S Davis

Perfect! I have already placed an order. Thanks for the help!

I haven't shot old model army revolvers in many years, but I used to shoot them a lot. I mean, really, a lot! When I was in college I used to buy up the junk Italian reproduction guns from the Cabela's bargain bin ($20-$40), in Kearney Nebraska and literally shoot them to death. I even hunted occasionally with the old model army and killed a deer or two with one on occasion. A few things I learned from pitching thousands of round balls down field. -filling any air gap between the powder charge and the ball will enhance cleaner ignition of the powder as the powder will be compressed against the flash hole at the back of the cylinder. -You will get a more consistent powder burn from cylinder to cylinder because powder charges will be uniformly pushed to the back of the cylinder. This will equate to more consistent velocity from one cylinder to the next. And finally, the historic reason for using a filler between the powder charge and the ball. Chain fires can happen with black powder revolvers. A chain fire is when you fire the chamber inline with barrel and somehow the flash manages to ignite the powder in the adjoining chamber causing it to detonate and launch a bullet, which is not inline with barrel. Trust me Bro', having this happen is great way to develop a flinch when shooting pistols. This might be the most prevalent reason for using a filler, the prevention of an inadvertent spark sliding past a ball in an adjoining chamber and igniting that powder charge. I think this is a very rare occurrence, but it can happen. Just trust me, it can happen. So if there is an air gap between the powder charge and the ball, a filler is a great way to stabilize velocity, possibly correct ignition problems, and possibly prevent chain fires. I recall reading about all sorts of magic things that could be used as a filler, but I always used corn meal, cheap and readily available in every grocery store bigger then a quicky mart. One more piece of advice. Don't use fixed steel plates as targets less then 20 yards away. Lead round balls are soft and the Old Model Army is powerful. When that soft round ball impacts a fixed steel plate, the shrapnel from the disintegrating round ball can fly straight back at you causing painful wounds that may land you in an emergency room, where a hot ER nurse might assist with stitches in an effort to put you back together. You might then decide you should marry said hot ER nurse, but then become a victim of an incredibly ugly divorce. I wonder if she still has my 20 or so old model army revolvers, but I don't wonder enough to call and ask. In summary, old model army revolvers are awesome and likely one of the most impressive handguns built prior to anything that chambered the 357 and 44 magnum cartridges. Using a filler between the powder and round ball may very well lend to a number of desirable ballistic efficiencies, and don't shoot at close range steel plates with an Old Model Army as it might mess with your life in ways you never even imagined.

I'm jumping into this thread a bit late, but hoping some of the contributors will see this and maybe be able to lend me some help. I bumped into the first article I had seen about salt bath annealing a few weeks ago and it was an "ahah" moment for me. This should have the consistency that is lacking in the propane torch method of annealing, while avoiding the astronomical cost of entry of buying an induction machine and annealing electrically. I immediately decided I was going to round up the parts necessary to give this a try. .......and that is my problem. I think a bunch of people had the same idea I did because buying a small quantity of the appropriate salts is something I haven't been able to find. everybody that advertises these systems is sold out. So where did you guys find the appropriate salt? Ballistics Recreations lists a "system" that can be purchased, but it looks like they are sold out of pretty much everything. Buying/making a pot to heat this stuff up isn't a big deal for me. Making a rack to drop the brass into and keep it correctly suspended in the salt isn't a big deal for me either. So mostly I just need a source to buy an appropriate quantity of the correct salt. Help!?! PM's are welcomed, or if somebody is within a reasonable distance from Tucson and would like to brag about their success implementing this type of annealing in person, I would gladly drive and listen!

Check with Thunderstick Trading Company on Speedway in Tucson. Nice people, reasonable rates to handle a transfer.

So I am clearly bad about jumping on this forum to report anything of note. Following the pic I posted on August 6, and then two weeks of ATV repair deeply corroding into my free time, I did get out again to explore the Antelope habitat of unit 6A. Subsequent scouting did little for me in the way of finding more or better Antelope, but it did eliminate some large tracts of land where we wouldn't be spending valuable season time. Opening morning arrived and we spent about half of day 1 in a multi mile area in the vicinity of where I had seen the August 6th buck. We saw a total of three Antelope and 60-80 Elk. Nothing to attempt a stalk on. The afternoon of day 1 we set out for higher ground in the hope of glassing up something for an afternoon stalk. We found a mediocre buck with a 1/2 dozen does. I was a bit ambivalent given the buck wasn't very big, but hey, it wasn't my tag and the shooter wanted to give him a try. We'll never know what went wrong, but that herd had moved on by the time we got to the hill I thought we could shoot from. We never did find them once we were prowling around within gun range and that was the end of day 1. Day 2 started out heading toward a new area I wanted to check. The route into this new area entailed passing down a road that was in the basic area were I photographed that Buck early in August. Viola! Guess who was standing about a quarter mile off the road! He was on the move at a leisurely pace and after about 30 minutes of cat-and-mouse through the broken junipers, we got a decent shot window at him at 290ish yards. Season over! I looked back at the pics I posted here on August 6 and I'm positive the buck my tag holder harvested is the same buck I photographed. Quick field tape put him in the high 70's. He was right at 15", but what really helped him score was strong fronts. Thank you to all of the forum members that PM'ed me with advice. good input was appreciated. Interestingly though a lot of the advice I got was from Elk hunters that had hunted the elk rifle season in years past. I did see Antelope in some of the areas that forum members directed me too, but not nearly in the numbers that were mentioned in PM's. I think 6A Antelope are a lot more spread out in early September then they are in late November (IMHO). Likely a lot of them are in the timber, and I honestly mostly never found those groups. Interestingly, at least to me, was the fact that I had 3-4 days of glassing in the area where we harvested that buck and I only saw that one buck and maybe a half dozen does. When I caped him though his face had deep bruising on his skull. So he wasn't the "boss" buck of the area because he had been fighting and apparently lost since he was by himself. This doesn't necessarily mean his nemesis was bigger, possibly just meaner. I just found it interesting that given hours of glassing in that area that I never spotted another buck, and not much for two bucks to be fighting over. So in sum we had a successful hunt. filled the tag with a nice buck, I wouldn't though consider this an easy tag to fill. I logged a lot of time glassing and frankly saw few antelope. I had a great time hunting this area, it just isn't an easy antelope area to hunt. Thanks again to all the members that PM'ed with advice. Feel free to reach out if you think I could help because I would gladly reciprocate. Just apparently reach out far in advance since I don't log in here regularly enough to reply in a timely manner, (insert smiley face emoji here).

I was in the East/Central to south part of 6A over the weekend and would estimate 1/2 the tanks were dry. Grass was coming back, so there has been rain, but it didn't look like that area had gotten any of those inch per hour rains that run off and fill tanks. The one bull I saw was big in the body, but pretty stunted in antler growth. Maybe just young with good genetics. If he was going to amount to anything he would have needed to be to that level of antler growth back in June. North of Stoneman Lake road gets totally different weather, (IMHO), so It will probably depend on where you are planning to go. Where I was it wasn't particularly impressive. No Sitka Spruce sprouting and such.

Rough weekend of scouting aggressively inhibited by an ATV that needs some serious TLC. Did manage to find this dude, but certainly didn't cover as much ground as I had hoped. Hopefully I get my issues resolved and back into the field soon.

Looks like this thread petered out last year, but I’m a little bit hoping for a resurrection. Nobody has ever asked me for help on an Antelope hunt in 6A, but alas, I answered the phone a few days ago, and that is exactly the request I got. I have to admit that I knew there are Antelope in 6A, but I have never spent any time specifically looking for them. I’ve kind of avoided 6A for the last few months due to the lack of a winter with any appreciable moisture, and then also subsequent the fact the government closed everything up due to how incredibly dry it has been. Well, the rains have arrived and the phone call was received. Looks like the next few weekends will be spent in 6A. I have a pretty good idea where I am going to start shopping tomorrow, but insight is always appreciated. Since I’m a strong advocated of eliminating bad genetics from a breeding population, or the particularly cantankerous, and sometimes just the unusually large, any good advice will be welcomed. I’ll post pics if I find anything particularly of interest. Thanks in advance for any advice anyone can lend.

Quick question for the gear junkies out there. What are people’s favorites for bipod’s that will extend out far enough that you can use them while sitting down? A long, long, long, time ago I went out one cold morning with a good friend to do some coyote calling. He had a 27 inch extendable Harris with the pivot head on his rifle. My initial reaction was kind of “yeah whatever”, and “I really don’t want the additional weight on my rifle”. By the end of the day I was a true believer. He flat out shot me all day long, could drop the legs down with the stock in his lap while using both hands to call, (yeah, this was so long ago E-Callers pretty much didn’t exist), wasn’t constantly worrying about bumping his rifle over and getting snow in the barrel, Etc. I went out and bought a pair of Harris’ the next day and I’ve been using them with great regularity ever since. I’m currently in the process of doing load development and tuning up a couple of rifles that will be shipped soon to a couple of kids. In support of young shooters, this is normally the time that I hand down good equipment to kids that I know can’t otherwise afford it. I’m kind of wondering if maybe my old Harris bipod’s need to go out the door with these rifles. The old Harris’s would though have to be replaced. Is anyone out there using something that they believe is a substantial improvement? I’m looking forward to the thoughts and replies!

Many thanks to all those that replied and PM'd. Following azelkhunter69's vein of thought, I hit the forest for two days as soon as the stick throwers had exited the woods. My intent was to explore some lower elevations and get educated on some new geography, just in case winter shows up early and moves the elk out of the areas that are familiar to me. I found pretty close to zero elk sign down in the broken juniper country where my day started, though I did accidentally bust a bachelor group of 5 whitetail bucks that were all pretty respectable. Unfortunately, they didn't stay around long enough for me to fish the camera out of my backpack and get any pics. I stayed on the move for the better part of five hours hiking, glassing and notating glassing spots on my GPS as I steadily moved up to higher elevations. Early afternoon while glassing and chomping on a meager lunch I spotted "where is Waldo" napping under a juniper tree about 500 yards out. Waldo was a cute little 2x3 whitetail and after shooting a few pics off the tripod, he left me truly inspired to take a nap too. Mid-afternoon my journey continued and I slowly gained altitude moving up through the scrub junipers. by 4 pm I had moved into the transition zone and was starting to see a meager amount of elk sign (first of the day). Around 4:30 I had a bull bugle in front of me and two others answered. Finally found some elk! All of the action seemed to be directly downwind from my location, so I right angled in an attempt to skirt and flank what I assumed where elk getting up from their bedding area and heading out to feed. The skirt maneuver worked as they didn’t spook, but the flank maneuver didn't. I either over shot the bedding area on my downwind sweep, or they got up and moved directly up wind while I was trying to execute my attempt at keeping my scent trail from blowing into the bedding area. Hoping for a pic of either of the bulls now moving up wind directly in front of me and regularly trading territorial verbal barbs, I was trying to move as quickly as I could but I kept bumping into baby bulls and cows. After a half hour of chasing the two talkative bulls I gave up because it was clear they were "out walking me" while I was attempting to skirt all of the slackers in the group. I checked the map for the most direct route to a road and started in that direction. My dilemma though was I had apparently slipped into a pretty sizeable heard of elk and I was now spending all my time trying to not scare the crap out of small bulls and cows moving out to feed. This entailed a lot of standing around behind trees waiting for elk to pass. Along the way I stumbled onto a watering hole I hadn’t noticed on the map. I stopped and watched the watering hole for about a half an hour as a number of elk stopped for a drink as they were headed out for the evening. Including pics of the best bull I actually saw on day one, though I did see probably 8-10 branch antlered bulls. Finally made it out to a road about sunset and I’m forever grateful for the young couple that stopped and offered me a ride back to my car. I really didn’t need to walk the additional 6 or so miles back to where I had parked. Day 2 I explored a different area where I have found elk in years past. I saw 1 rag horn bull and minimal sign. Go figure. I have spent pretty much my entire life trying to figure out where to find animals and still find that I am frequently wrong in my guesstimates. A couple of parting thoughts. As long as I have been exploring 6A people have been telling me to go to Apache Maid. I accordingly always go somewhere else because I figured the Apache Maid area must be overrun with people. Am I missing something? I was plenty happy to have found as many elk as I did on my scouting trip, but I was a bit disappointed in the size of the bulls I saw. Maybe the ones I didn’t catch up with were better, but the ones I did see were all low 200’s at best. Of course it won’t matter that much in November. Any of them would look good in the freezer! Lastly I was a bit surprised by how concentrated the elk were in one area. I hiked about 15-20 miles and the vast majority of the ground I covered was pretty much free of any elk sign. I would have thought the archery season and the rut would have spread the elk out quite a bit, but that apparently wasn’t the case. Oh well, I found elk and have a new area to hunt in November!

I have a family member that has asked for my help with a 6A muzzleloader elk tag for the mid-November season and I have to admit, I'm a little bit concerned. I've explored an appreciable amount of 6A over the years and I have helped a few youngsters during the October youth hunt. I've also had a couple of other occasions to help friends with Early 6A archery tags.My dilemma though is I have never been in 6A during November, and for that matter, it has been a couple of years since I've been in 6A at all. In the past I have spent an extensive amount of time West of Newman Park and Willard Springs exits all the way over into the East side of Oak Creek Canyon. I've also spent a lot of time along both sides of the 239 between I17 and Lake Mary's road. I half a dozen years ago or so in support of a friend's archery tag, I spent quite a bit of time in the rattlesnake quiet area. That, ladies and gentlemen, would be my total level of experience in unit 6A. I've been trying to do some research and my concern is that all of my geographical knowledge of unit 6A may be North of where the elk are likely to be found in November? The tag holder I'm helping has limited hunting experience, but is very athletic and not likely to be interested in driving around the plethora of roads available in 6A. I.E., we're going to go back in deep somewhere, I'm just not sure where yet. Oh, and if we get lucky this will be his first elk. On a related note, I have a decent amount of available time to scout in advance of the season and would gladly welcome any suggestions of cool areas that I might go explore. Exploring new country is pretty much just 7 1/2 pounds short of a hunting trip. (The weight of a rifle).