Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters SUCKY GUN-RAGS

Hekc, if I had all that information, I wouldn't bother going out and hunting--I'd build an elk!

"No mentions of ballistic and environmental data accounted for when shooting. What about PDA software, and windmeters, humidity, elevation, station pressure, and cosine angle indicators."

If I had all that data, I wouldn't write an article about elk shooting, I'd write a book about global warming, expose Al Gore for the fraud that he is, and get his Nobel prize taken away.

Aw, c'mon guys, give ol' elkcreek a break. He took a course once upon a time from Shawn Carlock (google it) and knows all about elk hunting. You see an elk about a half-mile away, then you unpack your spotting scope, rangefinder, slope instrument, weather instrument, data book with your load, and your rangecards or your PDA running ballistic software.

THEN you get out your voodoo dolls of both Elmer Keith and Jack O'Connor and stab them with pins to stop them from spinning in their graves (which would upset the gravitational constants plugged into the PDA). Eventually you take a shot. It's called elk hunting.

--Bob

Great One

One fine snowy day when I was guiding deer and elk hunters in Wyoming my client and I ran into a couple of dudes in the timber, and stopped for a chat. One of them was carrying some variety of .300 magnum and had it topped with a Leatherwood sniper scope. He insisted we all look through it, and extolled its virtues and capabilities ad nauseum.

Finally, I aked him what he would do if a bull appeared on the furthest ridge we could see through the snow. "Well," he said, "I'd place these circles on the elk's body until one matched its chest depth, then I'd twirl this dial..." At which point I started laughing. Appearing slightly offended, he snapped, "What would you do?"

"Shoot the bugger!" I replied. "He would only be about 200 yards away."

Point being -- gadgets can be handy, but nothing trumps hunting experience and shooting skill. Period, end of story. Way too much emphasis is given to gadgets on TV shows and in the magazines -- because that's what the majority of the target demographic demands. If you want "better" hunting stories -- subscribe to magazines providing what you want -- advertisers adn editors will get the picture quickly if, for example, Grey's Sporting Journal suddenly tops a million subscribers. Rifle and Handloader are doing well because there is a demographic that wants a higher level of insight, and generally we get it. Successful Hunter is kind of a new breed, a mix of techno-weenie fixes and Me-and-Joe-went-to-Africa stories, so the subscriber jury is still out, I think. I like it, fwiw.

Mr. Haviland -- I suspect most of us might have a clue as to who the fool is... .

JB -- I remember some of the letters, phone calls, and grocery store aisle confrontations I had when I wrote a weekly hunting and shooting column for a daily newspaper. That was in the middle years of the '80's -- I shudder to think how much "input" my readers would be able to give me now, were I still so engaged. You have my sincerest respect for being so affable and tolerant .

DN

I have started not paying attention to certain types of complaint or negative posts.
For me the various gun magazines will always atract me. I grew up in a small town and we did not have the extra cash to buy me a magazine. It do not matter because their was two places that filled my quest for this written word that would allow me to see beyond this small Texas town. The barber shop was one. The barber shop had two benches, one along each wall that had a scattering of outdoor mags laying in them. I was in no hurry for my turn in the chair (although I did like the warm shaving cream on the back of my neck) so I could have longer to read. The other was a Safeway grocery store accross the street from church. We would buy groceries on Sunday and I would bolt straight to the magazine rack.
I have enjoyed this compulsion all my life. I may never have seen some of the wonderful places I have seen without knowing of how to make a proper dream. Maybe sometimes I think we all need to sit on the bench in the barber shop and chill a little while we are taking our turn in line and remember what it was like before we knew what the word marketing ment.

Elkcreek
Don't let these guys give you a hard time. Here in Montana one of the biggest reasons people don't get their elk is from incorrectly estimating station pressure when shooting at an elk. It was the main reason the elk season here had to be extended two weeks this year.
Also, speaking from personal experience, a couple of years ago, I missed an elk at about 60 yards and at first blamed it on my own excitement. I did kill the elk (lucky shot) and while glancing at my PDA as I waited for someone to show me how to gut it, I noticed I had misread the cosine angle!!!
GPS has been a god send for hunting in timber for elk, because I can get at a certain elevation and just hunt along that contour. Then, when I jump an elk in heavy timber, all I have to calculate is station pressure, cosine angle and humidity before I shoot. I often hunt with my iron sighted 32 Special, so after I do my calculations, I just take a stone and drive the wedge under the buckhorn sight to the correct position, and Viola! I am ready to shoot.
Elkhorn, you should cut John Haviland and John Barsness a little slack, though. They spend so much time hunting here in Montana and throughout the world that they don't have the time to watch hunting videos and talk to someone's brother in law who's neighbor's stepson's parole officer's garbage collector who REALLY knows all about long range shootiong and elk hunting.
By the way, thanks for refering to John Haviland as a fool. That little tidbit in your post tipped me off that you were a classy knowledgeable shooter and hunter that I should pay attention to. Many posters probably do not fully appreciate your efforts to run off the gunwriters so we can let the real experts (you can take a bow here) dispense some REAL knowledge.
Royce

Nicely done... .

DN

ps...what the flick is a cosine? I thought that was the naive relative you conned into helping you get a car loan...?

I think you're right, but to be more specific, isn't it the naive son or daughter of your aunt or uncle?

muledeer
Ya see, this is why you'll never be a gun expert. If you had taken high school geometry, you'd know that cosine is something along the side of the ankle. And if the cosine is squared, you got tangenitis.

OK...that clears it up. Must be one of them Creedmore positions...

DN

posted by Mule Deer:
Of course, what is also going on here is the repetition of a pattern.

Over six months or a year, new Campfire members sign on. Eventually they notice that there's a forum called "Ask the Gun Writers." They see this as a great opportunity to complain about gun magazines, not knowing that this pattern has already repeated itself several times over since the forum was created.

I suspect many of them think this is a sophisticated thing to do, since it implies that they (the complainers) know an awful lot about guns, more than any bunch of gun writers could ever know. And maybe they're right!

Two, the very nature of Internet chat rooms tends toward bitch sessions and brag-fests. This is apparently the nature of mostly anonymous mass "communication."

I am always very grateful when the majority of Campfire members come to the rescue when this pattern repeats itself yet again. One of the things that distinguishes this site from most others is the civil (and even jovial) exchange of ideas, without the acid often seen elsewhere. Personally, I joined up here to find out what my fellow rifle loonies were thinking, and it has been a great privilege to be accepted in the community.
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JB

Sir,
I have to say that as the original poster of this thread, I take umberage with your statement, and in fact consider it a bit of an affront. Why do I post here or come here? Ain't because I figure y'all just can't do without my wisdom. I do it to LEARN, and in fact am lookign for YOUR wisdom. My knowledge is limited to hunting in the Southeast. That is so very unlike hunting is other areas, that in an honest effort to LEARN other viewpoints/techniques, and perhaps apply them to my hunting, I come here. As to guns, I have been so very blessed to get to own and shoot both some things that would make many of y'all's mouths water, and to also own and use some items that are quite odd or unique, and also gotten to spend quite a few years in the retail end of things, even getting to meet a few great writers/experimenters of the 70's (that so-called "golden Era" waxed poetic by complainers), so while I do have a very solid foundation of firearms knowledge, I am no expert and again, this site in particular has been a valued resource in my efforts to further my hobby.
Thus to label me as a whiner or thinking that I started this thread as and extension of my ego is just flat wrong. In fact, I have defended Wolfe publications in other threads - in fact, the inspiration for this thread was that I read another thread that was talking about Wolfe publications going downhill. In there I took the time to state, as I do now, that if they did not like it, they were free to change it by taking the time to write and submit some articles them selves. In fact, the only specific items that I complaind about, IIRC without researching this, was that there are those magazines out there that "review" a firearm without ever firing it, or at least not enough to make a proper review, and the one time I can recall this ocurring at Rifle, the guy who did it had the cajones to say tht he did, and also to let all know whey it was done that way. Wolfe going downhill? No, don't think so. Changing, as inevitably as all things do, but such is life, and I like the quality of most of the articles. Heck, I even gleaned loading info for a 71/84 Mauser I have - how often you going to get that in other publications???
Now maybe I am just getting my fanny on my shoulders when I read that above, because I tend to be a bit blunt and alot defensive, so if I offended then I apoligize, but the intent as I started this thread was not to bash, especailly the writer(s) of a publication whose periodicals I covet and hold right beside the gun cabinet itself.
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Bruce B.

Do German rangefinders work in the US? The Germans talk about something called meters and I have only used yards so far. Has anybody used meters to shoot a big game animal? Did you have positive results.
Also do metric cartridges have higher or lower pressures when used in the states?

German rangefinders work just fine anywhere - but the number they display is the distance to Paris.

However, when hunting south of the equator you must account for bullets spinning in the opposite direction than when north of the equator.

At least that's what I told my PH when I missed a "gimme" shot on a blesbok .

DN

when below the equator are uphill shots really uphill?

I think thats just the Western model, the Eastern model gives you the distance to Moscow.

Tim

And, youse guys MUST include the effect of coriolis forces in the region, and they vary from mountain to valley with the opposite effects below the equator also. To accomplish a shot, one must carry his high school algebra book along on the hunt, with the page turned over at the cosine.

Forget the cosine-what's a PDA?

Give me a hint-is it closer to a GPS or a BLT?