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I've got one that makes me a little angry. It's a sported M17 I picked up for $125 at a pawn shop a few years ago with the intention of rebarreling to something interesting. Yes, I shot the donor as I needed a spare deer rifle for a friend on short notice. My all purpose M1Garand load, 46gr...

This was a great bullet that I wish they still made. Probably a casualty of the high BC craze. They perform very well on whitetail at close to medium range. Wife and I have taken a lot of deer with them in .300Sav and .308 from powder burn range to 200 yards and they've always performed...

There's one fawn in particular on my property, very distinctive on camera as he's missing half of his left ear, that I've tracked for 2 full years now. We did harvest his mother in his first year, he's since survived 2 Northern MN winters and is now a respectable 8 point buck. He looked...

You're confusing science and semi-scientific theory with shooting a rifle and shooting an elk with said rifle. You start out by saying all 3 will shoot 1" or better with a good hunting bullet at a useful velocity. But one shouldn't shoot well even though it does but you doubt the empirical...

In Minnesota it is illegal to shoot a bear with cubs. As for whitetail deer, moose and elk, the young are able to survive their first winters, and the seasons are late enough in the year that the young are no longer dependant on the mothers. I've closely studied the whitetail on my property...

Think I'll be taking the M99 out this year for a couple of my woods stands. We're either sex in MN, so I don't feel the need for optics to be sure of antlers in the thick woods. Mine is in .300, and topped with a very vintage set of NOS Marbles buckhorn open irons I found a couple years ago on...

I would consider the Norma Alaska 180 RN. My friend just this weekend took a 412lb black bear with this bullet in .300 Sav with his Rem 722. He reports sufficient terminal damage, good expansion, and a pass through with a quartering towards front shoulder hit. Should be good moose medicine...

I've run the 154 SST from a .280 Rem and was not happy at all with the terminal effects on large deer. Fragments in the meat well off of the impact vector, bloodshot, etc. I had a mature buck eat 3 of them in the chest at close range before a 4th parted his antlers. He was dead on his feet...

They are my standard for hunting deer sized game in cartridges under 3k fps. Generally fine accuracy, good BCs for a flat base, and outstanding and consistent terminal effect.

After a contractor accidentally turned off a breaker and forgot to reset it to my chest freezer, ruining 150 pounds of prime venison and beef, I installed a battery operated remote thermometer with an alarm mode if the temperature drops above 20F. It was relatively inexpensive from a culinary...

Depends on several variables. Magazine geometry, bullet profile, angle of cartridge at magazine lips (this can change with round count in the magazine), the mechanics of stripping and feeding a round from magazine. There really is no hard rule of thumb, only trial and error with dummy rounds...

Discovering a diamond in the rough is never a mistake. A good rifle is a good rifle, regardless of how it looks. Always shoot the donor, some will surprise you and become special.

My version of "break-in" has been to dig up whatever suitable "leftover" components I have laying around, put together a bunch of random loads with a safety margin, and then get a feel for how the gun shoots in it's intended role dinging away at a bunch of random junk in a gravel pit after a...

Ours tend to run a lot closer here in the brush, woods and small farms of Central MN. Truth be told, it would be a toss up between my barn gun, a .22 rimfire Norinco JW15 with CCI stingers or the various hunting 12 gauges I've had over the years as far as which I've taken the most with...

I learned most of my skills on the trapline. Reading and interpreting sign is absolutely essential for trapping furbearers, and it transfers well to big game. My initial background was learned while tagging along with a local guy who'd been trapping for some 50+ years. I swear he could look...

#1 Working on some higher accuracy loads. I want to shoot cast, and haven't ordered a large quantity of bullets yet, so I'm open to options. Loading for a new Taurus m66, 6" barrel. The initial load I tried with some Hornady 158 SWCHPs was quite accurate, loaded with 5 gr unique in .357...

https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/recreatio ... 7_bear.pdf A lot of tables and charts here. Pay attention to the last 3, which show according to computer modeling a decreasing bear population. Also look to the charts on permit availability and total harvest which showed a much higher number of...

Got word from the Conservation officer, my neighbor shot him when he came back looking for seconds of veal, so hopefully the problem is solved. He was a healthy male, I underestimated the weight by a bit, he came in just under 200, and was a suspected livestock predator 5 miles away in the...

Well, my "pet" blackie came back to the cabin again Friday evening. He was by a couple of weeks ago and a sharp shout was all that was needed to send him away. This time, it took 3 warning shots from a .357 at 25 yards, with the third nearly parting his hair. He's a younger male, about 150...

Just FYI, I do not like this bullet for big deer. I used this exact bullet for 2 years in my .280 Rem at top velocity. Got overly explosive results with questionable penetration. Failed to pass through on broadside shots with no bone contact on 200# class bucks. Penetration would be...