audsley

I don't understand why a tag is necessary for what they plan to do. I must be missing something.

The principal problem, as I see it, is that the mainstream media has become press secretaries for the greens. Tony Davis of the Arizona Daily Star and Arthur Rotstein of the Associated Press are loyal to the green cause and actively promote the green agenda at every opportunity. Note Mitch Ellis's puzzlement over how a "problem" like this could make the nation's top 10 list when the problems on the other refuges are so serious. The answer is that putting an end to predator hunting is high on the green agenda.

The coverage and exposure he got BOW was priceless. Although I'm on the board at AWF, I'm not involved with BOW and hadn't known Paul was doing all these things until the awards ceremony. Each time I'd see another BOW article in a good publication I just assumed the girls had gotten lucky again. I've always been skeptical of awards programs for various reasons, but this case underscores why they're necessary. Without awards programs, critical behind-the-scenes contributions would otherwise go unnoticed by people like me.

Sorry, Huntin' Az, I was away from the forum for a few days and didn't realized you'd asked me a question. It's at least 14 inches. I wouldn't think cutting down a synthetic stock would be a good idea.

I seriously question the need to mess with the wood to make it a more neutral color. I think it's beautiful the way it is, and there's something to said for keeping things original. But if you have to do it, I strongly recommend Frank Wells at 2nd Amendment Sports. Back in the 60s and 70s he made beautiful custom walnut-stocked custom rifles. He would give you back a stock more beautiful than what you took to him. Harry Lawson's grandson is also a good stockmaker. He can be found at the Lawson gunsmithing shop on N. Richey. Depends on how much money you want to put into this.

Whatever you do, don't throw that stock away. Walnut stocks that will fit 670s are hard to find. The original stocks on a 670s were beechwood stained with walnut. A leaf blown against the stock by a strong wind was enough to scratch and dent the surface. The 670 was a good shooter in its day, and they made them in .243, .308 and 30.06. A cut-down walnut stock fitted to a .243 action could make a nice little gun for young or female shooters. The warpage is another matter, but might not be that serious.

You say you're from "wildcat country." Does that mean Tucson? If so, visit Harry Lawson Gunsmithing on North Richey and take the stock with you. Another source of expertise is Frank Wells at 2nd Amendment Sports. What you bought is a stock for a 670, 770 or Ranger, all of which have the "blind box" magazine (no floor plate, all shells must go back out the way they came in.) As far as I know, there are no other differences between the stocks for those models and the Model 70, but a stockmaker can tell you that after looking at your stock. Also, you didn't say whether the stock is wood or synthetic. That may or may not make a difference in how hard it would be to cut an opening in the bottom for a magazine. If that's all that's required, I would think cutting a hole in wood would be fairly easy, but synthetic might be a little harder. If it turns out all the fixes are too expensive or unworkable, we can talk about you're buying my extra synthetic model 70 stock that has the opening you need. It isn't cut down for a smaller shooter, but it's in mint condition and the price is very, very reasonable. Like $35? .

With 8 BPs, I'd put in for 12A West, 13A or 13B as a first choice, then a Dec. Coues hunt for 2nd choice. Whatever you do, don't blow your bonus points by putting 3rd, 4th and 5th choices that aren't very hard to draw. You can go on one of those hunts the year after you use your bonus points to get a premium hunt. As someone said, a December Coues tag isn't necessarily a sure thing. If we have unseasonably hot weather when you happen to be hunting, the deer will do what they always do when it's hot - go in under their cover and zip it up behind them. I had a Dec. hunt like that back in '99. Passed up modest 3x3s in the first few days and later on had a hard time finding any deer at all. This isn't real likely, but it can happen.

Important points have been made by several people, but the one that really hit home with me was Bobbyo's - sportsmen are spread too thin over too many organizations. We have many small voices but not the 800-lb gorilla we could have and truly need. If 2nd Amendment protection depended on the collective clout of a semi-automatic rifle organization, a handgun organization, a society for semi-auto shotguns and many more, all saying different things and focusing on different issues, we'd all be slingshot hunters by now. Meanwhile, everyone is getting burned out. The number of banquets required to support each organization may be more than our shrinking sportsmen population can sustain. That's probably just as true for the people attending banquets as for those organizing them. If you want people to attend your banquet, you need to attend other peoples' banquets. So the faces a banquet emcee sees looking back at him are to a great extent the emcees and organizers of other banquets. On the other hand, I also believe that species specialization has made conservation more effective by giving focused attention to every species that is valued by sportsmen and needs assistance keeping its numbers up. Of Arizona's 10 big game animals, only bears, javelinas and mountain lions do not have sportsmen's organizations, and as we all know these species have no problems with their numbers. (Groups supporting deer, elk and antelope are actually de facto predator support organizations. If we grow ungulates, predators will thrive.) The challenge then is to make the process more efficient by reducing cost and administrative burden on volunteers. An effective umbrella organization that would provide admin support (contract workers specializing in event advertising, bookkeeping and possibly even newsletter publication) might work. If so, that could be a big help. But merged banquets, with 3 or 4 groups combining for one super banquet, would really make things easier. I encourage all sportsmen's groups to look in that direction and be willing to live with some level of friction that can occur when two or more groups try to work together. But in the political arena, how do we turn a collection of bantamweights into one super heavyweight? AzSFW should be the key, provided the various groups can recognize the need to hang together even though it's hard at times, and provided AzSFW's principals can keep in mind that the bigger the tent, the more compromises need to be made. Some agendas may need to be watered down a bit in order to be made palatable for all of the member groups. The alternative is defections. As time goes by, the groups that are now supporting AzSFW will start asking what they're getting for their money. Hopefully they will like what they see. As a southern Arizona sportsmen who belongs to AzSFW, I've been very pleased with the service AzSFW has given us. I hope others have the same experience. And when differences of opinion or priority conflicts arise - as they surely will in any statewide organization with such a diverse make-up of sportsmen and regional issues - I hope the member individuals and organizations can work these things out rather than dump conflicting demands on the principals.

A new twist. I baited jaguar trap, research worker says Attorney general opens investigation into capture | Biologist denies telling worker to use scat to lure cat | State claimed Macho B's capture was inadvertent By Tony Davis and Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.02.2009 A trap the state says inadvertently snared the last known wild jaguar in the United States actually was baited with female jaguar scat, a member of the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project says. Janay Brun told the Star that on Feb. 4 she put the scat at the site of the trap that two weeks later snared the male jaguar, known as Macho B. He was released but recaptured 12 days later, on March 2, because he showed signs of poor health. He was euthanized that afternoon. Brun, 37, said she spoke to the Star because she thinks she helped cause the death of Macho B. "That jaguar meant a lot to me, and the fact that I mindlessly participated in this — it's a regret I'll have for the rest of my life." She said she put the scat out in the presence of a state Game and Fish employee and Emil McCain, a biologist for the project. Brun alleges that McCain told her to place the scat at the site. In two interviews with the Star this week, McCain vehemently denied her allegations. On Tuesday, he said Brun was fired from the project within the last month and was "completely unreliable in the past and untrustworthy." On Wednesday, he said the project ran out of money to pay her and that he was waiting to meet with Brun to tell her that. The Star is not naming the Game and Fish employee Brun says was present when the scat was placed because it has not been able to reach the person. The state Attorney General's Office has taken over an investigation of the circumstances of the jaguar's capture from Arizona Game and Fish. The game department, which announced the investigation Tuesday night, would not elaborate. Project workers have used female jaguar scat to attract jaguars, McCain and others said this week. In 2004, the project began placing scat at locations of motion-sensing cameras where they were attempting to photograph jaguars, two former volunteers said. Jaguars and other cats use scents as a way to communicate, and female jaguar feces may attract male jaguars. The borderlands jaguar project obtained female jaguar scat from the Phoenix Zoo in November and December of last year and from the Reid Park Zoo on Feb. 18 of this year, officials of both zoos told the Star this week. They said they understood the scat would be used to attract jaguars to cameras, not snares. On Dec. 10 of last year, in an e-mail exchange forwarded by Brun, McCain sent her an e-mail saying he "just got a package of female … jag scat. Am thinking about placing it under a certain tree. You concur?" "Si," Brun replied in an e-mail nearly an hour later. Brun, of Arivaca, is out of state taking care of a family matter. But she said by phone and e-mail that she is speaking up because of the guilt she feels over the death of Macho B, whom she had been studying since she accidentally saw him in 1999. "I felt guilty as all heck that I never questioned Emil enough, that I didn't go back and set the snares off or do something to get them out of there," said Brun, who has been a paid, part-time field technician for the jaguar detection project. McCain denied having told Brun to place jaguar scat at the snare site and said he didn't know that she had done it. "I'm extremely shocked that she would have said that or put scat in that snare," McCain said. "That snare was obviously for mountain lion and bear purposes, not for jaguar research." Preparing for capture E-mails obtained through public-records requests to Arizona Game and Fish and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service make clear that in the two weeks before Macho B was captured, McCain and others were preparing to capture a jaguar, even though subsequently officials emphasized the capture was inadvertent. On Feb. 3, the Game and Fish employee and McCain received e-mails from veterinarians Roberto Aguilar and Sharon Deem suggesting what dosages of which drugs to use to sedate a jaguar. McCain followed up on Feb. 5 with an e-mail to Deem and the unnamed Game and Fish employee clarifying that the employee "is not trying to catch a jaguar, but he is working on a mountain lion and black bear study in an area where he may inadvertently encounter a jaguar." On Feb. 13, McCain wrote an e-mail to Blake Henke of North Star Science and Technology, who provided the radio collar that five days later was placed on Macho B. "I wanted to thank you for getting the donated jaguar collar back to me so quickly," McCain wrote. "I also wanted you to know that we have again started trapping, and that there is fresh jaguar sign in the area." On Feb. 16, McCain wrote to the Game and Fish employee and Henke: "At this point I think that for the week long trapping periods in the area where we may capture a jag, I think we should leave that collar (turned) on. Especailly (sic) given the remmoteness (sic) of the area, the lack of internet or phone access and the once in a lifetime change (sic) to collar a AZ jag, I think it is prudent to be 100% sure the collar is on." Naive about traps As Brun described the scent-baiting event, it occurred on a cold evening, after she, McCain and the Arizona Game and Fish employee had spent most of the day hiking in rugged hills northwest of Nogales, Ariz. The trio checked sites where the borderlands project had set camera traps to photograph passing jaguars and where Game and Fish had set snares for the mountain lion and bear project, Brun said. "Emil said to me, 'Janay, put the scat over there,' " Brun recalled, referring to the area of the snare trap. "I was very naive about what the traps were. We'd used the scat before at the (camera) traps for two months in Macho B's territory last year and no jaguars had showed up. I didn't think he would be back in the area." Photos of the jaguar taken on Jan. 21 had shown Macho B about 12 miles north of the eventual trap site, Brun and McCain said. A photo taken earlier that month had shown Macho B south of and much closer to the trap site. On Feb. 21, three days after Macho B's capture, she said she went to the capture site and saw what she later described as a tree with jaguar claw and tooth marks running up and down it. "They told the story of how he tried to climb the tree to pull the cable off his paw, only to be pulled down to the ground by the same cable," Brun wrote in an e-mail to the Star, describing the braided, metal cable that is used to snare an animal by a limb. "I found pieces of his claws, including a tip, embedded in the bark. The 'padding' on the cable was electrical tape. This is done to ensure that the cable does not slice through the animal's skin, bone, ligaments and joints as it fights to get free. The loop of the cable remained taut against his paw, cutting off circulation." In his interview on Tuesday, McCain said Brun had "done a very dirty trick here to make this information public without talking about it first." "This particular individual has been completely unreliable in the past and untrustworthy," McCain said. Brun has worked as a volunteer and paid employee for the borderlands project since 2001. But McCain said the project fired Brun sometime in the past month. Brun said she had no knowledge of having been fired. She provided the Star an e-mail exchange between McCain and her from March 19 and 20 in which he had asked her to go with him to Sonora for 10 days in April to set up to 20 cameras, presumably to photograph wildlife. Brun was described as "an excellent tracker, putting in countless hours in the field each month," in the book "Ambushed on the Jaguar Trail," an account written by Jack Childs and his wife, Anna. He is co-founder and project coordinator for the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project. He and Anna, also a co-founder of the group, have been photographing jaguars in Southern Arizona since first catching Macho B on camera in 1996. Jack Childs, of Amado, said he knew nothing of Brun's allegations until being told of them by a reporter. He declined to comment on them. In their book, the Childs also thanked biologist McCain, and said, "His bulldog tenacity, tracking ability and vast knowledge of the wild critters of the region elevate the status of the project far beyond our expectations." Brun was also described as "reliable, totally honest and very trustworthy" by a federal biologist for whom she had worked as an unpaid intern at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in 2001. Brun spent a year working for the refuge, surveying, releasing and tracking endangered masked bobwhite birds — "she was my right-hand person," recalled Mary Hunnicutt, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. For years, many jaguar researchers and other wildlife biologists had wanted to capture a jaguar to learn more about its movements and other behavior, particularly because of concerns that a planned fence along the U.S.-Mexican border would disrupt its movements. McCain was among the leading advocates of capture. Some environmental groups such as the Sky Island Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity have questioned or opposed capture on the grounds that its risks to the rare animal outweighed the benefits. But from the moment that Game and Fish officials announced the Macho B capture, they have stuck to their account that the capture was accidental. They have said repeatedly that that trap and others in the area were set to trap black bears and mountain lions to study their movement patterns and migration corridors. "While we didn't set out to collar a jaguar as part of the mountain lion and bear research project, we took advantage of an important opportunity," said Terry Johnson, endangered species coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department on Feb. 19, the day the state announced the capture. The research project began using female jaguar scat obtained from the Reid Park Zoo in 2004, said two former volunteers for the group, Shiloh Walkosak and Sergio Avila. Arizona is at the northern edge of the range of jaguars. In a paper published in the Journal of Mammalogy last year, Childs and McCain said the project "provides valuable new information" on the distribution, travel patterns, longevity and activity of jaguars in the borderlands. Walkosak, a former Reid Park zookeeper and volunteer with the jaguar project, said she supplied McCain and the project with female jaguar scat that she collected when the zoo's jaguars were in their fertile periods. "Using the scat was an ongoing part of the project up till when I left the zoo" in late 2006, she said. "We would give him (McCain) maybe the equivalent of one bowel movement for a large cat. He would use that for a very long period of time. He was literally putting a small smear on a rock in front of the camera." Walkosak and Avila, who now researches jaguars for the Sky Island Alliance, said the project got more photos of jaguars when they began using female jaguar scat. He and other project workers "used jaguar scat in 2004," Avila said. "That same year, as a result of this, we obtained four photographs of jaguars." Said Walkosak: "Afterwards we consistently got photographs whenever that (scat) scent was used." Reid Park Zoo administrator Susan Basford confirmed Walkosak's account, and Phoenix Zoo president Bert Castro acknowledged the zoo provided scat for photo sites last year. Earlier this year, the zoo agreed to resume supplying jaguar scat to McCain and the project for use in attracting jaguars to the cameras, Basford said. McCain requested the scat to place at camera sites, not snares, she said. On StarNet: To see video provided by Arizona Game and Fish, taken during the capture of Macho B, visit go.azstarnet.com/videos Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet.com and Tim Steller at 807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet.com. http://www.azstarnet.com/news/287095

No harm done at my end, Quercus. Sorry if I was a little rough on you. There's trouble in the valley right now, and besides being naturally suspicious of strangers who show up when there's trouble, I was in a furor this afternoon over the newspaper article and the readers' comments that followed the article. If you read the readers' comments, here are some of the things you could have "learned": - NRA limbots have taken over G & F in Arizona, who overissue hunting and fishing permits. - They (Game & Fish) are now getting the State Legislature to make party affiliation, and length of affiliation, a requirement to be on the State G & Fish citizens oversight board, - There hasn't been an "environmentalist" hired, or assigned to an oversight board, for G &F for over 15 years. In fact, they've been pushed out, or fired for enforcing the good laws, or made to tow the line or loose their jobs. - They've (been) doing the exact same thing with every non-game species and especially predators. If they could wipe out ever bobcat, cougar, coyote and wolf, they would. - You (Game & FIsh) are ambassadors to the environment who's salaries are paid by US taxpayers. Its time you started acting like it, and TAKE the expert assistance that is being offered to you by groups like Sky Island Alliance, and Southwest Center for Biologic Diversity And so on. In better times, this stuff might be funny considering the commission and dept. is now the greenest it's ever been. Sportsmen's circles routinely buzz with complaints that greens are taking over Game & FIsh and USFWS, and that G&F is too afraid to do effective predator reductions despite their own research on the Three-Bar suggesting it would probably help bring back mule deer herds. The party affiliation remark is a distortion of the actual bill provision, and apparently the existence of G&F's non-game branch remains a secret. Obviously it's still a secret that G&F is largely funded by sportsmen's dollars, not taxpayers. I'm still trying to figure out which of our current commissioners is an "NRA limbot." Hernbrode maybe? Martin? They fooled me. I've occasionally heard dept. personnel and commissioners speak disparagingly of sportsmen's forums as being loaded with misinformation and illogical thinking. Compared to what I've seen from the public at large, those who post on sportsmen's forums qualify as expert biologists and policy analysts. quote name='quercus' date='Mar 30 2009, 05:49 AM' post='144151'] let it go guys, there are more important things in life to worry about than others more intelligent than you with different views. I'll let that one go by for now. In the meantime, I'll work on increasing my intelligence.

Mr. Oak (or Quercus, if you prefer Latin), I just get curious any time a stranger rides into town and tries to inspire a mob to string up Game & Fish. Nobody around here seems to know you, and you haven't previously shown any interest in our affairs. Seems kinda funny you would surface right now expressing interest in this subject but no others. I'll allow it's possible that you're simply young and a bit naive, as all of us once were, or simply new to wildlife politics, and maybe you mean no harm. On the other hand, members of some of these "liberal organizations" you referred to a few posts back (hoping they'd swing into action, as I recall) have been known to slip into the crowd on sportsmen's forums and do a little shilling while emotions are high. You wouldn't want to be confused with one of those people. Maybe you'd like this opportunity to clear that up. As for the question I posed earlier, I believe the push for special land use designations such as Jaguar Recovery Zones, wilderness areas, conservation areas and so on have little to do with genuine conservation concerns. I believe instead these efforts are driven by politics, competition among non-profits for funding and a desire for power and recognition. Jaguars, condors, wolves and special land use designations with special rules and restrictions are merely tools to achieve those ends. I obtained this perception from studying the actions of these groups over a long period of time in a variety of situations.

June, I don't know the answer to that question. They've also been working south of the border. I would guess what they do next and where will depend on where the next jaguar siting occurs. Almost forgot the second part of your question. We haven't seen any impacts on hunting as a result of a jaguar being present or the study. There were no special restrictions. I don't know what would have happened had the USFWS declared parts of 36B and C a Jaguar Recovery Zone.

For any who care, here's a link to the story. I don't think the story is worth reading because, as usual, it seeks to rally public opinion against a team that has shown persistent dedication to jaguars and jaguar conservation for many years. Unable to see the forest for the trees, the reporter who wrote it believes Game & Fish is the running dog lackey of the hook & bullet crowd, that this is very, very wrong, and that caped crusaders like himself can help bring about needed reform. He has previously written histrionic "exposes" on such subjects as govt-approved coyote gunning. He has a loyal following of fellow hysterics and Game & Fish-haters, as you can see from the comments below the story. http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/286500 Nowhere in this story did I find a smoking gun. It's not hard to find people willing to conjecture about this thing or that, and that's about all this story has to offer. Coincidentally, today's AOL home page has a story about the euthanization of a famous race horse at the age of 25 years. http://www.fanhouse.com/news/main/kentucky...a-dies%2F402699 No one seems to be questioning whether it was really necessary to put this horse down, even though someone saw it two weeks ago and thought it looked "fantastic." But did the horse really have a chronic degenerative spinal condition that caused it to fall? Was the condition being treated by competent people? Will there be a necropsy and the results sent to several universities and veterinary centers around the country for some Monday morning quarter-backing? If the press treated the horse's euthanization the way they're treating the jaguar case, I would expect similar inconsistencies and unresolved questions to surface. That's pretty normal. But to the opportunists and hysterics bent on further inflamming the already hyperventilated, no anomaly is too small or immaterial to wave around as if it means something. Lest we forget, there was no law compelling G&F or USFWS to form the jaguar team and expend all this effort to photograph and study the jaguar. They did it because they care about jaguars and recognize that others also care about jaguars. The feckless losers who are now exploiting this issue do so because they care about themselves and their own agendas. Go ahead, Mr. Oak. Ask me why I say that about them. And while you're at it, tell us who you are and what you've been doing before you showed up here for the first time when this subject surfaced, and have now posted three times on the forum, but only on this subject.

Red Rabbit, Do you have a feel for what's a fishable flow rate? 500 fps? 250?

Jeez, IHunt2Live, where ever did you find that little gem? That's one of the most astonishing paragraphs I've ever seen. Scottboy's just looking for a fight. You Mormon boys did a fine job of not taking the bait.

Uh-oh! I just came across this. Someone quoted from Fjestad's Blue Book. I checked the quote against my copy and it's accurate. These A&F guns are good, but not that good. Read below. "In the past, this manufacurer (i.e., F.illi Rizzini) collaborated with Antonio Zoli to make "spec" guns that were usually imported by Abercrombie & Fitch or VonLengerke & Detmold. These guns are normally marked on the water table "Zoli-Rizzini" or "F.illi Rizzini" (in the latter case, most of the time these guns have the Abecrombie & Fitch, etc logo as well). These guns are not to be confused with the quality of current Rizzini F.illi mfg. Normally, these older Field Grade models (non-ejector, boxlock actions in 12, 16, 20, 28 ga or .410 bore) sell in the $500-1200 range, with a 25% premium for 28 ga or .410 bore. Deluxe Field Models with a scalloped boxlock action and ejectors are currently valued in the $1500-2500 range, with a 30% premium for 28 ga or .410 bore. The Extra Lusso Model (top-of-the-line) currently sell in the $3500 range in 12 ga, $4250 in 20 ga, $4750 in 28 ga, and $4250 in .410 bore." I'd love to have one of these guns, but don't pay too much for it. It's probably a $500-$1200 gun depending on condition.

Suggest you go to Gunbroker.com to get a feel for pricing. They usually have several Rizzinis advertised. There have been a few people manufacturing shotguns under the Rizzini name, none of them bad, but some better than others. I'd guess any Rizzinis that were sold through Abercrombie and Fitch would be among the best.

Thanks, Youngbuck. That was most interesting. I particularly liked the fact that Commissioner Hernbrode told the critics in no uncertain terms that they were wrong in saying there should be no capturing and collar if large animals for research purposes.

NRS RULES!!! The only mistake Game & Fish officers made is going into a field where nobody appreciates them no matter what they do. From all I've read so far, they did everything right. A 15-16 year old jaguar weighing only 118 lbs. at the time of capture is already on his way out. The vet who examined him said his ailment doesn't happen overnight. It's a long time in the making. Had the jaguar survived a couple more years, the tracking information might have proved valuable for learning about its habits and needs in this environment. Looks to me like they did the right thing and did it as well as it could have been done. They just weren't lucky, and now they're red meat for the howling ignorant mob. Some of you guys are thinking like animal rights people One individual animal isn't what we should be concerned about. We should be concerned about what one animal might tell us about how to better manage for an entire species. If southern Arizona is truly suitable jaguar habitat, more should show up some day. If that happens, I hope our wildlife professionals will still be willing to do the right thing and put collars on them. The veterinarian from the Phoenix zoo said it pretty well in today's Az Daily Star: "I'm glad they collared him. Otherwise he'd have just gone off and died somewhere on his own." Center for Biological Diversity forgot to quote that part.

Here's what I know. Jonathan Paton is a conservative from my district in Tucson. He's a good guy who sincerely wants the sportsmen's vote and wouldn't intentionally do anything to harm our interests. Nancy Young-Wright is a liberal democrat from northwest Tucson who has wanted to do an animal protection bill since before she was elected. I spoke with her a few months ago at a Clean Water Restoration Act rally and she told me she planned to launch a bill placing restrictions on dog breeders similar to what has been tried in California, Pennsylvania and other places. I told her sportsmen will be hopping mad because the standards these bills have tried to impose would make impossible to breed sporting dogs that average people could afford, and that we will work to defeat it, just as sportsmen have done in these other states where it's been tried. She seemed quite perplexed about this. She told me sporting dogs aren't the problem- puppy mills aren't breeding sporting dogs, at least not to her knowledge. I told her I believe the problem is either that anti-hunting HSUS-types were behind the effort in other states and are happy to shut down bird hunting as well, or else they just don't know how to write a bill that excludes hunting dogs. This is obviously a different animal protection bill. I don't know whether it means she's doing a dog-fighting bill instead, or if she still plans to launch a bill aimed at breeders. I'm willing to give these two the benefit of the doubt based on my confidence in him and my limited experience with her. (She comes from New Mexico. Does not hunt; her husband used to hunt but doesn't have time any more. It's possible she might become a moderate voice among the Dems that could reign in some of the really extreme elements in that part.)

I think the best advice you got was to go with the .270 Win. The WSM version does have more recoil. My son shot a .270 for about 10 years before getting the WSM and noticed the increased recoil right away. Another advantage of the .270 is that will work for anything in Arizona. If it's a good one he'll never need another rifle. Can't say the same about a .243. I was glad someone also mentioned the 6.5x55. It's an excellent caliber with much less recoil than even the .270 Win. The problem is finding a good one without having to pay too much. The military surplus guns often don't shoot as well as you'd like. Some do, but many don't. I have four 6.5x55s, 1 a near-mint condition military rifle in original form, 2 other military mausers that have been sporterized and a Sako 85 that cost me $900 used. Some day I'll probably pick up a used Winchester featherweight in that caliber. I guess I just have a 6.5x55 fetish. For the .270, the Weatherby Vanguard with 2 stocks from Wal Mart should work just fine.

Sending you another PM because I couldn't see how to reply to yours.

Bowsniper, Sent you a PM.

If you get a new barrel, I understand there is now a pretty good cold blue around. I don't recall the name, but it's apparently much better than the Brownell's Oxpho-Blue I used about 15 years ago. You could strip the old blueing off the action and barrel and do it yourself quite easily. I'm guessing your Winchester is not a pre-64. Still, even the post-64 Winchesters shot pretty good. My son has a used one that has taken two Coues deer at 341 and 354 yards, plus a couple at around 260. If it turns out all the gun needs is a good cleaning, I'd stick with the original barrel. Unless you've done a lot of rapid-fire with it, banging away while it was real hot , I believe it takes 4,000-5,000 rounds to really shoot out a barrel in that caliber, or so I once read. I'm thinking $60 might be a little high for a re-crown job. They are very easy to do. If the stock isn't cracked, I'd refinish it. I love to refinish stocks. Sand off the old finish, rub Flecto-Verithane oil on it, sand with wet sandpaper until you get a thick mud, then let it dry. Sand it smooth, then do it again. When it looks like the scratches are filled, rub more oil on and let it dry for a couple of days. Then get an Accurglas bedding kit, some Turtle car wax for a release agent and glass bed it. And dang! Scout'em saw you before I did. I, too, have a surplus synthetic stock for a post-64 Model 70. I think it's a Hogue. Bought it for another rifle and later sold the rifle. I'd say $50 would probably take it. Has a nice pad that's plenty adequate for .270.