Benbrown

Among plant taxonomists, there is an oft-repeated saying: "A common name is good for about three counties." Not quite that bad with vertebrates, but common names are just that, and they do vary from place to place.

My curiosity was finally piqued sufficiently to pull up the latest vertebrate classification. They are the first species listed in the family Bovidae under the subfamily Caprinae (the goat subfamily). FWIW, however, the common name given is "Barbary sheep".

Good post, thanks! However, the vernacular has them as "sheep". Trying to get folks to do otherwise is about as fruitless as getting them to pronounce "Coues" as "cows" (the way that Elliot Coues himself pronounced it).

My 14-year-old grandson (who is small for his age) killed a very big cow elk this year with one shot from this mother's 7mm-08 at 307 yards with a 120-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. I have used 7mm-08s to start a number of my grandchildren as well as guests who had never hunted deer or elk. Most of them killed their first big game animal, either deer or elk, with those rifles.

I have seen two Remington 700s fire after the safety was released with no one or nothing touching the trigger. If you follow the rules of firearms safety, you may have an accidental discharge, but there will be no one or nothing harmed, although I will guarantee that your heart rate will spike. The problem started long before 2006 with the introduction of the "Walker trigger" in some of their Model 721s and 722s. When the Model 700 was introduced around 1965, they were all equipped with the Walker trigger. Years ago, I was friends with a man who worked for Remington in their PR department. We shot together quite a lot. He told me that the trigger was a problem and he wished that Remington would just acknowledge it and fix it. A very good gunsmith I knew over in Georgia (now deceased) had a standing offer to replace them for free if you brought a 721, 722 or 700 to his shop. Some say that pulling the trigger with the safety on, then releasing the safety, is what causes the AD. But in one instance that involved a rifle sitting on bench bags on a shooting bench, I know for certain that a round was chambered, the safety was engaged and after some conversation, the shooter pushed the safety off and the rifle fired immediately. His trigger finger was still nowhere near the trigger guard. I haven't owned any Remingtons with either the Walker trigger or the newer version, and will not own one unless it has an aftermarket trigger.

In the past, they had a good reputation, but lately it's been hit or miss for a lot of folks. They have been taking a bit of a drubbing on a couple of the internet sites that I follow.

The guy that shot and killed Rob Krentz had been arrested, processed and released four times by the Border Patrol. They had his prints and his picture on file. Each time he was released he apparently went right back to smuggling. I thought his killer had not yet been identified? The last report I saw said they were looking at two residents of Cochise County, but that their DNA didn't end up matching the cigarette butts left at the scene? The pistol that was used was stolen from a truck at the American Museum of Natural History Southwestern Research Station in Portal the night before, along with two cell phones. The cell phones were abandoned at the site of the shooting with dead batteries, and the prints on the cell phones were matched with those of an individual that had been handled and released four times by the Border Patrol. I would post his picture, but apparently the upgrades on my iMac are not compatible with the posting protocols on this web site. His name is Alejandro Chavez-Vasquez. He has not turned up anywhere since the murder and his subsequent escape back to Mexico. There are rumors that he was killed and buried in the desert somewhere in northern Sonora, but no one has been able to confirm that.

Idiots abound...

The guy that shot and killed Rob Krentz had been arrested, processed and released four times by the Border Patrol. They had his prints and his picture on file. Each time he was released he apparently went right back to smuggling.

You might or might not be able to beat the prices you quoted, but if you did, you would have to stumble across a smoking deal somewhere. The problem with buying cheap is that you will end up having to add another $200-$400 in upgrades to have rifle that is useable for anything other than plinking at relatively close range with crude iron sights. Don't ask me how I know.

Work a Game and Fish check station sometime. You can hear most of these (and many more) in just a day or two.

+1. Looking like New England vs. Seattle, at this point. The Cowboys will choke.

Are you using magnum primers? If not, switch. If so, I would try H-1000. I am using 70.5 grains of H 4831sc with 200-grain Nosler ABs in my .300 Win Mag and it's working very well. I have also used RL-19 with good results in several .300 Win Mags, but it has been hard to find lately. I would also suggest that you get off the lead sled and get a good hefty front rest and rabbit ears bag for the rear. Some rifles just don't like the sled but work well with a softer rest. I like a Bull's Bag for a front rest for anything with more horse power than the .30-06 class, but a large-ish muslim bag filled with anything from foam peanuts to coarse sand will work about as well.

I have 100 cases boxed up and ready to ship. I was going to send these to a buddy for his use, but he informed me that he had all the brass that he needed for the foreseeable future. Don't remember the maker, but I think that they may be Hornady--if not, they are probably Remington. I do know that they are alI the same headstamp. I would rather not have to open the box and repack them, but if you want to trade, I will get them off to you today.

Have you checked to see that the action screws are tight and torqued to specs? Can you tell if the action has shifted in the stock? If the groups are consistently 3" at 100 yards, I would suspect a bedding problem. But if all of the above check out, I would contact the scope manufacturer's customer service folks and arrange to have your scope checked. It's usually free except for shipping one-way. My experience with Leupold and Swarovski has been ten days to two weeks for the turn around, but it may be longer with hunting seasons starting up everywhere.

If it's just surface rust, spray with a gun oil (like RemOil or Honady One-SHot) and polish with 0000 steel wool. This will remove the rust, but not the blueing that is left.

I beg to differ on shot on target time. I have timed to first shot hit numerous times at 1 second from leather carry holster, not my competition rig. I shoot tuesday night steel for about 3 years now and am much faster than I was when I was checking time to 1st shot. I regularly shoot stages at about 20 seconds for 20-28 shots while moving and enguageing targets from multiple areas. You work on your bear spray I will work on my lead spray and hope thats all we have to do is practice. Well, then, my comment was not addressed to you. You are obviously a well-trained competitor. However there are a number of technical articles that have tested time to first shot from a holster for shooters who were qualifying for concealed carry licenses. Fewer than 10 percent of the persons tested could beat 3 seconds. Virtually all of those who did were competitive shooters. Significantly more than half of the instructors could not do it. The OP did not give the impression that the poster was anything more than a recreational pistol shooter. There have been at least two peer-reviewed studies that have documented significantly more success and fewer injuries from bear attacks by those using bear spray as opposed to those using a firearm (rifles, as well as handguns). It's still a free country for the most part, and anyone is free to choose. However, I think that it's irresponsible to recommend a handgun as the primary response to a possible grizzly attack. Phil Shoemaker is around bears almost every day and he recommends bear spray over a handgun. FWIW, I carry a handgun just about every day, and always when hunting, but in Situation One grizzly habitat, I have a canister of bear spray on my belt or my pack strap. And, if I am preparing for a trip into grizzly country, I do buy the practice canisters and refresh my response habits.

Only if he hand loads. The .25-06 would be a logical choice. It was by far the favorite cartridge of all my cowboys who used it for both coyotes and deer--both muleys and Coues.

Odds are that you can't get your pistol out of your holster and fire an aimed shot in less than about three seconds--even if you have practiced a lot. That's about the time that it takes a grizz to cover 30 yards. If you want to carry a pistol for backup after using bear spray, that's OK, but your initial response should be with a bear spray canister--the kind that hangs from your belt and that can be triggered without having to remove and aim it. Alaskan bear guide Phil Shoemaker did recently dispatch a small brown bear with a 9mm handgun, but it required nine shots with special bad-butt Black Hills ammo, and he knew what he was doing. The bear never charged, but did stand up in its bed and behaved aggressively toward his clients (who fortuitously had fallen down to one side in the thick vegetation where they had stumbled upon the sleeping bear). He admitted that, had he been expecting the possibility of a bear encounter where he was taking his clients, he would carried a big bore rifle instead.

It would help to know where (what town or city) you would like to receive it. I assume that you live in the Phoenix area, as it seems that most who post on here and live there seem to assume that everyone else lives there, too.

I'm looking at my 74th birthday coming down the road. I never expected to live this long--my dad, my uncle, his dad and his uncles all passed away before the age of 50, several of them fairly early in their forties. If you had asked me thirty years ago if I would still be hunting elk, deer and some kind of birds every year when I reached my 70s, I would have thought that you were crazy for asking. I have to confess that I never made any plans to live this long, either, so I have just continued to work, doing consulting, since my "retirement" 12 years ago. Last year, on my birthday, I was wondering what in the world I was doing, and thinking that I should probably rid myself of a bunch of stuff and obligations, "and act my age." However, last April 14th, my first great-grandchild was born. As I held him for the first time, I realized that this was a gift that none of the males in my father's family had ever received. I don't know why, but it made me think that it was time to plan how I was going to spend the rest of my life. Since wildlife conservation, hunting and shooting, and the outdoors have been the primary focus of my life since I was a teenager, I figured "why not just keep on keeping on?" So, that's my plan and I am going to continue to do the things that I enjoy, and that will help to ensure that my great grandchildren can enjoy and experience at least some of the things that I do and things that have made my life a joy to live. How long this goes on is up to God, but I will do my best to keep it going.

I would try it with 150-grain non-lead bullets (TTSXs or E-Tips) and 165-grain Nosler Partitions or AccuBonds. I have had two RSIs (a .243 and a 7x57) and both would group three shots around 1 inch at 100 yards with loads that they liked. You'll be giving up around 100 fps with the short barrel in .30-06, but the elk won't be able to tell the difference. If it just won't group, I would try free-floating the fore end. Take it to a gunsmith who knows No. 1s--it's not expensive and it often does help RSIs that just won't group well. While you're there, have the trigger adjusted to your liking, too.

There is a fair amount of illegal traffic of all kinds, but theft from untended camps and vehicles is by far the problem most frequently encountered. Lock your car or truck, and don't leave anything the least bit valuable in sight. Don't leave your camp unattended, or camp near others who will be around during your absence. One fallacy that has been promoted here is that you are safer up high. In fact, that is where most of the drug mules are traveling these days when they are heading for I-10 with their bales. If you're backcountry camping, stay in mid-elevation meadows or on a bench along one of the stream corridors. People smuggling is down low, for the most part (although the road into Rustler Park seems to be a popular pick-up point for small groups). When my daughters and grandchildren come to camp, we usually stay in one of the lesser used campgrounds and spend our days exploring from trailheads that we can drive to. However, there are always a few other campers--enough to deter snooping by people passing by.

I started my daughters with .243s over 30 years ago, and they did well with them, even on big Nebraska whitetails that dressed out pushing 200 lbs. However, I started the grandchildren with either Remington 700 or Model 7 youth rifles in 7mm-08 using lighter loads with 120-grain Nosler Ballistic Tips. My younger daughter liked them so well that I had to make one for her on a Mexican Mauser action. The .25-06 really needs at least a 24-inch barrel to realize its full potential and that makes for an unbalanced and somewhat unwieldy rifle in a youth configuration. Of the two you mentioned, I would pick the .243.

Thanks! That makes sense, but the caption doesn't show on my screen and I could not get the original to come up.