Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Two old pharts

Early in our hunt we ran across a couple of interesting hunters. One was a gunsmith and the other swaged his own bullets with Corbin dies. The gunsmith had a sporterized Spanish Mauser converted to 7mm Rem Mag, while the bullet maker had a sporterized Mexican Mauser converted to 450 Marlin. The 7mmRM had a beautiful custom stock. The 450 Marlin was more, uh, utilitarian - it had a fairly plain stock and you couldn't see the barrel because it was wrapped in black friction tape. Both were wearing scopes made decades ago.

The bullet maker showed me some of the .45" bullets he had made. One was made with a copper tubing jacket and a FN lead core. Another had a jacket made of a .45ACP case with the case headstamp and extraction groove still in place. That one was a spitzer with a gold-colored lead core and what looked like a steel BB in the nose. Another was a hollowpoint. All were quite well done.

Both were hunting in well-worn blue denim pants and jackets. I joked with the gunsmith's son that his Dad's jacket was probably 50 years old. His response was no, that his Dad had purchased it back in the 70's. More like 40 years.

Neither of the two guys were walking very fast or far, but they did make it back to the same clearing we spent two afternoons watching.

The gunsmith was 77 years old, the bullet maker was 88.