Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Where is the next jump in technology going to come from?

Rolly,
I think you said it as best as it could be said!
Qtip
Soli Deo Gloria!
To God Alone Be The Glory!

Sound reduction would be nice but most likely a by product of a totally different projectile accelerator. Wonder if we could shorten the miles-long barrel of a particle accelerator and use some kind of magnetic pulse along a rail or tube to launch a soft iron, small diameter, expanding nose, needle length bullet.

Rolly:

You hit the nail on the head. I read once that it has been said: "A hunter does not hunt game, he hunts himself." This is very true for me. I live in a world of "girly men" who do not know how to fix a flat tire, build a fire, or even cook a simple meal.

I need to get out of my comfort zone and work for my meat. Biggest problem with this country is that the citizens have no idea how their own meals are grown, milled, packaged, and shipped to the market.

I pity the people I meet in the "great outdoors" who bring the city with them in a super-duper RV w/ DVD and a Satelite dish. They are missing out on the best parts.

I take my kids camping in a tent. I teach my kids to ride a horse and work with a good dog. We don't have a TV or video games. I am building a Tree House for them this summer. Their friends from school beg to come over to our house so they can pick an apple from the tree and feed it to a horse. Giving a horse an apple should not be that unfamiliar.

I talked to a buddy last moth. He took 3 mules into the Sawtooth mountains of Idaho this season. He admitted that it took 3 days to get in, 3 days to get out and he only hunted elk for the 3 days in the middle. Never saw an elk. But he had tags for whatever he might run into. He got a good Mulie Buck and a Black Bear. The elk has become secondary. He said it was the time alone in the hills what he really needs. I know what he means.

I also agree that Jeff Cooper is right. We need better rifles, not better cartridge. Hell, what we really need is better woodsmen. Its the best woodsmen that get the game.

I am way off the subject now. I am done with my soapbox. Someone else can have it now.

Good Shooting.

BMT

Personaly I'd rather be on an ocean liner heading to Africa, for a 3 month walk in the bush, 100 years ago. If I had a choice I'd rather go back then foward.........10

I've always wondered if in states or for species with relatively low success, that if the same 10-15% of the hunters are taking 90% of the game. I assume this is true. I do know that in IN when the more doe permits were issued to reduce the herd that many more people took up hunting as it wasn't that hard for them to kill something.

I wear the synthetics too but still believe "good" wool is better than anything else out there. yes, bullets are better...that started with the nosler partition...but really, you can still do with a '98 in 7x57 anything that needs to be done in the deer woods. if I look at my gear, I am still using a bolt action rifle, not unlike the '98 and still limited to my personal skills when it comes to hitting the target. sure, we have better optics, and, excluding the long range crowd, hunting is still a +/- 200 yard affair. killing a deer is not a big deal, finding one, to your personal standards, is the challenge. I have seen 16 different bucks this year but have not fired a shot. (they were all really small).

Not meaning to piss in anyone's punchbowl because I enjoy the hunt above the technology by a loooooooong shot (pun intended <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />), but the technology and innovations are part of what makes this country great and it's silly to expect (want?) it to go on in every other industry but not around hunting and shooting!

If the next guy wants to use his whiz bang gadgets to make him feel better while enjoying nature, then more power to him. I'm wondering how many sentimental folks are using scopes on their rifles, binoculars and rangefinders?

How many want to go back a hundred years to a time when market hunting damn near wiped out the game populations across our great country? When medical advancements were minimal? When you couldn't drive a truck to your favorite hunting spot? When hunting was necessary to stay alive rather than something viewed as a sport? Let's be honest, how many of us would be dead without modern medicine? My wife would have died shortly after the birth of our first child if this were 100 years ago. How about 500 years ago when the average life expectancy of a man was around 35? How many of us would be DEAD if we were living in these romantic times with rampant disease, dysentery and a general lack of regard for human life (not that the latter seems to have improved terribly)? Every time I hear someone wax eloquently about life in another age, I have the desire to invent a time machine to grant their wish. In most cases, if their wish were granted, they'd be dead within a year. Look at your gut for a couple minutes and really think about your ability (not just desire) to chase game around the mountains with a stick, knowing your life and possibly the life of your family depends on your skills to get close enough to game AND your skills as a marksman. Pick an era, do you think ANYONE who's life depended on making a shot would have turned down a better tool? Not likely.

Listen, I'm NOT for using every bit of technology out there to get the game for me. I don't even hunt my own property despite some excellent bucks (just ask Big Sky <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />) because it's too easy. To me, it's not hunting. At least not what I view as hunting.

Personally, I'm happy to live in an age where hunting is primarily a sport vs. a necessity. It's what makes it fun. The technology surrounding us is what makes this possible. You can't have one without the other. Most folks eventually realize the sport is in the pursuit, not the killing. As a sportsman matures, he find ways to keep the hunt a challenge, whether they scale back on the technology or pursue craftier and/or larger critters.

While I have absolutely NO desire to snipe deer at a half mile, let alone a mile or 2, I certainly don't mind taking a 500 yard shot if circumstances are such that a closer shot isn't possible. Does that make me bad? If I use a rangefinder in the process am I less of a hunter than the guy who goes home empty handed? How about vs. the dude who guesses at the range and prays the shot will come close? I hunt hard. Damn hard at times. That's the reason I am successful. Of course, technology contributes but buying some gizmo never guaranteed a punched tag. My hunting partner brought a buddy along this year. We climbed 2500 vertical feet to our honey hole one morning and it paid off for me. His response as I stood over a dandy buck as he staggered up an hour behind me -- AND as I pointed out a 32" buck to him about 700 yards away was something along the lines of "great spot, but you can shove it up your ass. I'm never coming up here again!"

So anyway, put me in the camp of the innovative. Game Dept's or individuals can look at each bit of new technology and determine whether it is ethical or not, but don't stifle or scoff at good thinking!

Sorry. I'll try to stay off the soapbox now. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

how about better, lighter entry level syn stocks at substantially less than bansner/mcmillan/etc prices?
of course, ever better optics. leupold's advancements in their high-end scopes will make mid- and lower-end scopes better, too, as the competition heats.

Ditto on Fish280s' stock comments.

Darkside

Hey Muley Stalker:

I think we just made the same point in two different ways. The point is: "technology that makes us better, safer, and/or healthier is great. technology that makes us softer, fatter, and lazier is not."

Both of my hunting rifles were designed before the turn of the 20th century. My tent, a canvas Coleman, has been around for, I suspect, 200 years. My Binoculars are top notch and are beyond what anyone ever carried to Africa in 1903.

My discomfort is directed at the kind of hunter who substitutes technology for practice and knowledge, who trades the sound of coyotes howling in the distance for a Star Wars DVD, AND THEN complains that the poachers got all the deer. I guess I would not pity him in the absence of the complaints and excuses.

I don't think the Long Range Hunters are necessarily bad. I respect the kind of practice and discipline it takes to be able to do what they do. And, I have never heard a "long ranger" blame an empty freezer on anything that was within his (or her, I guess) control. However, their type of hunting simply is not to my taste.

I also don't disagree with technology that allows me to compensate for "Shooting Hours" rules and modern realities of "crowded woods." The fact is that many hunters are limited to shoooting within 30 minutes of Sun up/down. This is combined with 6 day seasons that turns every buck into a nocturnal creature. The result is that the natural order and pace of the woods has been changed and a super quality light gathering scope allows me to compensate for these "artificial" conditions.

This is also the reason I savor a good Wild Boar hunt. The 365 day season reduces the numbers of hunters on any given day. This allows a more "natural" hunt. There is not a Crush of Humanity into the woods for 6 days. I can scout and not have a lot of work ruined by 36 pickups and atv's blowing through area on opening day.

By the way, I hope the next great leap in technology will be computer assissted GPS systems that map where you REALLY are and know the way back to the truck. That's what we really need.

All my best,

BMT <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Muley and BMT,

You guys both went exactly where I was headed when I asked the question. I do see products from all facets of life continually improving, yet I don't see it to the same degree in the shooting sports.

I am not sure that I'd buy any new technology, but I do wonder why greater leaps have not been made.

Imagine this, if we were not limited by the strength of a brass case, thereby allowing push pressures higher could we not drive the same bullets at the smae speeds with less powder and less recoil. Case in point, a 180gr 30cal bullet driven by 85gr of powder at 3200fps from a 9lb gun (very similar to my WBY loads) generates 38 ft-lbs of recoil. The same bullet driven by only 40gr of powder out of the same rifle would generate only 22 ft-lbs of recoil. And the cases would be smaller and weigh less to boot allowing a hunter/soldier/etc. to carry more cases.

It's going to be .... long, thin, magnums!

Yes, LTMs are coming and they will revolutionize the shooting
sports. They will add nothing to existing performance levels;
require tooling up for all new actions and ammo -- ergo, justifying
huge price increases across the board; and sweep everything
else off the gun stores' racks -- all while vacuuming
your wallets empty.

You heard it here.

Marketing -- not scientific advances-- is where to look for
the next "advances".

1b

a real advance would be to remove the belts off of the old "long mags" like the 7mm rem or 300 win. that would be an improvement to me as the would feed and fit in a magazine better. they offer no functional advantage.

I think that advances will come in the area of improved accuracy:

1) Laser rangefinder - Determines range to target.
2) Compact Radar - Determines wind velocity, and actual bullet path.
3) Micro-processor - Reads laser rangefinder, radar, and ammo specific ballistic info and adjusts scope turrets so bullet hits point of aim.

I think the next "jump" coming from more extensive CNC machined "stuff"
1) it is affordable to do and do for mass production
2) it does make a big difference when it comes to precise machines

I was pondering a one piece stock/barrel/scope etc so there is no problems where it all comes together.

It seems to me that 1/2 MOA rifles at Wally World should be common place in the next ten years at least, but is that really a "jump?"

Well count me among the old fashioned. Sure I use scopes, but on a 3006 and a .375H&H. And anyway Id rather hunt with a frontstuffer, or take a deer with my bow from 30 yrds or closer. I still know how to read a map, and dont much like driveing all the time. Anyway we are talking about modern hunting, not modern life.

Its true we have come a long way with wildlife conservation. But weve also lost much huntable land, and land available to the average guy is becoming less and less. Eventually hunting is going to be a rich mans sport, its getting that way already. When I was a kid my dad had no problems knocking on farmers doors. Now try finding a farm that aint some kinda conglomerate.

Oh I aint a hypocrite. I use scopes, gor-tex, binocs, heaters, pulleys, lanoline ass wipe, and maybe one day I'll buy a GPS. But I keep my shots moderate and aint all so worried about killing anymore. And sometimes I find myself yearning for a simpler time...............10

I like both ends of the technology spectrum. If you fear the advances in hunting equipment, remember that you can always escape to the past. When I grow weary of cutting edge rifles, I turn to my muzzleloader for solace.

I'd like to see a synthetic stock that actually feels and looks like wood, yet has all the benefits of a synthetic stock. Maybe biotechnology can help there. Biggest reason I have resisted moving to synthetics is, hey they are ugly in my book. I love wood stocks. What about iron that doesnt rust......some additive that maybe improves strength, yet prevents rust. Now that would be nice.

Aggie,

Iron that doesn't rust? It's called stainless steel, <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> the only kind of guns I buy now.

stainless steel doesn't rust??? Not as readily, but it definitely will rust. Take a ss rifle out on the ocean for a week without any maintenance and you'll have a lovely surprise waiting for you when you're back (grin).