 200 if you sight it in at 25 yards. Sight at 25 and check--somewhere 200-to about 215 should be back on.

Thanks for the input. The '06 is by far my most-used hunting caliber over a long (and somewhat thin) hunting career. For the vast majority of North American game, it is a wonderful choice.

Back around 1970 or so, I traded some handloading gear to a friend for a Model 700 left-hand '06, and it has been my companion on MANY hunts and adventures ("adventures" is what we get when things go wrong). This now-well-worn 700 still shoots very nicely, including ammo with cast boolits. It's been used to kill well over 100 big-game animals, including moose, black bear and (mostly) Barren Ground caribou. The total goes up rather fast when one is allowed to legally kill ten caribou per year in some years, and at least five caribou in most other years, plus all the other critters available in the North. I have NEVER had a single animal get out of sight, once fired upon with this rifle. A lot of that is because of the type of country, but it still speaks well for the caliber....and using GOOD bullets, which were mostly Nosler Partitions. I don't recall firing even a single factory-loaded cartridge through this rifle

Anyway, I'm pretty familiar with the trajectory of the jolly ol' round. It's pretty spry for a near-century of existence; this Remington delivers an HONEST chronographed 2750 fps with 200-grain Partitions, at least in the cooler climes of the far North.

For cast-bullet hunting, for my PERSONAL preference I'd start with the .338 for deer-size animals and work up as the animal size increases. 220-grain CBs at 2000-2100 are a fair duplicate of the original .30 Krag 220-grain load as well as the .303 British 215s, and they were both very effective. I've used the .303/215 as well as .303/180 on moose, and was pleased with the results.

I'd like to have a .338 bullet which drops from the mould at around 300 grains, but I reckon that will have to be a special-order design. ANY cast load I use on game will have to demonstrate some expansion capability before it sees the hunting field, but my recent experiments with cast softpoints are very encouraging in that regard. This is why the .416 will be making the trek to Alberta. Non-expanding bullets are far less effective in killing cleanly than are expanding bullets which still retain most of their weight.

Rather than adapt my smaller-caliber rifles to cast-bullet hunting, I'll gladly err to the larger and heavier side with more bullet weight and frontal area to do the job, just like Great-Granddad did in the blackpowder days. If I was restricted to my .30-or-smaller rifles, I don't believe I'd bother with CBs for hunting. That's just my way of looking at it, of course.

I must like the '06; there are four of them taking up space at my place these days. However, running a mental inventory of my gunrack, there is a HUGE, even GAPING hole in the line-up!!!!! I have NO RIFLES in the yawning caliber gulf between .338 and .416! Something has gotta be done about this....hmmm...9.3? .35 Whelen? .375 H&H? Maybe TWO rifles would be better to fill a vacancy this big?

I see trouble ahead.

[JDL]

BruceB,
IMHO, the .358 Winchester would fit perfectly in your empty space between .338 and .416, especially for cast boolits. It is small enough that powders from 3031 and slower can usually come close to filling w/o having to resort to case fillers. I find it produces good accuracy with boolits from 150 grain SWC's to 250 grain deer loads. Molds are fairly easy to find and are priced reasonable. Cases can be had for next to nothing by simply necking up .308's.

The golden bullets offer the following:
180's @ 2780 fps
200's @ 2600 fps,
225's @ 2500 fps,
250's @ 2350 fps.
All this in a small package. Try one, I think you'll like it! -JDL

[carpetman]

BruceB---If you do try the 25 yard sight in,let me know how close they are at 200. You'll be a little high at 100 but from muzzle to probably 275 with dead on hold you should have the good Deputy a gutting,skinning and packing. You are very smooth to get him to do all that and all you have to do is feed him a little horsemeat. He probably wont whine too much---unless you overfeed him.

[waksupi]

We're getting off too slow on the hunting season. I just see on the local news, a griz got two tourist at Glacier Park today.

[The Nyack Kid]

boy with the cooler weather and a little rain my trigger finger got to itchen some thing nasty .seen some decent whitetail bucks that have been hanging around the job . too bad we finised the Forest Sevice job today and wont be up there working during hunting season . (dear LOVE logging. they come for miles around to eat tree moss ) the beauty of the 45-70 is that a person can use a soft expanding lead boolet or a hard flat nose with equily fine resolts .however my back up rifle is a pre-64 winny 70 300 h&h that i can not get to shoot worse that 1.5 moa with 200gr barnes TSKs . i wont use this rifle unless i get desperate . i like to hunt in the thick and nasty stuff the 1886 is a dream come true for me. ah waksupi last time i helped pack a elk out of the deep woods we lost almost 60% of the meat and a horse ( we did eat really good though )

[waksupi]

Kid, I think I understand about getting a small portion of the meat out. I've killed them in years past, where a salt shaker, and a fork, would have been more useful than a pack frame.
The three longest elk extractions that come to mind.
One, on Firefighter Mountain across from Great Northern Mountain, on the South Fork. The elk was killed withing 300 yards of a trail, in the pucker brush on a steep mountain side. Took three days to get that one out. I'll never hunt Firefighter again. Too nasty terrain, and way too damn many grizzly bears.
One in the Swan Valley, on the backside of the Mission Mountains. Three days. Heavy down fall, and rock cliffs.
One, on Border Peak, in the Thompson River drainage. Three days, for four of us with pack frames and chainsaws in deep snow, jack straw timber, and cold, cold weather.
I DO think I feel my neck swelling a bit....

[The Nyack Kid]

well we finnished the timber sale , now ive got all the time in the world , but not the money . guess i will do some runnin around scouting for game ,that way i will have run every thing out of the country by opening day .come to thing of it , i hate tag soup . maybe i will melt some wheel weights down or cast boolits or tinker with loads or or or .