Benbrown

One of my younger brothers probably hunts more days every year than I do, and he lives in Austin by choice. He could do his job from just about anywhere, but likes the ambience of Austin.

Great store and great people!

You may need to take your dies apart and clean them. I clean mine in lighter fluid or white gasoline and lube them with Hornady dry lube spray (lightly). I can't imagine that your seating die would suddenly go bad. If you are measuring cartridge overall length (tip of the bullet to the base of the case), it will normally vary a bit because the ogive of the bullets varies a bit between individual bullets out of the same box. Get your instructions that came with the die set and make sure that your seating die is still set correctly according to the manufacturer's recommendation. You might also want to check the shell holder to make sure that it is clean and unobstructed. Sometimes bits of copper, brass or other detritus will collect in the gap that holds the case rim and base true, and cause misalignment. The same holds true for the ram on your press--make sure that it is clean, lightly lubed and moving freely up and down with no slack. If you don't have an RCBS Case Master lor similar tool, check for straight seating by rolling loaded cartridges across a smooth surface (I use a pane of leaded glass). If you see even a slight sign of "wobble" in the bullet tips, your seating die is not seating the bullets straight in the cases. Hope this helps.

Started mine a couple of weeks ago. Little late getting it underway this year--knee surgery distracted me.

There was a topic about this on another forum. Fellow switched to magnum primers in his 7mm-08 and reduced group sizes by a respectable amount. Couple of other posters related positive results with other "standard" cartridges. Look here: http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/7929683/gonew/1/Lemme_Give_Mule_Deer_an_Attabo#UNREAD

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The new farmers are Mennonites that left Chihuahua after the cartels started giving them trouble. They have bought up most of the vacant farms and a lot of the unused water rights and they are farmin' fools. Cotton City hasn't looked this good since before the smelter was built.

Google Jim Kobe. He is in Minnesota, but he refurbished a Miroku over and under for me. Needed several different things done. The price was reasonable and the work was done quickly and well. If you can't find him on the net, PM me and I will hunt up his email address. I am traveling right now and don't have access to my home computer.

Sorry for the tardy response--we have been driving up here to Lincoln, NE, to see a new grandson. The Slover Ranch has been owned by Levi Klump for over 20 years. The county road to it does cross the old Gray Ranch, but it is a public road. The road runs up Horse Camp Draw and that is where the new Border Patrol Forward Operating Base is located. Hatchet Peak is accessible from the north and west, but the south side (including the Cowboy Rim) is blocked by private property owned by the Pacific Western Land Company that is leased to Hurt Cattle Company. The Dunagan book is interesting, but not very accurate as some of her remembrances are incomplete or factually wrong. However, lots of the early settlers did live in tents or dugouts. Often these were "dry camps" where they had to haul in the water that was needed for them and their livestock. The Hadleys have ranched over in Guadalupe Canyon for over 45 years. The home place is in New Mexico, but the ranch straddles both states. The Animas Foundation did reintroduce black-tailed prairie dogs as a part of a long-term research project looking at the effects of herbivory, fire and climate on Chihuahaun Desert grasslands.

The Gray Ranch, now one of several contiguous properties collectively called the Diamond A Ranches, was sold to the Animas Foundation, a private operating foundation that was created to acquire the Gray from TNC and manage it as a working ranch while protecting all of its unique ecological features. TNC retains a conservation easement on the property and the ranch is monitored at regular intervals to demonstrate that the foundation's management is adhering to the terms of the easement. The Gray consisted of about 322,000 acres, approximately 260,000 of which are private land. Most of the state trust and BLM lands are landlocked by private lands and the ranch is not open to the public. The Animas Foundation is a creation of the Hadley family. Ted Turner is not involved, although he did look hard at buying the Gray before the Hadleys became involved.

The Nature Conservancy occasionally retains properties that they can manage best for the rare species and/or ecological assemblies that occur there. On some of these, unfettered public access for hunting or any other activity may not be a part of the management plan. These are usually relatively small parcels, although they may also have been traditional routes to access public lands beyond. Ramsey Canyon and Sonoita Creek are good examples of this. TNC is just like any other private land owner. They have the right to restrict access to their properties that they have bought from willing sellers. For the most part, they protect habitat the old-fahsioned way: they buy it. I assume that the last example referred to above is the Canelo Hills Cienega Reserve. It's not public land and was not public before the Conservany acquired it. For the the most part, the projects that I have worked on that the Conservancy retained managed access just as it was before. If it was open to hunting, it remained open to hunting. In the case of the Canelo Hills: The Canelo Hills Cienega Reserve, is a nature preserve southeast of Sonoita, Arizona on the east side of the Canelo Hills. The area's 260 acres (110 ha) are a mix of rare cienega wetland and Black Oak and Arizona Fescue fields.[1] The preserve is notable for the extremely rare Canelo Ladies Tresses Orchid (Spiranthes delitescens) [2][3] and the Gila chub and Gila sucker that grow along its alkaline banks. The ranch was purchased by the Nature Conservancy in 1969 from the Knipes family.[4] It was designated a National Natural Landmark in December 1974.

How did they go about "locking up the rest"? Just curious.

When it involves habitat protection and restoration, yes. I worked for TNC for 14 years in their Science and Stewardship programs. During that time, we I worked almost dailly with state and federal land management agencies to protect, restore and maintain habitat for wildlife--both game and nongame. TNC is about land protection. They don't protest, they don't sue the feds or the states, and most of the lamd that they acquire ends up being transferred to an appropriate federal or state agency to administer as part of their portfolio. Many of our best National Wildlife Refuges (which are open to hunting and fishing) were acquired as a result of transactions that involved TNC as the initial buyer or facilitator. Most of the folks with whom I worked at TNC are avid hunters and/or anglers. I still hunt with a lot of them when we can make time and place work out.

When I was managing a couple of ranches up in the Nebraska sandhills, we raised chickens for eggs and meat. We had lots of laying hens and we would find a shell-less egg maybe a couple of times each year. It's probably more of a hormonal abnormality than a dietary problem. My girls were pre-teens at the time and they liked to take them to school to gross out their friends who lived in town.

My nephew's nine-year old boy has taken white-tailed deer (including some big bucks in south Texas) and exotics up the size of kudu using a Daniel Defense rifle in 6.8 spc. I think that his kudu bull was about 175 yards, but I know that he has shot a couple of big deer out to almost 300. All of the ones that I know about were one-shot kills. Oh, yeah, and he has killed about half a dozen hogs--one was pushing 300 lbs live weight.

IME, I have never had to resize brass cleaned in either a vibratory or rotating tumbler. I clean my 9.3x74R brass in one and haven't had any problems (it's really thin and easy to deform). If you're going to switch to a rotating tumbler I would look hard at using stainless steel media. I think that the chances of deforming the case mouth would be nonexistent, even with very large cases, and it really cleans brass.

Been there, done that. Nothing like newly whelped puppies in the house! Don't forget to distribute a few cigars among your buddies. Post some more pictures when they get closer to adoption age...

I buy and sell firearms on the internet pretty regularly. If I have any reservations about the buyer, I take only a postal money order and don't ship until it arrives. Then, if it is a long gun, I usually ship it USPS insured. The Postal Service is very good about investigating and prosecuting mail fraud, but not so hot on delivering on insurance claims, although they always do pay something eventually. I have also used both FedEx and UPS to ship both long guns and handguns. Never had a claim with FedEx, but have had two with UPS, both of which were dealt with fairly quickly. As long as you ship to an FFL, there is no need to ship from an FFL on your end. You need to be sure that the buyer and you are on the same page about the possibility of a return. Most folks agree to a three-day, non-firing inspection, with the expense of returning the firearm to be born by the would-be buyer. I have had only one rifle returned, and that was on a trade, not a sale. On that one, the other party changed their mind after I had shipped (and before they got around to shipping their rifle). He called me and said for me to call his FFL and arrange for shipping my rifle back. I called his FFL and told them to ship me the rifle and bill him. BTW, I have quit using Paypal--too many glitches to suit me. YMMV. Hope this helps. Ben

This falls into the realm of "I don't know, but I been told": I have heard that there used to be Coues whitetails in the Cedar Mountains. That said, I know most of the serious local hunters and have never heard of anyone taking a Coues whitetail in that unit. If there are any in 25, they would most likely be in the Cedars. However, the few hunters that I know who do hunt that country, hunt for mule deer. Fortunately, the bag limit for that unit is one fork antlered deer, so you can shoot a mulie as a last resort, I guess. Let us know how you make out...

Is it a VX II or a VX 2?

What's going on with their web site? I clicked on the "Services" icon and got descriptions in what looks like three different languages, including Latin.

I shot 150 E-Tips in my 7x57 and the two deer that I shot with them died just as quickly as deer have died when shot with anything else. I sold my 7x57 and a friend bought the remainder of my E-Tips because they shoot so well in his 7x57. Fast, 150 grain bullets and 7x57 don't really belong in the same sentence, but the E-Tips still perform like Nosler designed them to do.

Yep. She's happy, and with good reason. Congratulations to both of you!

I ordered a Winchester Model 70 Extreme Weather in .300 Win Mag a few weeks ago. It will be my primary elk rifle for the foreseeable future. However, I will still carry my Ruger No. 1-H in 9.3x74R on days when there is not likely to be much climbing or long-range shooting. You might want to take a look at the Winchester before deciding...

I have been using 72.0 grains of Ramshot Hunter with the 210 TTSX in my .338 Win Mags. This is a stout load, so start lower and work up. Most the the Ramshot powders are relatively temperature stable, Hunter and Magnum perhaps less so than others, but still not bad.