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

Why - because you're tired of it? It is obvious that others are not. May I suggest you simply not click the link?

I can't. Steelhead says he can. YMMV

It'd be out of the question for me... not even debateable.

YMMV.

-jeff

Jeff-
Your best post ever!

Change your preferences to more posts per page. I have "only" 13 pages of this!

Have had no problems cycling a round into a Savage 99 and busting a deer. Can't comment on 75 yards though, the two I did it with last year were at 40 and 20 yards.

Well, see? It's not the same, is it? ..grins!

Steelhead, how many deer tags can you get, out of curiousity? And what general region do you hunt?

Alaska overall is a 65% tag for deer, or it was in 2003. I've never hunted a 65% tag. I've hunted a 45% doe tag, and it was an absolute gimmee for anyone with any skill willing to hunt a little.

I submit that you are hunting a high-percentage tag in Hunting Paradise and it's a little disingenious to extrapolate that to us downtrodden masses hunting a low-percentage, single buck tag.

If all my hunting was like the 45% tag I mentioned... heck.. I might hunt empty-chamber just to add a little challenge to things.

-jeff

Following your math then about 4 out 10 deer should also run when I chamber a round or wave blue, it ain't so.

I have said it before, it has worked for me on whitetail in at least 6 states also.

What is the percentage of Alaskan's killing 4x4's? I figure that should change the equation.

Dude, NONE of the deer are running away when I chamber a round.

Shot this whitetail at 25 yards. When he came into view and started working a scrape I chambered a round.

I guess shooting wolves in the rain forest of SE Alaska is a LOW percentage deal. Yep, no round in the chamber when I saw this bitch.

That rifle was a long time ago.

rb

Noticed the wood and lack of turrets did ya........

If you say so.

Thinking of the two deer I was able to whack in Oregon this last year, the little bedded buck saw me and started to get up just as I shot him. I'm glad I didn't have to chamber for him. The doe was trotting, and was a mature old doe that I had to do a triple-take on to make sure it wasn't a buck. She had that old-deer chest protrusion and everything; big deer.

Anyway either of them would have been unneccesarily more difficult if I'd had to chamber. The little buck might have turned into a running shot. The doe, I would not have been able to calmly triple-check the lack of horns, then shoot her in the last available shooting lane, if I'd been cranking a round into the chamber...

That's just me. This isn't worth fighting about (again... and again... and again...) It's just one of those things I guess.

Have a good one!

-jeff

The bear are pretty spooky and quick to run but I some how managed to get one shoved in the tube on this on at 70 yards (did I mention he was looking directly at me)...

This should snap ya. Had to dig the gun out of my pack, hold the rod under my pit and chamber a round...



I realize that ain't fair since there is probably a 67.12457% on halibut over 50 pounds.

Remember JO, just cuzz you can't do it don't mean it can't be done and done well.

I do know that; it's one of life's lessons everyone who's anyone learns.

Please remember, however, that I never said that people shouldn't hunt cold chamber. Those sorts of negative pronouncements have only come from the cold-chamber crowd, and a lot of this thread was generated by the hot-carry crowd basically defending their right to hunt. Instead, I have steadfastly maintained that a good gun handler can hunt with a hot chamber, and that there are good reasons, for some of us it seems, to do so. Maybe one of those good reasons is that I'm not the hunter someone else is- fair enough. But, since I AM a good gun handler and responsible adult, I will cheerfully hunt hot to maximize my chances of tagging an Oregon blacktail buck.

-jeff

Hunting cold trumps every reason you have given for hunting hot. So a deer gets away, big deal.

Don�t forget that some members of the �carry hot� crowd were making ridiculous statements to the effect that if you choose to carry cold you shouldn�t be in the field.

Overall there are times when it is appropriate to carry hot and even more times when the difference between a cold or a hot chamber is moot with regard to putting game on the ground. With deference to the terrain others hunt, I can honestly say I don�t think there is an animal I�ve killed that would have lived it I had had a cold chamber (and in fact I often did).

There is one thing a hot chamber can never be, no matter how good and conscientious the hunter � it can never be as safe as a cold chamber when it comes to accidental or negligent shootings. That doesn�t make cold the right way or even the best way for all circumstances, it�s just a statement of fact.

When hunting with others around I prefer cold chambers all around.