300RUM

I'm aware of some individuals being lifted out by DPS or Sheriff helicopters. Is there a charge when they do it? If so how does it compare to the non government operations?

I do turn necks in the manner you are describing. My necks are usually 0.016 thick. I attach a Forester hand neck turning tool to my workbench with a C-clamp and use a case holder in a cordless drill to run the cases through. It goes pretty fast and you only have to do it once. I am not going to jump up and down claiming it makes a huge difference. However, trying to keep a hunting rifle under 0.5 MOA is a game of eliminating variables, even little ones. You mention the bullet being held off center due to a variation in neck thickness on a given case. Another issue is that in a given set of cases the average neck thickness may vary so when they are resized some will have more neck tension than others. Again, probably not a huge deal but my mindset is to just turn the necks and I then know that neck variations are not one of my problems.

I read it as 30K divided between the first 10. A second 30K to be divided between other victims that come forward in the next 90 days. A 10K fine to the state. That would add up to 70K total

A barrel slightly loose instead of to tight? Sounds like you guys were trying to be over achivers.

When I broke my ankle I was wearing a pair of boots I really liked. They slit the the laces and got the boot off intact. I was very happy about that. When the ankle healed I had trouble with the boots. They had a tall heel and that contributed to my ankle rolling to the side in the direction it was broke when I wore the boots. Apparently I can not wear "high heels" anymore. Gave them to a friend about 5 years ago and he is still using them. At least they didn't go to waste.

Ran into a guy once who was having accuracy problems with reloads for his .303 Enfield. He was using .308 bullets. The Enfield barrels run in the .311 to .314 range. Does that count?

Years back I had a tool holder come loose on the lathe on one of the final passes while cutting the thread on new barrel for a 700 in .308. It may have been safe to use but I was not taking chances and bought another barrel that happened to be a different brand than the first. As I was fitting it to the 700 it occurred to me that my L1-A1 had a 1.000 - 16 thread vs 1.062 - 16 for the 700. Why not? I pulled the military barrel out of the L1-A1, took some measurements then put the "messed up" barrel back in the lathe. I cut the thread deeper and it cleaned up real nice so I did the rest of the necessary machining and installed it in the L1-A1. I loaded a series of rounds with gradually increasing charges using several powders and headed to the range. The 700 experienced pressure problems long before the maximum charge was reached. The L1-A1, a gas operated semi-auto, happily digested all the loads, up to max, with no pressure problems. It seemed a little backwards. The only explanation I could come up with was that the 700 had a much tighter bore.

When you are looking at a medical flight you can't just compare cost of the flight to the distance flown. You are not just paying for the flight. You are also paying for the helicopter, the pilot and flight nurses to be on standby 24/7 to make the flight on short notice. it is not cheap, but it is often life saving. I have had to help load 2 individuals onto one of those flights over the years. Both would have died without rapid transport to a hospital.

What is legal as a muzzleloader really varies from state to state. A 700 muzzle loader would be OK in Arizona but if you go to another state always check. Some do not allow 209 primers, others do not allow scopes. Some states even have hunts limited to reproductions of caplock or flintlock rifles, I believe new Mexico has some of them.

I did the same thing and purchased the lifetime licence a while back. It solves the licence problem but not the OTC tag problem. Last year I tried to pick up my 2017 deer tag at the end of 2016 at the Walmart in Globe. They would not not sell it to me because it was not 2017 yet. So how was I supposed to go hunting on Jan. 1 2017 ????

This. Just used my daughter’s new rifle with brake on my coues hunt for the first time...ear plugs in the cheek rest pouch on the stock kept them handy...and also packed a set of electronic ear muffs so I could hear my buddy call ranges when we set up. Piece of cake. I keep a set in a little case attached to the sling mount on my Harris bi-pod and another set in my pack.

If you develop a load with a brake on the rifle then remove the brake you may have problems. The point of impact will change, likely higher without the brake. That one is not to hard to deal with, just re-zero the rifle. By removing the brake you are removing weight from the end of the barrel. This will change how the barrel vibrates when the gun is fired. It is possible a load that provided excellent accuracy with the brake on may not group as well with the brake removed. It depends on where the barrel is in its vibration cycle when the bullet exits the bore. A barrel vibrates like a tuning fork when the gun is fired. A well tuned load is matched to this vibration. By removing the brake you alter the vibration cycle of the barrel and may alter the grouping of your load.

The "opportunity" and "trophy" issue is a hard one for an agency to find an equitable compromise for. Myself, I would like to hunt big horn sheep. Is it opportunity or trophy that I desire?

I think the Santa situation from the OP does have some Merit. It needs to be done as an adult cartoon. Get Chris Rock to do the voice of Black Santa, Ron White as the voice of white Santa along with Lewis Black as the lead elf. Get those three to collaborate writing the script and it would have to be a riot.

I thought Brown Santa was UPS bringing me goodies. Did I get confused somewhere?

There are lots of variables in barrel life. One is heat, the hotter you run it the shorter its life. Take a little extra time and let it cool between every shot.

It has been about 25 years since I loaded 7.62x39. I seem to recall using H322. I currently use H322 for 130 & 140 grain bullet loads for 6.8 SPC.

My hunting partner got a bear miles into the wilderness one year. We decided go for broke and skip the double mileage penalty. His pack frame had a bar that telescoped up pretty high. Since I am substantially taller we switched pack frames and I lashed sleeping bags and other light stuff to the top of that bar. I walked under a branch that hung over the trail on the way out. With the extra height I did not fit and got flipped onto my back like an obscenity spewing upside down turtle until I could slip out of the straps. I was rather pissed off at the time but laugh about it now. The pack hunts we did left us with some great memories. Good luck on yours.

When you did the "scoring" who came in to low, her or you?

With pack hunting there is one thing you have to worry about that you don't if you are just pack packing. The weight of the pack coming back out. I used to do wilderness pack hunts and always kept weight to a minimum to make adding an animal to the pack not become such a brutal load. Plan your load right and you can bone out the animal and make it out in one trip. Take to many extras in and it takes two trips to get out.

I have stalked a bear and put an arrow through it. If you can get close enough to a deer to take it with a bow why can't you get close enough to a bear?

I expect it is a low density hunt, similar to the Hopi hunts. If the rancher has basically done the scouting and handed over the information it should greatly improve the odds of success.

6x6? 6x7? Either way I run out of fingers trying to count. Awesome buck.

There is a way to verify scope tracking that completely eliminates any shooter error. Measure the height of the target frame from top to bottom. Place the crosshairs on the bottom edge of the target frame and sandbag the rifle in place. Adjust a turret till the crosshairs are on the top edge of the target frame. Convert the number of clicks used in to inches and compare that to the actual measurement of the target frame. You can now calculate any tracking error as a percentage. I repeat the test several times to verify a consistent result. The same thing can be done for windage in the horizontal plane. I sometimes clamp a one by two to the Target frame so I can cover a longer distance and use the edge of the one by two as stopping point.

I think I will put a McKenzie Target out in the woods and sell the coordinates to it.