Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is this Loony?

Okay. It’s about 2 hours before the rain hits, and it is going to be fairly consistent until the end of KY’s Rifle Season. I’ve got 2 tags filled, a buck and a doe; that was my target. I’m sitting here trying to wrap the alternatives:

1) Embark on an extended “Not-Hunting” season of going out fully-kitted, but refusing to shoot.
2) Shoot at yet another doe and then beg friends and co-workers to help me out eating it.
3) Man up, and accept I’m done, and have been done for 3 days, and I’m just hanging around camp because I don’t want to go home.

#3 is where this is all headed. However, I don’t want to waste a drizzly morning at deer camp and not have last final winge about it all.

The reason why I’m picking this venue to do my cranking is that I find myself left in yet another conundrum. I should be feeling great:

1) I blooded a new rifle with a new chambering (The TC Compass in 7mm08), while still on my first batch of loads. The receiving deer got knocked over backwards and died on the spot.

2) The Mauser from Hell (Kar 98 in 8mm) not only dropped my buck, but I loaned out to our FNG, Remnar and he nailed his deer with it, nearly matching the camp distance record doing so.

3) I managed to go the whole season with my Ace #1 rifle, the Ruger Hawkeye in 30-06 never making it out of the case.

It is this latter triumph that catches me and causes me to write. I mean, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT OVER? I find, for me at least, the best whitetail rifle I will ever find shooting the same load I’ve been shooting for 20 seasons and . . . I leave it cased up? And feel happy about it? This is a level of rifle looneyism that I’m not quite ready to accept.

Additionally, you can add in the mixed despair/elation over losing the Ruger Model 44 to an incipient design flaw (Lordy, I loved that rifle) and having to leave the Whelenizer at the gunsmith, so he can remove a stuck round. In both cases, I’m really forlorn at not having these as options. However, I’m happy as a clam that I was able to just reach a little further back in the rack and pick replacements.

Oh, but as I stare into my navel on this dreary morning, I find the loonyism runs even deeper. I’m grousing that I never got to try out the SXS 12 GA slug gun on a deer. Think of it, I’ve been trying to find the best possible mix of whitetail lethality, and recoil for 20 years and yet I was salivating over the chance to go out with a 10 lb double-barrel and bust my shoulder with Remmie Sluggers. What kind of insanity is that? Help me here, guys!

It runs even deeper. Yes, I love my new TC Compass. However, I don’t like the cosmetics. Black Tupperware stocks give me psychosomatic hives. However, I find myself oddly attracted to this rifle in a way I cannot describe. I thought about a nice Boyd’s stock for it, but do I want a nice walnut one or some blaze camo monstrosity? Or maybe one of those AT-One jobs? Or maybe Krylon the whole thing and let it go? I’ve not even cleaned it for the first time, and already I’m planning to tear it apart.

I’m falling deeper, and I don’t know if I need to run away or mash the accelerator pedal to the floor. Is this what being a rifle looney is really like? Am I still just in the shallow end looking at deeper water? Will I drown?

You’re just getting started. Enjoy the ride!

Are you insinuating that a68 year old man buying a new270 weatherby mag with a wood stock is loony. How dare you sir. Absolutely necessary because I have never owed this caliber or a Weatherby rifle before. Edk

Actually, my feelings are quite to the contrary. It sounds pretty good, actually.

What’s loony, NOT Rifle Loony, is dragging a passel of internet goobers into your navel-gazing. Just get up in the morning and do what you feel like. Some of my best hunting decisions have been spur of the moment ones.

This is supposed to be fun, not a nail-biting inner struggle.

Funny, but isn't this all about dragging internet goobers into our inner turmoils? I mean otherwise, we'd be just writing John personal emails and being done with it. Meanwhile, John's out there. He could just be writing his articles and getting paid for it, and leaving us to stew in our own juices. I would prefer to think that we're all in this clown car together, merrily careening down the hill together.

BTW: I'm feeling much better. I got all my rifles boxed up to go home tomorrow, and I finally got a warm feeling of accomplishment. One more year of successful Cervid Serial Killing is now behind me, and I'll have a giant cooler of venison waiting for me on the way out.

This Goober says go out and shoot something. I will harvest some deer to donate to Hunters for the Hungry or Meals on Wheels. I donated a box of venison sausage and a couple of bushels of collard greens to Meals on Wheels and one person was so appreciative that she found my address and sent me Christmas cards for the next five Christmases.

I will also give sausage to my clients staff for the holidays, never a problem distributing it and we have shot up to 15 deer on a single trip with MLD permits.

I'm with Tejano, I haven't given to an organization but did give one to a neighbor a few doors down a couple years ago. Unexpected and unprepared widow with 2 teenage boys really appreciated that cooler of meat. That deer also bloodied a new rifle so it was a good day for all.

Does your state allow venison donations to feed the hungry?

Here in VA we have a statewide Hunters for the Hungry, where we can simply drop a field dressed deer off at participating processors and all the meat goes to food banks. I try to donate at least one nice sized doe a year.

It’s a great option so I can keep hunting after my freezer is full.

My decision making process on hunting goes like this: if it’s deer season snd I have a day where I can take off to go hunting, I go hunting.

Looney is buying a reloading die because it is a good deal. Then having to buy a rifle to match it so you can reload for it..

That’s just common sense.

So that's why I have more reloading dies then cartridges I've never owned.........


A guy just never knows.....

That's bad to the bone.

Just to put this whole thing in perspective; a bad day hunting is better than a good day not hunting.

I certainly haven't gone that far-- at least not yet.


BTW: A quick word on donations. I'm somewhat limited on what I can donate. We only have 200 acres to hunt, and by the time all the Shamanic Dream Team gets a buck and a doe, there is not a whole lot of deer left. I'm also a Cervid Serial Killer that is easily sated. After running my last deer to the processor, I was happy and satisfied. What gets me is having to close up Deer Camp every year. This is the party I don't want to see stop.

I've been giving my extra to folks at work. This year is going to be hard, because most everyone is getting laid off Jan 1 and they're moving the plant to Thailand.

Exactly! I bought 5 boxes of 7mm-08 because it was a good deal, AND I know, someday I will buy a 7MM-08.

Absolutely! Sitting on my shelf waiting for partners are a 3-die deluxe Redding set in 6mm Rem, 3-die RCBS in .257 Roberts AI, two .375 H&H (1 RCBS and 1 Redding), Redding .250 Savage, RCBS .300 WM, and the winner, RCBS 9.5x57 Mauser (not 9.3!).
I don't really want a .300WM, but they were such a bargain. The 9.5x57 are as new found at a flea market for $10. I think those are a couple hundred bucks from the RCBS custom shop.
I have donor actions for everything I want to make except the 250 Savage. I have two M99 .308s - should I rebarrel one?

Oh, back to the subject - of course, pull out another rifle and go hunt another deer.

Cheers,
Rex

I sure hope not. Introspection ain't a spectator sport.

OTOH, poking fun at other old farts definitely is.

Sorry to hear you’re folding the tent this early. I plan on getting out a couple days a week until the end of the year, even if I’ve got enough meat, just to be there.

Excellent. Nice PR too.

After filling my bow tag, I always said that I should go out like I was hunting and sit in a tree stand with my camera and record all of the neat things that I had seen while sitting there with my bow. I never did. Dumb-assed lazy.