Early in our hunt we ran across a couple of interesting hunters. One was a gunsmith and the other swaged his own bullets with Corbin dies. The gunsmith had a sporterized Spanish Mauser converted to 7mm Rem Mag, while the bullet maker had a sporterized Mexican Mauser converted to 450 Marlin. The 7mmRM had a beautiful custom stock. The 450 Marlin was more, uh, utilitarian - it had a fairly plain stock and you couldn't see the barrel because it was wrapped in black friction tape. Both were wearing scopes made decades ago.

The bullet maker showed me some of the .45" bullets he had made. One was made with a copper tubing jacket and a FN lead core. Another had a jacket made of a .45ACP case with the case headstamp and extraction groove still in place. That one was a spitzer with a gold-colored lead core and what looked like a steel BB in the nose. Another was a hollowpoint. All were quite well done.

Both were hunting in well-worn blue denim pants and jackets. I joked with the gunsmith's son that his Dad's jacket was probably 50 years old. His response was no, that his Dad had purchased it back in the 70's. More like 40 years.

Neither of the two guys were walking very fast or far, but they did make it back to the same clearing we spent two afternoons watching.

The gunsmith was 77 years old, the bullet maker was 88.

Very cool......

I'm getting there!

Coyote Hunter: Congrats to the two old timers still enjoying their passion and love of hunting ! I hope at 77, I am able to still enjoy those type of hunts. Thanks for sharing a cool story. HH

Two years ago,there were four guys up at Morapos that were all in their 80's that had come together from different states to do their last hunt.They had one of those military GP medium tents, I think it was, and all their camping gear looked like it had been used since the 50's

They were camped close and we had some good chats. Although I volunteered to pack out any elk they killed on my mules they never punched a tag .They had good time it seemed and covered a lot of ground on foot.

CH. careful about what you say about old
folks.

We are crafty and mean ! 😀

Yea,at 74,I'm not too far behind those guys

I will never make it!

You never know. I'm 'only' 66 and hope to hunt with my grandkids. The oldest is almost 4.

If not elk, at least deer and antelope. Didn't get an elk this year but did get a nice mulie buck. 4x4 with a broken tine, .300WM, Barnes 175g LRX, 245 yards.

BangFlop.

someday I hope to be mentioned in a similar thread.

I will go to elk camp so long as I am financially, and physically capable!

I’ll run out of health before I run out of money. Good on them.

It kind of blows some folks minds when they find out my duck hunting partner and I have 125 years of duck hunting experience between us.

You know what they say " There might be snow on the chimney but there's still a fire in the furnace".