Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Poll: Do you hunt with a round in the chamber?

Art,

I agree with Stubby,where I hunt sound is the problem. It is hard enough to get your safety off without spooking at big whitetail at 30 steps.

I have to agree with Dober about the trends that I see in the thread. People who tend to hunt very rough country on the move tend to hunt with an empty chamber. People who tend to hunt really spooky critters in thick cover while sittin on stand or stalking very slow and quiet tend to have a round chambered.

I will say that I do not know a serious hunter here who is suceesful on mature bucks who does not hunt with a round chambered. You are welcome to come and try it though,maybe you can teach me something.


Britt

I think, too, that how plentiful/available game is plays into things. Guys in areas with lots of elk, liberal seasons, multiple tags... tend to say things like "People should just let the raghorns grow up!" or "If I miss an opportunity, so what? there's always tomorrow". Guys hunting elk in areas where not a lot of animals get killed might naturally feel differently.

We all know that there's a LOT of game in Alaska. Things are different up there. Us lower-48 guys save up for years to spend a week up there. It could be rightly called a hunter's paradise, could it not? So, when we have (for instance) Steelhead demonstrating that he can hunt empty by jacking all the shells out of his rifle with a buck watching, what I think he is not understanding is that people hunt blacktail on the west side of Oregon, for example, for FIVE WEEKS and the overall success rate of the tag hovers around 12%... it's extremely possible to hunt a bunch of days in the season and never see a deer, much less a buck, much less a buck in shootable circumstances. We are not exactly swimming in the things; you can't just walk out on a dare and jack the shells out of your rifle in front of the nearest buck! So to handicap oneself by requiring the noise and movement of chambering a round is not sensible in my opinion. Especially since, as I and 70% of the Campfire contend, it is perfectly possible to hunt safely with a round in the chamber.

Anyway, I do think the ease of hunting and/or availability of the quarry factors into things... just following up on Dobers idea here.

-jeff

If only that were a fact, Jack.

There is a lot of game in AK because of the sheer size of the state. Game density is fairly low throughout the state. Sure, there are some locally high-density populations, but not many.

Didn't realize that. Sure seems like just about any guy I've ever known who's gone hunting up there, be it for bear, deer, moose, caribou, whatever.... comes back with meat. In fact make that every guy I know who's gone up there, can't think of a single failure to score. Not saying they don't exist but the guys I've talked to sure loved it...

(I talk to them because I really want to get up there and hunt someday!!)

Sorry you guys have it so bad up there! Jeez... without much game, what's the point? Just the joys of cold and lack o' women? :-)

-jeff

That's pretty much all there is.

Seriously, were your friends guided? That helps DSMF success rate! Sometimes a guy will encounter a gimmee, but mostly it's just hard work.

So what's next, Convincing people to go fishing, but not to throw thier lines in until they see a fish. Still hunting through timber for elk without around in the chamber amounts to about the saame thing. How absurd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. This discussion sounds like some snti hunter/gun guy that is paranoid aboiut getting shot and won't even touch agun

Well, they aren't all friends and I don't know all the details. And it's a relatively small sampling. Don't want to take this too far.

My buddy Jerry in elk camp has been up 3 times. They killed lots of critters. Not trophies (you should see his manky little caribou!) but anyway, "getting the meat home" has been an "issue" every time they've gone up...

Oh- forgot- they don't go guided. They floated a river once, and were flown in once, and I don't remember the other time.

Anyway, I'm sure it's very rough country and guys hunt hard but c'mon... you guys kill a lot of game up there. Are there really Alaskans who want to kill critter XXX who go out and don't kill it, pretty much? Sure doesn't seem like if from down here from the pictures of piles of deer heads and guys passing on multiple bears and so on.

Hey, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Just exploring Dober's idea a little.

-jeff

Saddlesore... in case you don't know, I'm with you on that...

Right guys? :-)

-jeff

Britt
I agree fully most hunt hot. However, where I disagree is the concept it cannot be done with a cold chamber. I have hunted with an empty chamber in quite a few states including NY where most go at least a year or two between deer. I have used a pump gun and a double there very successfully for deer. The only time I have failed to kill a deer there was when none were seen at all.

Once the obvious fact it is safer sinks in and is accepted the success rates will not drop appreciably and it will become common practice. Will not happen anytime soon, but it is coming.
art

"Once the obvious fact it is safer sinks in and is accepted the success rates will not drop appreciably and it will become common practice. Will not happen anytime soon, but it is coming.
art"

Well, I dunno that I would take THAT from the discussion. Seems like most people are pretty vehemenant about hunting with one in the pipe, if that's how they hunt...

I think it's probably marginally "safer", though I still do have my issues with the idea of combining buck fever with a manipulation of a firearm action like that, but I don't think that's a major issue, just something that... well, I'm imagining a 16-year-old hunter all excited and cranking the balky bolt of a rifle, and it's not a safe-seeming thing to imagine, let's put it that way. I'd rather see that kid just popping off the safety in order to shoot to be honest.

That aside, the question becomes whether hunting hot can be considered "unsafe"- as opposed to just slightly less safe. There were upsetting blanket statements made by the cold crowd implying that we (hot guys) shouldn't even be in the woods. Hopefully, as things have simmered down, that kind of rhetoric has too.

There's an interesting thread on Risk Management going on:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...owflat/Number/1795021/page/1#Post1795021

That attempts to address that...

-jeff

My problem with a hot chamber is less with the probability of a negligent discharge as it is with the potentially high consequence that accompanies it.

Imagine this discussion between two old friends-
BigStick: "I drive a .223AI on each hip, and one between the teeth when I'm hunting, and I never know which one is loaded. Laffin..."

WyoWhisper: "I once had a horse with a replacement hip"

BigStick:"Whimper, you don't know fark about $hit!"


...or something like that

ironbender says: "My problem with a hot chamber is less with the probability of a negligent discharge as it is with the potentially high consequence that accompanies it."


Sure; I get that.

Obviously, the riskiest thing we all do, other than getting out of bed in the morning, is driving a car. It's also where we present the highest risk to others. I can't back that up with statistics but it's gotta be so, right?

I bet just about everyone on this thread speeds a little from time to time or in other ways, drives in a fashion that is not the absolutely safest they could drive. You show me someone driving, and I'll show you someone that could be driving safer. That's a reasonable statement, right?

However, we all accept that we are both endangering ourselves and endangering others every day when we get in our machines. In fact, I bet the majority of us drive big vehicles (I do) that are both not the safest for us, statistically (in crash tests and so on) and will absolutely crush a small car if we hit them or they hit us. Right?

In the same way, hunting can be seen as an assessment of risky behavior. If two guys are driving in seperate cars to a hunting area, and one goes 5 mph faster than the other, then the fast one hunts empty and the slow one hunts hot, who has presented a greater overall danger to themselves and society in general on that day?

Anyway, in my assessment, while it MIGHT be marginally safer to hunt empty-chamber, given a functioning firearm and good gun habits, the difference is vanishly small as far as your chance, in general, of hurting another person or yourself in life. And believe me, and Tom, and Ruraldoc, or not... but I would be greatly handicapped by needed to chamber a round- enough so that in my assessment of the risks and rewards, it's simply not worth it to hunt empty. I don't see the "value" there.

Then again, I will go 70 mph on the freeway, instead of 65. I guess I am willing to push it a little, looked at that way. 'Course... most of us are! And just for the record, I have not had a moving violation since 1989!

(I did do some damn fool things with cars and motorcycles in my wild youth though... gotta admit.)

-jeff

Wow. I just read this whole thing. I'm more than confused. I carry a 7600 pump, in NY. I mostly go in wicked thick areas, and walking over rolling hills I "jump"deer a LOT. So I do get that close. Everyone that I ever learned from goes hot.

I had my safety checked for absolute soundness (within it's physical limits) by a gunsmith that is familiar with 7600's. I did this AFTER have the trigger tuned.

There is no such fantasy as cycling this pump around here without giving up a shot.

BUT, I actually have always walked with the breech broken open and the safety on. I'm walking through rolling hills and heavy cover at this point. If I have to navigate tough terrain, or cross streams, I've always unloaded entirely.

At any rate, I always felt that I was doing pretty good. If I fell, it wouldn't be on all those boulder formations, and down 50' like some have alluded to. Likely, it would be flat on my face, and that just hasn't happened to me. Regardless, the forearm of the pump is not locked and therefore (as I understand) the trigger is useless.

When I get a shot, the hand holding the forearm only has to push forward, while my trigger hand moves the safety before touching trigger. Being left-handed, I actually have to reach around thte trigger guard to get to the safety.

If I'm doing something wrong, I'd like to know because I've been moving about with this rifle feeling that I had stuff pretty well worked out. Running completely cold with a pump rifle seems like a really difficult task around here.

I don't have a vote. I just want to find out if I'm less than safe.

Can't say I have ever hunted waterfowl, grouse, pheasants, partridge or deer with a cold chamber. (intentionally )Would not call it hunting until the guns are loaded, anymore than I would call it fishing until a line has been put in the water.

And when I have myself situated in the archery stand there is an arrow nocked. Though I do not draw the bow until a shot is eminent.

I shot an elk this year at 5 yds in thick aspen whips about 10 ft high. I don't think anyone hunting without one in the chmaber would have anything except tag soup. For those who say you can' walk up on an elk, I don't think know enough about stalking

If you find a coastal blacktail in Oregon that will wait for you to work the action on a lever rifle DON'T EAT HIM!

Clearly there's something wrong with him. You don't want to eat a critter that is obviously diseased with something that can make you that stupid.

Jeff, for your pole. I carry hot.

ironbender, you need to relocate! Here's a quote from Calvin on "13 months" thread over on the the Alaska forum:

"Wed and Thursday I took a guy out who needed to fill the freezer. He shot 2 big forks and a 3 point. Bullets were recovered from all 3. He uses factory soft points and one of them was with a fusion. "

THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!

-jeff

Kodiak deer are one of the high density critters I mentioned.

We have lots of brown bears on the KP, and extremely limited opportunities to thin them. Brownies put the hurt on moose and caribou calves. There are areas thick with wolves - can you say "tacos"? There are areas thick with blackies - with the resultant depletion of moose calf recruitment.

Areas with deer are a different management paradigm than moose and caribou.