Hoss50

We never hunted that high unless we were throwing a hail Mary. I also saw a few spooky things up there so it wasn't high on my list of places to hunt. My hunting buddy refused to go back up there. He refers to it as Wicca Mountain. We were never super successful in 20a, but we were also not as good of hunters when I hunted there. I am not great now, but I have learned alot and gotten way better equipment than last time I hunted deer in 20a.

Who are making these new pro series rings for Vortex? I saw a set at Ross today. $59 and made in the USA. Laser engraved size and torque specs. I know Seekins was making the Precision rings, but these are different.

this scope is supposed to be a great value for the money. I researched them awhile back and almost pulled the trigger on one, and stumbled into something different.

Depends on where you want to hunt. It is a diverse unit. Full pine trees all the way to high desert. I have not hunted in 20a in about 5 or 6 years. I don't know what condition the areas are in after the fires. If you hunt the high desert and scrub oak areas, find some water sources not near a road, and get high and glass, move, glass more, move, glass, etc. If you are going to hunt the pines up on big bug, I would get out toward the edges and work off the fingers that lead off the plateau. There are big deer in the unit, but you are going to work hard for them. They don't get old by being dumb. The deeper you get away from the main roads & boundaries of the unit the better off you will be.

I was going to guess part of a mining cart.

That is better than decent. Good work. We worked pretty hard last year on the early rifle hunt in 12AE. I got a less decent buck than you did opening morning (still a decent 4x4), and my buddy ended up working a lot of miles and hills to end up taking a small forky off a main road.

You spelled my name wrong, but got the city right... Harley Smith, Glendale Az... Congrats Raymond, I am sure that rifle will be a great piece of equipment for your hunts.

My son is right handed, but left eye dominant. To top that off he can't wink his eyes independently, and the only eye he can keep open at all independently is his left eye which is why I am approaching teaching him left handed. He is learning to shoot left handed with some of my right hand equipment, but I want to train him with lefty stuff if that is what he will be shooting in life. To top that off his 4 year old brother seems to be headed down the same path. Right handed and left eye dominant with the winking problem. I blame my wife...she and her mother are both the same way as my kids. I don't own many smaller caliber rifles that are more youth friendly so investing in a 22LR and a hunting rifle in a low recoil 6.5 - 7mm flavor isn't a bad investment if I invest in stuff that will last them a lifetime.

If anyone has a decent place in the pines to camp near Prescott please PM me. I will be bringing my 23' toyhauler so it has to be accessible with that. I used to have a good spot behind Mayer, but I think it burned during the fire a couple years ago.

I used to camp near there a lot in the first set of pine trees by arrastra creek, but it appears by map that most of the pines I used to camp in burned in the Goodwin fire. I have not verified it personally though so I don't know if some of those areas were saved or not.

I less ticket available now...

Awesome truck. All the good stuff in the good body style.

Congratulations. Fun hunt, but still not an easy hunt.

not drawn as suspected and semi-planned...

Late 80's/early 90's metal, some social distortion, dropkick Murphy's, Charlie daniels, some cypress hill, Johnny Cash, Bollox, everlast, some 50's & 60's rock, Garth, etc. My mix on Pandora is quite diverse. Above is just part of my current shuffle.

Happy 4th.

Hunt hard. If it is warm still you have a shot at catching bugles. Hit some bugles super early to see if you can catch some replies and get an area to strike off into before first light.

If you are local call Eric at axisworks. See what he can do. If that is out of your budget I would go 1 of 4 routes. 1. Explore the Fierce Carbon they have at Sportsman's. 2. Kimber if you are looking for light and off the shelf. 3. Something cheaper, but maybe upgrade the stock and trigger. 4. Cheap Ruger or savage in 6.5 CM and lots of ammo. Practice practice practice.

$2k rifle only, or does that include glass. I held a fierce with carbon wrap barrel the other day at Sportsman's. I think it was about $1800. It seemed to offer alot of the options a $2500-3000 rifle does. The question would be how tight the machine work was compared to a custom. If the total budget was 2k, I would be looking at an $800-1200 rifle with an $800-1200 scope.

Nothing here, but I wasn't expecting to get hit. We only put in for late strip/kaibab with only 1 point.

My favorite is 6.5x55 also. I do love my 257 weatherby. I don't have a 264 win mag...yet... Once the barrel on my 257 burns out, it may become a 264 win mag...

Great scope. If it had the boone & crockett reticle I would be all over it. I have that version on 1 rifle, and love it.

double post

I laugh all the time about all the people thinking 6.5 creed is so revolutionary. The 260 has done it for years, and the 6.5x55 has done it for 125 years. The only thing a 6.5 creed can do that a 6.5x55 can't is fit in a short action. So many good old calibers like 6.5x55, 264 Win Mag, etc are overlooked because they are not the new hot thing. Some of the old stuff is better than the new hot thing many times.

I have over crimped a few 3006 rounds back in the day and crushed the shoulders. 357 mag too. I have also stuck a few cases in reloading dies because of lack of lubrication. 300 weatherby mag seems to be the worst. I had to use a hammer to drive the case out of the die with the decapping rod. It destroyed the decap rod, but the brass came out. My dad loaded a 338 win mag with no powder once. He also loaded an unprimed case with powder and bullet. I had to ban him from his own reloading equipment when I was about 12 years old...