So, would you use your varmint rifle for DEER hunting or recommend anyone else do so? How might it help you be more successful tagging a deer if you were able to leave it in your blind and not need to actually carry it to and fro?
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I hunt deer out here (San Diego) in a spot and stalk method. With my .308 sporter. Lots of hiking up and down hills and cayons. I would not even think of using a varmiter or bull barrel for this type of hunting. But, the one time I hunted whitetails from a blind in Texas, I would have used it. It was a short walk to the blind. So I guess my answer is...it depends on how far I'm walking with it. Also...it won't make me more successful. Its gonna be just a one shot deal. Barrels not gonna heat up. Im not gonna make some insanely long shot with it. For my ability, under 300 yards.
Wino
^^^yep, my thoughts exactly.
I personally like a smaller profile for hunting in 24-26 inch range, If the barrel is shorter I like the profile a little heavier. It's more of a balance issue to me and if I can get the balance I want without packing a lot of extra weight, it makes things more enjoyable.
Same boat here! lol I thought about this some more and I realized that for me I feel more confident with a heavy stick, verse a light thin rig. The first year I hunted deer with my 10fp heavy barrel, I will admit that my arms hurt really bad after and during the hunt's. After that first year I have evolved and adapted to heavy guns and don't even notice the weight. However most of my hunting is still hunting usually covering 3-6 miles a day very slowly, my knee's have been giving out. At night at home I can't even walk up stairs at times I have to crawl. Terrible pain at the sides of the joint's. But after a goodnight's sleep the next day they are 100%. I haven't talked to a doctor yet, but I assume it's just from stretching the ligament's too much. I hunt like and Indian placing my foot down gently feeling for twigs or leave covered branches before I put my weight down.
Dan you are only beginning to realize whats happening to your body. A knee replacment will change lots of things with the way you hunt/shoot. And 2 knee replacments will have you off the ground completly. Sit behind a set of big tripod mounted glasses for a day and observe the indian stalkers and how deer react to them. It might, have an affect on your perception of what percentage of success is skill, and how much can be atributed (in some way) to luck.
LOL:cool:
I respectfully disagree. I have a sporter barrel in 30-06 that it is a submoa rifle, clover leaf, AFTER the second shot. Shot two is always about an inch to the left and lower. So I keep that rifle for short ranges (150 yrds max). For the rest of the hunts in the power line I take my varmint barrel with me and I have never had any more problems with it that I had walking with any other rifle. If the weight is so detrimental you probably need to get some more exercise or take vitamins... I am in no way fit and I have no problem doing my long walks with it. I do carry it on my shoulder while I hold the barrel with my hand as If I were carrying a stick. I do so much walking this way with it that my favorite jacket is wearing out on that exact spot.
So its safe to assume then its your favorite gun for shootin between those d**ed wires? lol
Sometimes I do wonder if there is some crazy soul that had at any time shot one of them high power lines....
Havent heard any incidents involving guns, and lots of it is done in the area we hunt. But the reserve jet jockeys fly those valleys we hunt also.
Sometime you can hear them coming and when they sail by below the ridgetops it sends a tingle down your spine. About 20 years back one of those
guys decided it might be fun to fly under those wires which were maybe 100' above the large stream below them. He didnt quite get it right and tore off his canopy and pulled the wires down with the tail.
He did luckily make it back about 150 or so air miles to the Willow Grove PA naval air station. Id bet his keys were impounded for awhile.
It did create quite a stir in the area closing the only road down for a time till repairs were made.
double post
Well, every gun is different, of course, but light sporter barrels SHOULD shoot a 1-2 shots with the same point of impact from a cold bore. So, like you, I suppose I would not choose to hunt with a sporter weight barrel if I could not rely on the second shot to be as accurate as the first.
Mine generally heat up pretty fast after that, however, and start to wander quite a bit., just as you say, Nandy. My A-bolt '06 will walk right off the paper at 100 yards, each shot going 1 inch further right after 3 shots. But that one is the worst of the bunch and the FIRST and SECOND shot certainly shoots the same POI from a cold bore. In my case, I don't figure I need more than 1 or 2 shots. The terrain and cover I hunt would NEVER allow me to shoot more than 2x in rapid succession anyhow.
What's the point of those big orange balls? Aircraft? Birds?
I think aircraft....
I think the power company trims the weeds and trees that grow in certain areas too under the power lines,, I'f never seen them doing it or how it is accomplished though.
I know a fella who saw a buck beside one of the large poles so he found it in the scope followed it down placed his finger on the trigger and promptly shot the large concrete pole LOL, The buck didnt run so he continued using the pole as a marker with his finger off the trigger this time and shot the buck.
I asked him if there were two on the ground and he told me what had happened. I have never let him live it down.
I also know a fish farmer that shot at a pest sitting on the wire that took electricity to his fingerling tanks that are located under a shed and pump fed. He managed to cleanly clip the wire at roughly 300 yards with a .223. He was thoroughly embarrassed and didn't know what happened to the wire by the time the linemen got there.
Bet he couldn't do it again if he wanted to. :)
On the steep side hills they cant use machinery they just use chain saws. Where they can they use a long boom device with a rotating blade.
Lots of the power lines in PA are being utilized as food plots also but only where they can be maintained. We have also experienced gating
them or blocking access with boulders. Same thing is happening on most other back dirt roads also.
FOOD plots, huh?
SO that's what you call 'em down there. Around here they just call 'em what they are. POT plots! :)
Lot's of pot in my area,, it is illegal here though. I don't care about the weed,, it's the heroin and meth that are very prevailant in the area that has me worried.
I always had a theory that if a farmer grew a couple fields of pot and mixed it into the cows diet,, they would eat much more and produce record amounts of milk,, just refine out the THC at the milk plant and use it towards medical marijuana.