Fall of '19 I'm getting ready the night before we're to begin deer hunting. I start stuffing ammo into the belly of my Kimber Montana and somehow my handloads are too long to fit the magazine. I've hunted with the rifle before, I shot it plenty before the trip, and now, for some still unknown reason, my ammo is too long. It's the only time in ~30yrs of deer hunting I've "needed" my backup, but I was sure happy to have a backup just as capable as the primary.
Sometime when I was early in college dad and I were deer hunting on a day that started spitting freezing rain. Dad got out of his vehicle to go push a small bit of cover. His M70 Fwt was slung over his shoulder and before he could step off of the gravel he slipped on the icy road. The rifle's heel hit the ground 1st then dad piled up on top of it. The stock broke in half @ the rear tang screw. We hunted with one rifle between us (plus the 223 M7 he always kept handy for coyotes) for the rest of the afternoon. Back @ grandma's house that evening dad swapped to his backup and it was right then and there that I decided that whenever space and logistics allowed, I'd have a spare primary hunting firearm close by.
