Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters How much is enough

Desertranger: I often Hunt Spring Black Bear, Fall Black Bear, Elk, Deer and Antelope each year.
I take along the same two knives on all Hunts:

#1: Buck Model 317 - this is a 2 bladed large folding knife with blades 4 1/8" and 4" long
#2: Buck Model 422 - this is a BuckLite single blade folding knife with a 3 1/8" blade

I also carry along on all Hunts a "Knapp Saw" for quartering and opening the pelvis/rib cages.
The Buck Model 317 has a wider and a thinner blade and the "thin" blade is EXCELLENT for releasing and removing the animals "vent/lower intestine".
I mean, the best, knife I have ever used for this - and I have used a LOT of them.
This model Buck is no longer made but I highly recommend them.
With its two blades I virtually never have to stop and sharpen when cleaning, skinning, prepping (caping) game afield!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Its nice to be prepared. For quite a few years i have hunted mostly by sitting.... with my possibles in a small back pack. A pound or two more or less is no issue.

I load the rifle. put one loose cartridge in a pants pocket alone where it cannot rattle. Another rifle load + 2 or 3 more go into an old plastic foam block. Friction fit. nothing loose.

Got the foam block back in the 60's. Paid $1. My college roomies declared it a POS. Have had that block with me hunting in Minnesota [a lot], Montana, and Arkansas. Have never seen another like it.

Dont need a long blade to clean a deer. 35 years ago my sister/bro-in-law gave me a Buck folding knife....the smaller version. Blade about 3.5 inches long. Been with me hunting/fishing a lot of places a lot of trips.

Recently i started using an old knife my father gave me. Closed it looks like just a knife handle with metal caps in the ends. A small latch allows the inside metal parts to be drawn out. the steel blade is inside folded closed in a brass frame. The frame is stamped 'Eskilstuna, Sweden 1873'. After the blade is unfolded the frame is pushed back thru the handle and locks in place. The blade is about 4 inches long. The steel is soft, so it dulls easily, but its easy to sharpen. The knife works very well.

My father, the WWII Army vet, insisted that we be prepared.

Some times here in Alaska we set up camp for a couple weeks and are many miles from our vehicles and travel is by ATV or boat or plane or your hind legs. I have been fortunate and never had to shoot a critter to pieces, usually one shot from the .338 or 30-06 does it.

I don't travel with a loaded chamber. My 30-06 holds 5 down and the custom .338 holds 4 down. I usually have extra ammo in the tent or ATV in case a scope craps out, but have back up iron sights zeroed for my loads and QD rings.

I have three hunting coats and couple of vests and my talented wife has sewn cartridge loops on the right side of the coats and vests providing easy access to the rounds. I also have good quality leather ammo slides that go on the belt.

I usually don't have a hand gun if carrying a rifle. If I do carry a hand gun the revolver has a extra speed loader and the semi auto has a spare magazine. May not need the ammo, but any one who has been running semi auto pistols knows they can malfunction or a magazine can fail.

I carry a Fiddleback Forge Bushfinger on my belt and a Buck Open Season boning knife in my pack. Both feature the excellent S35VN steel. I also have a Blade Tech folder made from S30VN steel and a Havlon with replaceable blades. If on the ATV I have a Ryobi 18 volt reciprocating saw.

The moose I shoot are not getting bigger, but to me and my near 73 year old wife they seem heavier every year and are lots of work.

Half a roll of toilet paper should be adequate for a day's hunt.

If I am packing livestock,a 4-5--6 " sheath is on my belt. Out hunting,there are usually 3 knives in my pack. A Havalon , a 3 "skinning knife, and 4-5 inch sheath of some make.Sometimes a fillet knife too. I use one knife when cutting hair and it does not get used for meat cutting. In my saddle bag is a full size K-bar and a small axe.Those are there for cutting poles or whatever chore I need that does not involve game.
My rifle has full magazine and I carry an elastic ammo keeper in my pack that holds ten rounds.If I am packed back in,there is another box of ammo in my saddlebags.

A lot of the spare is for emergencies, not for shooting game.Bad things can happen in the back country when one is miles from the truck.Try making a survival camp with a 3" knife in nasty weather when you have to stay out over night.

Sorry, but what do you do with your front legs while using your hind legs?

Guess I'm more of a minimalist than some others. If I'm hunting deer-sized game generally use the Victorinox Camper Swiss Army Knife that's in my pocket every day of the year. It has a 3" "drop-point" blade, along with a small saw that works very well to split the pelvis, if you saw just to one side of the center. Have generally been a pelvis-splitter rather than a "corer," and slice a deer open from the rear to the throat like a trout--unless, of course, I want the cape. Have been timed doing this in two minutes more than once on an "average" deer, or pronghorn.)

If the game's larger than deer I generally use a larger version of the same knife, which is a lock-back, though for a while used a Browning lock-back folder that also had a good saw blade. Lost it when my wife killed a cow elk just before dark about a decade ago.

Generally carry at least three rounds, depending on how many animals I might shoot in a day. Don't mind buttstock "buddies," especially on single-shots where more than one kind of ammo might come in handy. Did one safari with a Ruger No. 1 .375 H&H, with three different handloads for various-sized game--though all would have worked fine on the Cape buffalo I killed, along with several plains-game animals.

Right now I'm hunting deer in Montana, and have tags that allow me to kill either sex of mule deer or whitetail--or black bear or elk, any of which I might see on any given day. So I carry enough rounds to do that, plus a few extra.

Being an old mechanized infantryman, my philosophy has long been that it is "better to have and not need than to need and not have". It is pretty hard to get more than a couple of miles away from a road or a farm house in eastern Nebtaska, so no need to bring the type/weight of gear that would be prudent to have while hunting in a venue with more challenging terrain and fewer signs of civilization. I keep a field dressing kit in my daypack, a gallon ziplock bag that currently consists of a Sagan Saw, one of Dale Howe's Medium Drop Point Hunters, some paper towels, a pair of rubber kitchen gloves, and a horse blanket pin to pin the punched tag inside of the deer's ear. My EDC pocket knife is a Buck 442 that has unzipped quite a few animals, but I have a pile of fixed blades knives and having bought them, feel a need ot actually use them.

Two or three rifle cartridges, if i'ts a deer hunt. One hundred .22 long rifle cartridges, if it's squirrels and plinking day. An Opinel No. 7 for every purpose that a 10" cook's knife isn't better.

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I carry a Buck 110 folder and 10 rounds of ammo total

"Sorry, but what do you do with your front legs while using your hind legs?"

Well, sidepass, I just put gloves on me front legs and use them as hands like those two legged humans do. Don't ever under estimate them, hands come in handy!

A high percentage of what I kill leaves the field in a backpack so I like a 5” or 6” forschner boning knife with a semi-flex blade, similar to what I would use if breaking one down in my shop.

I like to carry a mag full of ammo and a spare or two handy in a pocket to replace if I take a shot or two and don’t see the game fall. In my backpack I have a buttstock shell holder that I can access if we have some kind of a rodeo. I got tired of losing shells so don’t carry them much on the gun anymore.

Both the knife and the number of rounds depend on what I am setting out to do. I'll usually carry a SAK, just because they are so useful, but if I'm hunting deer or goats I might also have a knife suited to gutting - probably the larger Victorinox Hunter version of the SAK, and have a knife roll in camp.

As for ammunition, if I'm out rabbiting or spotlighting pests I might have 50 rounds. Similarly if I'm culling bigger stuff I'll usually carry more rounds than many here might want. For those times when I'm just going out to shoot a deer for the freezer I might only need one, all going to plan, but I'll have a few in reserve, just in case.

Unlike some I do like to have ammunition in an elastic cuff on the butt. It is the handiest and fastest, when I want to grab more rounds and stuff them into the rifle in a hurry. Any difference it makes to balance is only theoretical as far as I am concerned, as it has never affected my shooting. If I'm carrying more rounds than will fit the butt cuff (and magazine if I'm using a repeater),

I also like those boxes MTM makes, which hold 20 rounds and clamp onto your belt. I stuff some spare toilet paper into the lid to stop any rattling. They are slower than a butt cuff, and not nearly so amenable to reloading while quickly moving to a better position.

I'll also sometimes use stripper clips, which hold five rounds in a package which fits a pocket without them rattling. The .303 stripper clips work well with 9.3x74R, for which I don't have MTM boxes, as well as .303 and 7x57R.

One thing I never use are belts with loops. Apart from the fact that you look like Pancho Villa, and that leather ones corrode your ammo, they are also slower than a butt cuff and you'll risk scratching your stock on the case heads.

I used what a lot of people consider a picnic knife to take an elk completely apart this past week, an Opinel no.8. I used it because the handle is a bit bigger than the no.6 I carry on backpack trips (to filet Highcountry trout). Actually, the no.7 would be about perfect for taking apart elk, but I don’t own one. The no.8 has a 3.25” blade and weighs 1.7 oz’s.

I guess that works if you only figure to shoot one critter in a day. I've killed as many as four deer in one drive. Woulda been hard to do if I only had 3 cartridges.

Ask Custer how much is enough.

UH HUH !

I carry more than 'enuff' for one (1) day... then I don't have to 'get' more or 'remember' to check or get more.

Someone (?) said earlier they use a back or day pack so 1 lb is of NO consequence.


Jerry

Hopefully!

I carry a Buck 110 and magazine + 4 for the rifle. If I were out west more away from civilization and carrying more than one tag, I would adjust the ammo to a higher number.

You only need enough blade to reach a lung or jugular. Three inches is usually enough.

For the usual local deer or turkey I carry three or four rounds total. Out west an extra box. Much more for small game or birds.

I always have a loaded handgun regardless of what I'm up to.