catclaw

Great buck!

If you want to know what is best, read the match reports for the F-class and 1000 yd BR stuff and see what twists etc are WINNING. If you look at FACTORY varmint and tactical rifles in .308, they almost all have 1-12" twist which is considered excellent, if not ideal, for the 168 grain SMK that all the good factory ammo uses. That said, it really limits you on useing anyting longer. My 300 WBYs all have 1-12" twists because they were built before I had range finders and I shot 150 and 165 grain bullets. My next one will be a 1-11" twist, You said that your twist is sort of a weird one- not really, I know some match shooters that swear by 1-11.25", now that is weird! You done good Lark!

That one didn't look all that bad.

Doesn't look like a whitetail. Can't imagine why you would be interested in that sucker!

There are two settings on the scopes with B&C reticles. You should be good with one of them out to 550 yds. With the turrets, they operate independently of any parallax adjustment. Most any scope higher than 10X is going to have some form of parallax adjustment. My 2.5-8 doesn't but my 4.5-14s do. You can twist it to the range indicated and most of the parallax will be gone. To really fine tune it, you should check parallax at all distances ahead of time and see if the indicated yardages are correct. I found on one of mine that the 100 yd graduation is off a little and I made small mark to show where I need to set it. The side adjustment models such as the Long Range series of VX3s or Mark IVs actually focuses the crosshair and is easier to use but a more expensive feature.

A 220 grain SMK out of a 300 mag is dynamite on big game. Desert diesel's son killed his bull two years ago with that bullet at 750 yds and it worked about perfect. Don't kid yourself on the bigger bullets. 20 years ago I would have agreed with the 125 grain bullets- we didn't have affordable LASER range finders and we needed every bit of trajectory help we could get. If 125s were good, there would be some serious shooters and hunters using them. There aren't. Pretty much everyone in the long range community is either using SMKs or a VLD such as Berger or JLK. If it has to have a hunting name, then they are using Ballistic tips, Accubonds, Sciroccos etc. For long range shooting, you should use the best combination of high ballistic coefficient and energy you can accurately get. As far as bullet twist- I have never even heard of an 8 twist 30 caliber barrel. A 1-16" twist will stabilize most 125s and they are used a LOT at SHORT RANGE benchrest- not at long range. They shoot phenomenally small groups with them- out to 200 yds- after that, the wind eats them alive. Some of the lighter bullets have the same jackets as the heavier bullets and have a disproportionately high BC (108 grain Lapua Scenar comes to mind) it has the same jacket as the 124 and 130 but can be pushed much faster. It makes a great mid-range bullet (600 yds). Hope all this makes sense!

Depends on how heavy of a scope you want. My initial suggestion would be to get a VX3 with the B&C reticle and you are good to 550 yds no problem. I have them on a 300 H&H and a 260 Rem. I can whack a gong on the first shot at 500 yds with either rifle. There are a lot of good scopes out there. If you want a tactical type scope (30mm tube, heavy duty, big turrets) I think the Burris tactical scopes are the best value going. Good Luck

Some spotters have more eye relief than others. I think the fixed power eye pieces are better in the Swaros. My Pentax has adequate eye-relief. Maybe try someone else's scope and see if there is less eye strain due to relief- check the specs on the fixed eye pieces, you might want to pick one up.

I have used a lot of different things but mostly I use 85 grains H4831SC and 165 grain Hornady flatbase and SSTs. I have killed more game with the same load and 165 grain X bullets than any other combination. Work up to this-my rifles have all had custom chambers and barrels. I get about 3400 fps with the 165 grain loads. I have a 1-12 twist barrel. You might not get this with a 10 twist. If I were setting out to hunt elk with it- I wouldn't use the SSTs. I am also going to start working with Bergers in it as well. These are mostly an advantage for long, long ranges. Out to 500 yds, the regular bullets work pretty well.

That is a very small bear. Bucks look 100% whitetail to me...

I used to drive to Bushnell tanks to do my long range shooting. unfortunately, the Forest Disservice has permanently closed Bushnell tanks to everyone but the cattle permit holder, who is free to use the area as he pleases.

Prickly pears are WAY overrated. They hit them in areas that don't have ripe acorns but that's about it. I found canyons like this in 20A but apparently the bear density is extremely low in the Bradshaws as I found little fresh sign- even when the acorns were falling like apples. I glassed for a week and never found anything but mulies. Good luck-

I was glassing in the southern part of unit 27 on a late whitetail hunt and watched a lion chase down a deer and kill it. I watched a hunter play hide and seek with a WT in 36B for like 10 minutes. It was hilarious! If you see someone skinny dipping while glassing- are you a voyeur??

Those photos distort his rack and make a score impossible, but it is a really good bull.

Just because he comes in and you get a few pics of him on the trail cams, doesn't mean that he is going to be carrying a white flag and a surrender attitude on opening day!

I am hoping this one will fill out just a little more. He is tempting but I'm not sure I can trip the release... Will he add another inch all the way around?

Nothing better showed up this week. The bigger one that jumped off a spring didn't come back- yet. I won't shoot that buck unless he can put 10" before Sept 10th. It ain't gonna happen. I am very good at passing on stuff, I have eaten a LOT of tag soup. Probably a very good buck but not what I want this year. I already have 20 full scouting days this summer. I am not going to "settle". I just don't know how much more they will grow before the early season is over. I suspect that this buck won't rub out until the end of September. I saw some 320+ bulls this week still in velvet. Each has his own schedule I guess. I will keep looking.

I just returned from taking 11 scouts on a 50 mile hike in the White Mountains. We hiked from below Big Lake to Eagle Creek. We saw bears, a nice ram, deer, elk, turkeys, skunks and all kinds of birds. We fished in Black River and hiked to some cool places. We only got rained on once and we made it to a cabin in the forest just as it started coming down. We managed to keep from breaking any bones or any lacerating any body parts! A few sunburns, numerous bumps and bruises as well as a bunch of sore feet were the extent of the injuries. At the end of the trip I set up some steel gongs and let them shoot the gongs with a rifle. Every boy was able to hit the 250 yd gong shooting off the Claw. We shot several hundred clay targets with shotguns and overall they had a ball. The last night I had a steak fry as they were getting a little tired of Mountain House! I doubt they will forget this experience, I know I won't!

He is certainly a very nice buck. I just want something in the 110 range and this one won't do that unless he grows at least 2" more per point.

I have not killed a bigger one with my bow- the weapon is immaterial, it is purely a matter of whether this is a first week deer or not. I am more interested in how much more he will grow by, say, the first of September. My biggest archery deer is a 178 mulie. I want a 110 class buck and won't take something smaller the first part of the season. We saw a bigger one than this. Should know tomorrow how big. If this one could grow an inch or maybe two more, it would be real interesting. I was surprised at where this one showed up. These suckers continue to impress...

I dunno- I think I can do better.

I saw 2 bulls in unit one Monday that were over 375. There are a lot of bruisers this year!!! Holy cow- get out and find them for Pete's sake! The bulls I saw haven't cowed up at all so they will still be hanging together!

For all teh talk, I have never seen a single photo posted of a thief or vandal. On ce they realize that their mug is on the recoding media, they are gonig to take the camera. Perod. There are a lot of bluffers on here. If I ever catch someone taking one of my cameras, they will wish they had never stepped in the woods that day--maybe best I never catch them!

I have a Wilson unit that Niles radio in Flag installed in my truck and it is a worthless piece of junk. It was $500 wasted dollars! It makes ZERO difference in my calls.

We fished a third day and the coho bite was awesome. It seemed as if a new wave of fish had moved in as there were much better fighters than the previous fish, stripping line, dancing on top of the water and making it twice the fun it was the day before. We were soon loaded on cohos and trying to fish for Kings wasn't happening too well as the cohos were taking all our bait and we just had to let them go. We decided to go catch some black bass. After the coho bite, the fish box looked like this! The bass are a hoot. I don't know if they are really bass or not but that is what everyone calls them. When you can find a spot that has them and a bite is on, they will practically jump in the boat and surrender! When we found them hiding, I quickly tied on a jig and went to hauling them in. They don't need bait as they will hit a bare hook sometimes. I caught one on a bare mooching rig when I was trying to pull it in before we were over our limit. We had the boat full in nothing flat! Here is a bass- With limits of silvers and bass we went to the bottom. Here is a yellow eye we caught- these are probably the best eating of all the salt water fish I have ever had. We caught a pretty nice ling cod but it was outside the slot so we pitched it back in. It coughed up a salmon when it hit the deck! This was the biggest ling that we caught this trip- 46" long and pretty hefty. I have caught them up to 50# before but not this year. They have to be over 55" to keep or in the 30-35" slot. We headed back in and called it a day. Next morning we drove into Craig and hopped in a float plane that took us back to Ketchikan. The float plane was a Cessna 208 with floats and wheels. It landed in the harbor and then once in Ketchikan, landed on the main runway- sweet airplane! When We got to Seattle it was over 100 degrees- I guess the hot weather just followed us. It was a great time and I got some great fish. I had king salmon for dinner last night- oh my, it's pretty hard to beat that! Until next time...