"Dad, I know you want me to hunt with a single shot, but I really need a lever-action or a bolt-action gun. I wanna be a real deer hunter!"
 
"Son, it's the first shot that's the most important," my father replied, "no matter how many backup rounds you have. Hit the target with your first shot, and you won't need a second one," he said, and that was that.
 
As much as I hated to admit it, there was great wisdom and truth in Dad's statement. But if that was indeed the case, I thought, why did Jack O'Connor hunt with a bolt-action rifle? I knew that he and many of the shooting writers of that era were excellent shots based on the articles they wrote. But they hunted with repeating rifles rather than single shots. It was one of life's mysteries at the time. 

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Why would anyone perfectly comfortable with shooting right-handed learn to shoot left-handed or vice versa?
 
The reason? Stuff happens. Years ago, on the advice of a hunting buddy, I forced myself to learn to shoot on my weak side. As a predator hunter who hunkers on the ground and brings critters close to the call, I find it often comes in handy when the unpredictable target appears to the right.
 
A simple shift to the off shoulder and the target is acquired without having to move my body. It comes in equally handy when rattling whitetails. Anyone who hunts deer from small portable stands has also experienced the weak-side dilemma. Ambidextrous shooting vastly improves the odds on otherwise awkward shots.

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It was a glorious September morning. The mountain air was crisp, the sky was washed blue and I was following a brace of incredibly well-trained German shorthairs through prime pheasant cover. We were hunting the famed Flying B Ranch, which sprawled the full width of Northern Idaho's Lawyer Creek Canyon. Guests of the ranch had access to nearly a quarter-million acres of game-rich real estate.
   
The new SAS shotgun I was carrying had been introduced by Weatherby a few years earlier, yet the first time I shouldered the gun, it felt like an old, trusted friend.

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One of the most closely guarded secrets in the shooting industry during the mid-1950s was the development of the .44 Magnum cartridge. Remington and Smith & Wesson collaborated to produce the first truly big-bore handgun cartridge and six-gun designed expressly for hunting.
 
Today, 50 years later, the .44 Magnum is still considered to be the standard by which all handgun hunting cartridges are judged, and rightly so.
   
It's the most affordable and readily available big-bore magnum. It's produced in an astounding array of single- and double-action revolvers. It's one of the most accurate handgun hunting cartridges ever conceived. Factory .44 ammo suitable for tackling everything from varmints to Cape buffalo is available around the world. And the majority of shooters find it the perfect combination of power and manageability.

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It was a scene straight from a Leanin' Tree Christmas card. The 5x5 bull elk was moving uphill on a well-traveled path through lodgepole pine while snowflakes as large as dollars and wetter than kisses pasted his sides. He was so close, it seemed I could reach out and tickle his ribs with my gun barrel.
 
I had a cow tag, so the bull was not mine to take. Plus, I was guiding a trophy hunter from Florida for whitetails, not elk.
 
The bull moved on, never knowing I was there, but years later I still see him and the gentle, wet snowflakes that caressed his hide.
 
Most hunters travel with cameras in their packs, but too often we leave them there until an animal is down. For many of us, the best scenes - including, at times, the game we allow to get away and friends who pass away too early - go unrecorded by film but remain engraved upon our minds.

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Sometimes, amid the never-ending volley of new wonder cases and cartridges being thrown at us, we lose track of the realities of the hunt. It all boils down to a moment in time when we send a single chunk of copper and lead downrange with one objective - to accurately hit, penetrate and kill an animal stone dead. No matter what we have invested in our rifle, scope or other gear, once we pull the trigger, everything relies on that buck's worth of bullet.
 
Picking a bullet amid the vast choices that are available should take more thought and care than choosing a cartridge or a caliber. For those who are fortunate enough to know precisely what the conditions will be at the moment of the shot, it's easy. If you hunt from the same stand, watch the same trail and know about how far your shots will be, then you can select a rifle and bullet for that set of conditions.

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I hunted hard for the ancient axis buck, stalking him in the searing summer heat, but he was always a step ahead. I eased through the cedar thicket for one last stalk. I had just about given up when Toby McCloud startled me back to life.

"There he is! Shoot!"

I looked up and saw the herd begin to charge through the cedars. The rifle came up instinctively, and I tracked the buck in my scope, praying for an opening in the brush. My prayer was answered when the buck passed through a small clearing. I swung ahead of him and touched the trigger.
 
Remington introduced the Limited Edition Series Model 700 Classic in 1981. Sporting a straight-combed walnut stock with a satin finish and crisp checkering, the Model 700 Classic looks like a "classic" rifle should. A thin rubber recoil pad and a polished blued barrel and action complete the classic look. 

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"I have suggested to several outfitters that they consider tacking an additional $500 to the price of their hunts and allowing the hunter to shoot his steed at the end of each hunt. This would allow the hunter to shoot the animal he most wants to kill." 
        - Russell Thornberry, "Bucks, Bulls and Belly Laughs"

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"I am sending you some sabots and bullets," said the person on the other end of the phone. "They're the latest and greatest - flat-shooting, wind-resistant and extremely accurate. You'll be amazed!"
 
"How do they perform on game?" was my only question.
 
"Dunno. Haven't shot anything with them," came the response.
 
"Well, then we don't really know how they truly perform. Send me some, and I'll use them on my next hunt."
 
A few days later, I opened a package containing 50 saboted bullets. The prototypes reminded me of Nosler Ballistic Tips, a rifle bullet I dearly love. Handwritten on the box was "250 grains."
 
Later that afternoon at the range, I loaded the bullets ahead of three 50-grain Pyrodex pellets in my 209x50 Encore and Omega muzzleloaders. Three shots with each rifle later, I was impressed with the group sizes. At 100 yards, the Encore produced a 11/2-inch group, and the Omega's group was even tighter than that. 

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When I first started hunting, my friends and I had no concept of "pheasant guns." Barely teenagers, our firearm choices were dictated by financial circumstances. We relied on our inexpensive 12-gauge single-shots to hunt anything with wings - ducks, geese (hopefully, but seldom successfully), crows, pheasants, sage hens, chukar and the occasional desert quail. We were too macho to shoot smaller-gauge guns, and used full chokes for their long-range reach.
 
While our break-top single-shots were economical, they had three serious flaws: 1) My Model 37 Winchester weighed barely 6 pounds. Firing the 11/4-ounce high-brass "Express" loads was a punishing experience that became progressively more painful as the day wore on. 2) Knowing I had only one shot available made me concentrate so hard, I almost always missed. 3) Their full-choked barrels practically guaranteed missing when pheasants flushed at your feet.

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By John L. Moore

Here's the scene: In the dark, a grandfather backs a trailer up to a wire enclosure and uses two corral panels to try to load a large animal with his young granddaughter's assistance. Things go wrong, and the grandfather gets hurt.
 
Sound like a farm movie from the 1950s? Not likely. In this case, the large animal is a marauding grizzly; the grandfather is a character played by Robert Redford; and the 2005 motion picture, now available on video, is "An Unfinished Life." Wyoming writer Mark Spragg based the movie on his novel of the same title and co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Virginia.

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By John L. Moore

The young man knocked on my door just after daybreak and wanted to know if he could hunt antelope. He was new to hunting, he explained, and had been hunting with a couple of friends, but it had finally dawned on him that they were using him as a pack mule and bird dog.

I gave him a map of the ranch and drew out a plan. "Park here," I explained. "Then walk in this direction for about a mile, find a comfortable place and lie down and wait. Sooner or later, someone will send a herd of antelope your way. Just lie there and let them pass. The buck will be the last animal in the herd."

An hour after sunset, he was knocking again. "It worked just like you told me," he said, and he had a big old buck in the back of his truck to prove it.

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Only a few hits upside the head from hard-kicking shotshell loads were required for me to realize I can hit more ducks and clay targets when my gun kicks a little less. A gas-operated autoloader is a big help in softening the recoil of those hammering loads, and that can lead to a better day in the field.
 
"We all flinch when we shoot a shotgun," says Scott Grange of Browning and Winchester. "It's just a matter of how much we flinch. When you're shooting a gas gun, though, the slightly softer recoil is going to make you less likely to yank the trigger and lift your head off the stock comb in anticipation of getting kicked while shooting 200 clays over a day."
 
That gentler kick also helps keep your sight picture after firing a shot. That can give you a moment's more time to align your gun on a second or third target.

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By John L. Moore

It began early the day before Thanksgiving. I was feeding horses in the dark when I heard a strange sound to the north where the gray, blue and black gumbos are a jumbled maze.
 
The noise was the distressed chatter of coyotes. I heard their gossip for only a moment, and then the morning became silent. An hour later, I drove three miles in that direction, parked and began a long trek into the badlands to scout for big mule deer.
 
Only a quarter-mile from the truck, I cut a large canine track. Dogs again, I thought. A mile to my east was a rural subdivision. Years ago, we were troubled by a pair of German Shepherds that roamed from there. They killed a number of our sheep before we killed one of them.
 
A few years later while fencing, I noticed a big coyote hunting mice in the distance. I got my binoculars on it and was shocked by its size and unusually long, black guard hair. This, I knew, was not a pure coyote, but a coyote-dog hybrid. I'd known this pairing to happen before. When I was a child, our cow dog ran off with a coyote pack. I later discovered a coyote shot from the air by government hunters. Its muzzle was unusually broad, and its hair was almost blonde. My father agreed it had to be a pup from the runaway cow dog.

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Sighting-in a rifle is a chore that too many hunters put off until right before the deer season rolls around. In terms of excitement, checking the zero on an existing gun ranks up there with painting the house or cutting the grass.

You know the drill: Gather up the heavy rest, sandbags, spotting scope and other gear, and head to the range.

Having the right equipment makes a big difference. A solid front rifle rest is a must, as is a stable rear bag to cradle the rifle butt. Such bags are usually filled with sand and small enough to be moved without much effort.

To shoot small groups like those you see in magazines, the bench you use must be stable. It should be the best one at the range, made from heavy lumber or reinforced concrete, and firmly attached to the ground. The last thing you need is to have a bench "walk" while you're shooting. Get everything out now, including your front rest, sandbag, ammunition, spotting scope, ear and eye protection.

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I hate math - always have. I tried to duck out of my entire last year of high school algebra, got busted and spent a whole summer making it up so I could graduate. All I cared about were journalism and English courses, and spending every available moment outdoors, gun, bow or fishing rod in hand.
 
Two pivotal events in my life did pique my interest in numbers. At a young age, I discovered money and thought it would be a good idea to learn how to count. Later, I learned that applying just a little bit of numerology to how I set up my rifles could extend how far and accurately I could hit and kill game. Suddenly, numbers mattered.
 
Apparently, I'm not the only shooter with an ingrained aversion to numbers. With the elk, antelope and deer openers just weeks away as I write this, the local commercial range is abuzz with activity. Hunters sighting-in a new rifle or checking to see where "Ol' Betsy" is hitting fill the benches.

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Years ago, when I first began shooting, nearly all rifles came stocked in genuine walnut. The only exceptions were budget-priced models wearing cheap wood disguised by a walnut stain. Walnut stocks were a centuries-old tradition until 1965. That's when custom gunmaker Chet Brown invented fiberglass stocks and introduced them to a skeptical public. Fiberglass stocks offered several advantages over traditional wood handles, but years passed before riflemen - a notoriously conservative bunch - grudgingly began to accept them.
 
Synthetic stocks of laid-up fiberglass, Kevlar or molded polymer have a lot to recommend them. They're sturdy and exceptionally stable. They won't warp like walnut stocks do when exposed to changing weather, aiding consistent accuracy. Synthetic handles are considerably less expensive than AAA-grade walnut, and you don't worry about dings and scratches when you're lugging your rifle through the woods.

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By John L. Moore

When I was about 12, I trekked into the Beartooth Mountains with my outfitter uncle, Al, a pack train of a dozen mules, and his well-heeled clients from Minneapolis. The alpha male of the dude family was about 40 and had been an All-American quarterback for a large Midwestern university.
 
My uncle, at that time, was nearing 50 and in good shape, considering he'd broken nearly every major bone and had died briefly on the operating table as the result of a WWII glider accident.
 
The businessman was competitive and with considerable pressing finally got Al to accept a race up a mountain, through a pass and down to a crystal-clear lake where brook trout savaged anything that rippled the water's surface.
 
The morning of the race, the client - wearing tennis shoes and shorts - took off on a brisk jog, while my uncle tended to his Dutch oven cooking. Finally, he grabbed a fishing pole and set out in old cowboy boots, Levis, a blue denim shirt and his crusty black hat. By then the client was already disappearing into the distant tree line.

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Most rifle hunters fall into one of two camps. Members of the "inch-and-a-half at 100 yards" camp believe any rifle that will place three shots within that size group is plenty accurate for hunting. They are probably right, but I, like many rifle fanatics, fall into Col. Townsend Whelen's "Only accurate rifles are interesting" camp.
 
Of course, not all rifles are accurate. I sell more guns than I care to admit each year because they don't meet my demanding accuracy standards. But sometimes, a rifle comes along that is so pretty, I fall in love with it without firing a shot.
 
Such was the case with a little Remington 700 Classic in .308 that I reviewed last year. Its clean lines and pretty wood caught my eye as soon as I opened the box. The stock fit well and handled like a dream. I was so taken by the gun that, rather than selling it after the initial disappointing range session, I dedicated myself to finding a way to make it shoot well enough that it wouldn't spend its life collecting dust in the back of my safe.

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As a means of gainful employment, I shoot more slugs in a year than most of you will shoot in a lifetime. Every session is brutal, and many are fraught with mystery. There are, you see, myriad reasons why slugs go astray, many of which don't have anything to do with the shotgun.
 
Nevertheless, everyone wants to look at the gun first, so let's start there. If the gun and not the ammo is the culprit, vibration will more than likely be the cause of the problem.
  
Vibration, or harmonics as it is referred to in firearms, is particularly troublesome in slug guns because of their relatively loose construction and the fact that the slug stays in the barrel so long.
 
A shotgun recoils nearly a half-inch while the slug is still in the barrel. Meanwhile, the barrel moves with the recoil and vibrates because of its loose fit in
the receiver.
 
When you figure that moving the barrel the width of a human hair shifts the point of impact an inch at 100 yards, you can better appreciate the evils of vibration.

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When the new crop of .17 rimfires hit the market several years ago, I wasn't sold on them. Sure, their light recoil made them fun to shoot, but too many coyotes I pulled the trigger on trotted off after taking one of those cute little 17-grain pills in the boiler room, never to be seen again.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have blamed the cartridge; I was asking too much of those light bullets. Subsequent plinking sessions with various .17 HMRs and Mach 2s softened my opinion of them, and a recent jackrabbit safari had me wanting a .17 rimfire of my own.

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By John L. Moore

I should never have seen the buck, and I'm sure he thought he'd escaped notice. It was a beautiful late-October afternoon, a low sun casting dark shadows across blue-gray badlands buttes, as my son, Jess, and I trailed cattle up Crooked Creek.
 
I detected the buck out of the corner of my eye. A fleeting form following a twisting gully as fluidly as poured oil. A large mule deer hugging the banks of the coulee, its head tipped back as if consciously obscuring the antlers in shadow. Present for a second, maybe two, then gone.
 
The brief sighting validated two thoughts I've long held about badlands mule deer: First, they are far smarter than people give them credit for, and secondly, they are cognizant of their headgear and strive to keep their hayracks from being noticed.
 
I grew up on a family ranch and have lived here most of my 49 years. When I was small, I had an older sister who hunted seriously. Once married, her husband introduced her to hunting whitetails, and suddenly mule deer hunting was slumming. "White-tailed deer are really smart," she declared. "They're not like those stupid mule deer that always stop and look back as if begging to be shot."

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A variant of the Browning Long Trac, the SXR is the latest in the parade of new autoloaders.

The explosion of flat-shooting magnum cartridges in recent years has brought about another, albeit lesser, trend in the shooting industry -- the resurgence of the semiautomatic hunting rifle. Magnum cartridges kick hard. Semiautos help tame some of that fury. 

Among the new self-loaders are Remington's Model 750 Woodsmaster, Browning's Shorttrac and Longtrac BAR, Benelli's R-1, and the Winchester Super X Rifle (SXR)

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Browning Buck Marks are affordable, high-quality .22 handguns. Introduced in 1985, they’re accurate and fun to shoot. Recently, I brought a 5 1/2-inch bull-barreled Buck Mark Target pistol to a Montana prairie dog shoot. I planned on switching to the Buck Mark when I grew tired of gunning rodents across the county line with a pair of .223 and .22-250 varmint rifles.

The Buck Mark Target pistol sports a full-length rib resembling a Picatinny rail, making it easy to mount a Bushnell Holosight. With the Holosight attached and fired from a sandbag rest, the Target Pistol regularly printed five-shot groups measuring just under an inch at 50 yards.

My test gun sported a crisp 2 3/4-pound trigger and had absolutely no feeding problems with Winchester Power-Point or CCI Mini Mag loads. The Buck Mark/Holosight combo counted coup on several prairie dogs incautious enough to show themselves at reasonable rimfire range.

During that shoot, I’d set my rifles aside for an hour or two each day. This gave me a chance to get rid of the crick in my neck caused by spending too much time hunched over a rifle stock. Walking and stalking provided a welcome respite from mornings spent at the bench.

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Best known for its highly accurate bolt rifles, Savage recently added a new over-under shotgun to its lineup. Following the lead of other American gunmakers, the company imports the new stackbarrels instead of manufacturing them in the U.S.

The vast majority of today's twin-tubed scatterguns are made overseas. "American" classics like the Browning Superposed and Citori have always been imported from other countries. American manufacturers can't be beat when it comes to mass-producing quality bolt rifles and pump or autoloading scatterguns. However, Old World gunmakers excel in producing fine side-by-side doubles and stackbarrels requiring specialized, painstaking craftsmanship. 

Introduced in 2006, the twin-tubed Milano succeeds earlier Savage over-unders like the Italian-made Model 440 and Model 312, along with the Model 330 and 333 Valmet field and target guns once made in Finland.

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About a year ago, my wife asked, "When am I going to get to hunt something big?" So I set a plan in motion to take her on an elk hunt last September. Sharleen is, by her on admission, a fair-weather hunter. She loves getting out of doors, but doesn't want to suffer a lot. How many wives do? So I picked a camp with adequate creature comforts and lots of big elk.

Sharleen has taken several big game animals, but always with a pre-established rest from which she could get a steady aim. That was my plan for her elk hunt, too. But the elk threw us a curve.

I built a ground blind with camo netting between two neighboring aspens at the edge of a meadow where the elk often fed in the late evening. For the finishing touches, I cut some aspen saplings, which were still green, and brushed in the blind. It was a work of art. No elk on earth would be suspicious of it. We came back the following afternoon to occupy the blind. The elk weren't at all wary. But they did eat every green leaf off the aspen saplings, and in the process, destroyed the blind.

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