Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles "Brush" guns

Yah Baby!

Skimmed this. Some decent insights and some (the usual) hilarious ones. Brush gun?? After crawling on my hands and kness through a blowdown following a heavily used deer trail, standing(?) up, and seeing the critter so close but so far and bringing my rifle up to shoot, I have learned to love my Marlin 1895SS. Big holes work better. Lets not go in to dragging one out. It hurts.

EvilTwin

That is right. The thicker the brush, the more difficult the recovery.

Randy

I really like the straight lines of that stock. It's reminiscent of an 1897 Model Winchester shotgun that I inherited. I would imagine that it points well with iron sites, or the low mount scope you so appropriately mounted. Is that stock "factory"?

GB

I ran across a guy selling 1100 20 Special Field stocks and fore arms on an auction site. I asked him if he'd sell just a butt stock and he agreed. When I received the butt stock it was exceptionally nice, and a simple bolt on application, (Requires the long bolt, not the shorter bolt that comes with a 7600). The checkering pattern even matched the 7600 forend. When I got it on the gun, the feel, balance, and pointability was unbelieveable. I called the stock seller and ordered another one. (Not cheap). I have another 7600 in 300 Savage. On this one I cut the barrel to 20"s and added the straight stock. Both guns are now my favorites.

Here's my iron sight gun and third 7600. This is a 35 Remington also:

Here's the transformation:

Now that I have the 9.3, I can shoot 'em through the braish, trees, limbs, so on and so forth. That deflection/inflection is all BS. Just remember to use roundnose boolits.

I've had a good bit of experience with shooting in and through brush.
While I've never lost one, the very first one, a small Blacktail, took a tumbling 200 gr. .35 Rem bullet in the shoulder at about 75 yds. It tumbled because it hit the very tops of a some tall range grasses. Took me almost three hours, some of it on all fours, with almost no blood, to find and finish him.
I've missed bucks at 40 yds. standing still looking at me. Bullet deflected. The one that killed him, was expanded and lacked alot of penetration. It lodged in the heart at about 40 yds as the buck turned to run. That's a 140 Nosler Partition from a 7X57. Hit him expanded is why.
There have been some others as well. But these two tell us something of what is faced in such situations.
What I've learned is it needs to be a rifle that gets on target easily and quickly which does not mean a short rifle. Plenty of power is nice to have. But even more important are those follow up shots. That's because the first one may have missed or, worse, wounded him. You won't know until it's over.
There are differences in bullets. The tactical community has found that the Federal Throphy Bonded ammo will stay on course when passing through angled window glass. Something the classic match ammo used by snipers will never do.
Scopes can help. Nice to be able to see that twig before you shoot. Helps to find a clear shot at the animal. Actually, I've found the 6X scopes, rather than the less powerful, do better at this, especially at the longer ranges. Don't let anyone tell you they don't work at really short ranges on moving targets.
For a dedicated "brush/short range/heavy cover" rifle, however, I like a 760 Remington with a peep sight in 30'06. I can shoot 4-5 inch groups at 200 yds with it and it has lots of power for anything I need to hunt in heavy cover. E

Silly me. I forgot to post the picture of my idea of a brush gun.



If you can't find a factory Brush hunting carbine to fit your needs, you can always make one yourself. This gun was a Marlin XS-7 with a 22" barrel. Now the 308 "X" gun has a 18.25" barrel and it killed 2 deer in the brush for me this year.

Well done!

I found that a S&W Model 29 works great for those type of situations.

Crawled through some Michigan swamps that you couldn't even swing an 870 with a short slug barrel.

Forgot about that one..BTDT a FEW times...and it worked every time....including my biggest bear..which was phun at eight feet!!!

Not a bear, but I recall a few wild dogs that staked a claim to an injured deer that ran into the swamp.

Bringing fangs to a gunfight and what not.

Not sure what set the fur in motion more, the thunderous boom, the flaming horns from the magna-porting, or the sight of their pack leader getting turned into kibble...

Still had to evaluate changing my shorts, regardless.

Eremicus,

I have made bold above part of your statement that I don't agree with. And in particular your statement: "Don't let anyone tell you they don't work at really short ranges on moving targets.

I for one and maybe I am the only one am uncomfortable with higher magnification at moving game. In particular a scope set at 6X or higher bothers me if I must find or keep up with the moving quarry. I have a lifetime of experience with this and have tried one eye closed or both eyes open.

I participate in running deer matches and have run them myself at our club. I think I am good at getting running deer. Remember when I suggested shouting "Maw" at running deer to get them to stop?

So for you to state: "Don't let anyone tell you they don't work at really short ranges on moving targets." May be ok for you but those higher magnifications don't work as well for me.

Do you understand this?

I remember an American Rifleman(Sep 89)that a FMJ223 was best and a 240 44Mag was the worst.

I've put into red a portion of your admonishment of E and have a question. Will you be following you're own advice when folks want to talk about using rifles other than what you prefer for big game? Kind of a pot and kettle thing...

For what it's worth, my Father has shot the majority of his woods deer while they were running. His weapon until recently was a 243 SAKO with a 4-12Redfield on it. It was usually set at 6x and I don't ever recall him missing a deer because of the scope.

Pointer,

Then of course since I say it works better for me then I can say what I prefer. As long as I don't say that everone must use my choice.

You see that its not at all a pot and kettle thing as I wrote:

"I for one and maybe I am the only one am uncomfortable with higher magnification at moving game."

Ho jeez... I sense a disturbance in the Force.

I'll say that going from naked eyeball (1x) to 6x magnification is jarring to me. I much prefer lower power setting in the thick chit. Just a personal pref I suppose.

As to deflection anyone who's played pool, much less taken high school physics, knows there's a reaction to every action. So in terms of taking a shot where you know you'll hit some brush, you have to be smart about it. No explosive varmint bullets, use plenty of gun, and for me I'll only drop the hammer if the brush is close to the deer and NOT close to me.

A twig 3 feet from the deer simply cannot cause enough deflection to matter.

It could cause the bullet to tumble and/or fragment. Didn't see that with my .358 (225-gn at 2500 fps) but did with my '06 (150-gn at 3050 fps).

In the final analysis, my final analysis anyway <grin>, it's much, much better that the bullet not touch anything between the muzzle crown and deer hide. If it is gonna, then I'll only do it under certain parameters.