Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is it good sense or just middle age?

Normally, about this time of year I used to start waiting for the catalogs to arrive. I don't get that many catalogs anymore, and there is not much in the ones I do get that I want or need.

Normally, about June my eye would drift to that bare spot in the gun rack and I would comment to myself that this that or the other thing needed to be acquired prior to deer season. Maybe you couldn't see the gap, but I could.

Now that all the major manufacturers have their catalogs online, there's no great thrill when one arrives in the mail. Now that I have acquired what I have sworn to bemy last 30-06, some of the thrill is gone. There just is not a reason to be getting all worked up. Maybe hormones would work; I've already tried vitamins, and they had no effect except changing the color of my urine.

So here I go into my 60th year seriously wondering what I need to acquire next.

The Ruger Hawkeye in 2014 really put me in a bind. By this past year's Opener, I had realized I was holding the one rifle that really and truly satisfied my deer rifle lust. I've now lobbed .25 to .35 cal at Whitetails with several stops on the way over 4 decades. This 30-06 has killed them as dead as I could ever want. There will be other rifles and other chamberings, but there probably won't be better in my life. The one animal on my bucket list that might require something more is a Moose, and I probably won't try for one of those for another 4 years. I say that knowing that the 35 Whelen and the 30-06 would both to a great job-- who am I kidding. See? I can't even fake it anymore.

I am slowly acquiring a large collection of 308 WIN brass. However, I have only one rifle in that chambering and it does me well enough. My Opening Day goto rifle is a Savage 99. However, I have far more brass than I ever will need. Perhaps a 308 WIN bolt action, but why a 308 when I already have a 30-06? Why buy a rifle to fit brass? See? I'm starting to ask questions. Something is wrong/

I could go big. I have thought about a bunch of options. A nice 44 Mag carbine would be nice. So would something bigger. I have toyed with the idea of acquiring a 45-70, but why should I go to all that work to lob something so big at a whitetail when the current complement does such a good job with far less lead involved? I have even downsized my 35 Whelen it now shoots cast lead 200 grainers.

Guys, I know what the problem is; I'm probably not a complete rifle looney. If I was, then I would not be asking these existential questions. If I was a true armed loon, I would be satisfied that the act of acquisition alone was sufficient reason. I need help.

Case in point: I was at my LGS on Sunday. It was my first trip in since March. I went to be tempted, but stock was low and there was nothing their that could raise my blood pressure. I did spy a sporterized Swedish Mauser that had been sitting since March with a $500 price tag. I thought about asking if they'd take $450 for it, and I'm pretty sure they would. I held back, however. New dies? New bullets? I'd better take the temperature on brass availability before committing. I walked out with my hands empty. A decade ago, I would have been perseverating for a week and then kicking myself when it got sold. Now? I didn't even lose sleep. I did something similar with a 7X57 Mauser last summer.

Something must be wrong.

Nothing wrong. We tend to get wiser as we grow older.

As for catalogs, the only one I miss from the Olden Days is the Herter's catalog. As for the rest, I'm glad they stopped clogging my life.

The one caliber I recommend for an old fart with an itch to scratch is the .22 Hornet. Good therapy lies in that little case.

I used to love the Herter's catalog. I also enjoyed Cabelas in the 80's before they whacked their SKU's down to the bare minimum. I also dug Gander Mountain back in the mid-90's before they went bust.

.22 Hornet? I've thought of that at times, but I look at my mountains of 223 brass and think: .223+Unique+ cast lead might be a good first step.

Could be there's a lot of exploration with reduced loads waiting for you in a lot of stuff you already own. Opens up new vistas and makes old humdrum stuff you're tired of exciting all over again!

I'm with you!
I've bought and sold probably 100 guns through the years....I turned 60 in March.
I still absolutely love side by side shotguns, rifles, and to a lesser extent handguns.
I mostly bought rifles for the chambering. Reloading has been a great joy for me and my hunger for wanting to "test" various cartridges I've read about, kept my safe as full as my pocketbook would allow.
There are still many rifles I long for just cause....I never owned/shot a Savage 99 for example....I know right!
But, thinking about retirement, probably moving somewhere where I CANNOT shoot in my backyard, as I do now, and eventually (long time I hope) dying, I step back and realize I have enough right now to test and last me the rest of my life, even after I sell off some, which I am planning on. For hunting, I could keep one of my three 30/06's and it would serve me well for any of my future hunts.
My son will gladly take whatever I have left, when I kick the bucket, but just won't appreciate the history and reloading aspect like I do.
I agree a 22 Hornet is good for the sole....sold mine, but kept the 218Bee
I still peruse gun shows and gunbroker, guns international, but keep reminding myself of what I actually own and can still play with, hunt with.
It's hell getting old (speaking for myself) and suddenly thinking I need to stop accumulating "stuff" and start thinning things out.
Maybe I'll change my mind, but for now thats my thoughts.
I'm still a rifle looney!

Y'all bring me to a question:

What does 22 Hornet do that 22 Rem can't?

The reason I ask this is I've got a tack-driving 223 Rem Ruger American Predator that the gentle readers of this section of the Campfire put me onto a little more than a year ago. I've really enjoyed myself with it.

I've got 22 LR's and 223 Rems. Is there really any meaningful gap in function?

It's hard to verbalize. I've owned about half of the .22CF's under the sun, or so it seems, and I keep coming back to the Hornet. Were it me, I would try a Hornet and see for myself- the frugality of the round and its quietness while filling the niche between .22RF and .223 are but a couple reasons. That is admittedly a moot point if one has the capability to download the .223 to Hornet levels of course.

I no longer feel the need to whack varmints at 2-400 yards. The occasional groundhog in the middle of a pasture is fair game for the Hornet, but truth be told mine gets more of a workout in the squirrel woods than anywhere else. With cast bullets at 1800-1900 fps or so it extends my range on squirrels farther than I'm comfy doing with a .22LR.

Going smaller is one way for an older guy (who is experiencing some angst about where his looniness should lead) to assuage his newfound good sense and feed his quest for something new at the same time. (Spoken as a 64 year old who is going through much the same introspection. )

We get old too soon and smart too late.

At 76 , I no longer drool over the new catalogs . I still have my 1958 Herters catalog, peruse it maybe once a year or so just for fun.

I have been messing with .22 Hornet for many years, one of my favorites, I have plenty of other centerfire .22' s but always seem to grab the Hornet first, something about an almost 100 year old cartridge still scoring the prairie dogs that make it fun for me. Lil Gun powder was the best thing ever to happen to the Hornet, try it and you'll throw rocks at all other powders.

I like at...


Jerry

Some of you boys are overthinking this stuff too much.

At the reload bench, I can make a lot of different calibers fill a lot of different 'gaps' I might perceive,
when in reality, its all in our heads

I think most of the guys on the Campfire have too many guns and not enough opportunity to use them
all.

The one exception is Gee Dubya... Glenn is one of the few guys on the planet, that I know who has
way many guns yet has the opportunities to use them all on a regular basis out on his lease...

On the flip side, I got to sit down at a campfire once with a now deceased gunsmith, with some notable
fame, Chick Donnely... Chick was one of the last of the guys that trained under P.O. Ackley.

I asked Chick, as a man that could have any firearm caliber he wanted for hunting Elk, deer etc, what were his favorite
calibers and choices. His response was from a man of long ago simpler times...

He pulled out his Remington 721.... and as his story went " I bought this rifle at the PX in Japan, when I was shipping
home after the Korean War ended in 1953....this is pretty much the only rifle I've used for all of my hunting.... as a gunsmith
I can't tell ya how many barrels have been on this old 721.. but I can tell ya this.. every darn one of them was a 30/06..."

From coyotes to Big Bears. Gotta be some wisdom long ago forgotten somewhere in that answer...

Myself, I find I shoot a boat load of 223, and the 22.250 when I think I need a 223 Magnum...for distance.

The 243s and 260s also see a lot of trigger time... come deer season, I tend to reach for the 6mm Rem ( on a Long Action)
or the 7 x 57 Featherweight... I loan rifles to kids I take out hunting with me, friends of my son or some of our Boy Scouts from
our troop.

I really don't lust for something new every year and seem to prefer to rebarrel something than sell it and buy something new, any time I think I need something different.

I do enjoy pulling out some of the old military stuff, that has come my way... the 8mm Mauser, the 30/40 Krag, the old Enfield.
each usually down loaded as all I am doing is killing targets at the range or out in the woods... 80- to 100 year old rifles.
Those are a joy to shoot... that along with the old 30/30....nostalgia I gather...

But there is nothing new I really need in my world... just more opportunity like old Gee Dub has...

if the family won the lottery, the wife would go on a world tour.. myself, I'd go hunting all over the planet....minus Africa..
a place I have zero desire to go to...

Well said. But the older I get the less I think about killing stuff and the more I think about punching holes in paper and dream of killing stuff. Big game cartridges have less appeal now than they did 10 and more years ago. Now it's about doing what I do with style and grace, not with a mad gleam in my eye. Just me.

Mister Seafire: I have a buddy whose been deer hunting since the early 70's with the same BAR in 308 WIN since Nixon's first term, and could not conceive of shooting anything else. Me? I started off that way and got progressively more experimental, egged on by both my compatriots here and my throng of adoring fans. Over time, I began to realize that my summers were getting more complex, because I had all these different rifles and loads to maintain. I started pairing down about 3 years ago and left a few projects hanging.

The Ruger Hawkeye in 30-06 was the breaking point for me back in 2014. I found I finally had achieved the ultimate no-muss no-fuss, no messy-belts-or-pins kind of deer rifle for which I had been searching. My first trial load shot a 1 inch group. The scope could image deer in deep woods 10 minutes before legal hunting. I've had projects since, but after that kind of success it kind of puts a crimp in everything else.

My wants and desires ebb and flow like the tide. I go through phases where I get bored and like to experiment with things. I go through other phases where I get tired of trying to juggle all the experiments and start paring down my collection. I find these "paring down" times are good, because I come back to what really works, what I really use. It helps to focus and drag the kernels of truth out from my opinions. Truth be known I could be happy with a 30-06 for killing deer, some type of 6.5 for shooting steel at distance, and a 243 for whacking coyotes. Plus a 223 for just playing around.

Or I could shoot a 25-06 for everything around here and be done.

But where is the fun in that?

Of course though, I have many more rifles than that lying around hither and yon. Somehow it seems they just appear at times. Just like that 257 Roberts that my dad's friend gave me the other day. Unexpected, unasked for, yet there it is. A fine cartridge, in a VZ-24 action, yet it doesn't do anything 3 or 4 others in the safe wouldn't do just as well. It may be a couple years before I get around to it.

I don't look at catalogs much for guns. Mostly I look at bullets and reloading gear. Check prices of components, that sort of thing. Then I throw them in the trash. I buy what I can at the LGS, or failing that search and order on the internet.

I have never had much of a claim to good sense when it came to guns. And at 48 years old I am new to the middle aged thing as well. As such my opinions are sure to be suspect and should be treated accordingly.

It's more that just 'some' people who overthink things here. If you were to line up every modern cartridge and eliminate 80% of them, reloading would easily fill the gaps. What that means is, there really aren't any gaps, just a misconception of need. Some of the blame for this falls squarely in the laps of ad men.

But there is more. Sluggishness and lack of knowledge. There are people here who, despite considering themselves to be 'rifle loonies', have never bothered to learn much about the firearms, cartridges and equipment they own. One of the biggest is how to load up or down as required, or changing bullet types - cast, copper, cup and core. That said, fewer people these days want to reload. They don't have the time, or don't see a need. That's a shame. Are they really loonies then?

Still, for the people who do not reload, and have a legitimate reason for not doing so, a 30-06 will do 95% of their work. These folks will find a number of different factory loads available to suit most of their needs.

Then there are the people that own magnum rifles, thinking that they will use them enough to justify the cost, but they just sit in their gun safes, slowly rusting away. That cost often includes the huge cost of factory ammunition.



I agree, and many have fallen under the spell of the ad men. Hunters and shooters are targeted, like every consumer, to buy. They cannot do without a Super Short or Compact Magnum, copper or bonded bullets. Everyone knows your odds of success increase substantially using these more expensive bullets or powerful cartridges. Premium bullets have their place, but hunters and shooters should put more thought into their purchases. Do not accept as gospel, the latest Cabelas or Barnes ad.



Chick was a smart man. Perhaps a few of the people that read this thread will clue in. This would be the perfect opportunity to quote,

"Beware the man who only has one gun. He probably knows how to use it!".

But I won't.

A post like this is a golden opportunity to remind everyone that they should learn more about the equipment in their gun room. Pick one thing, read about it, and move on to the next topic.

I have always respected "Seafire's" wisdom in applying common sense to rifle looneyism, For the mixed terrain of woods and open fields I rifle hunt a 6.5 creedmore would handle all of it. I don't own a 6.5 creed but hope to by the November Deer season. The available 6.5 bullet weights gives me a cartridge similar to the .243, a 257 Bob, a .270 and the 7-08. I want to simplify my rifle shooting life to one rifle that covers many tasks.

My other rifles are for my son to inherit and shoot long after I'm gone. I have loaded enough ammo for each rifle that my son can hunt and shoot each rifle for many many years

Doc

At 65+, I still lust after rifles and cartridges, but I've gotten more selective. Something really has to strike my interest, and even then, I don't impulse by any more. (Except the day after the last election, when I celebrated with an $80 bottle of Scotch and a T3 lite in 6.5x55. Dies and brass were ordered, a 2-7 Leupold was found in the classifieds here, and all is well. Have I shot it yet? No, but it's ready to roll. Will it do anything the 6.5 CMs or the 6.5x257AI can't do, or the three 7x57s, or the .25/06, or the .270s, or the Bobs? No, but it's here, and I'm happy knowing that. Looneyism doesn't necessarily involve rational thought, but that doesn't mean such thought can't be applied periodically.

Truer words never spoken. That's the reason why I've held onto the rattle and headdress all these years. Very little of this is rational. It was not particularly rational when I started acquiring rifles, and it sure isn't now.

all I have to say is its WAY to LATE in the year to contemplate a new rifle for this years season... thats done in my household during the current season and gives one a year bascially to work the kinks out and get it right. After all finding this or that and playing with it can take some time.

OTOH I did scope a gun once and grab a load and shoot it, middle of season and have never changed the load or zero since then, but that was a fluke.

Well guys I'm in the boat with some of you. I'm 67 now and over the years I managed (somehow) to get 'nearly' every rifle/handgun and cartridge I wanted. I too have more than I can hunt in 2 yrs in a row. There were a couple of Rifles I sure would like to have had - a Kleingunther, & J P Saur & Sohn. BUT for too many years they were above my pay grade.

That doesn't mean I'm getting rid of any. My son and G son have already inherited a few. What I've found is serenity in contentment.

Sure there are a few things I would not mind having but none of them would accomplish anything that I can't already ,so there's no need to spend more money. I'm very happy, tickled even, to own the arsenal I have and enjoy hunting them on a rotational basis. I have 2 magnum rifles in cartridges that I don't get to hunt as much as I have in the past. Both of them are no longer available EXCEPT pre owned so I still enjoy having them.

I don't share the same interest as some of you - NO criticism - in shooting cast bullets. It just doesn't interest me. We are NOT all alike and I think that is a good thing.

I'm concentrating on more hunting opportunities with what I have.

Good Luck Guys

Jerry

This really is like sitting around a campfire, late at night with the flames dying down; waxing nostalgic and philosophical.