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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South Texas' elusive nilgai bulls are fun to hunt and yield some of the tastiest meat on the planet. They are also tough to hunt and even tougher to bring down - two qualities that keep the crew from Winchester Ammunition and Browning Firearms coming back to South Texas each year to test their latest wares on these odd-looking Indian imports.

I had recently run out of nilgai steaks and was contemplating another trip down south when my friend, Kevin Howard, who always seems to have perfect timing, called to invite me on their annual hunt. 

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It's a one-shot deal. Legions of modern muzzleloader hunters accept that limitation and do everything possible to make the first shot count. Unfortunately, hunting outcomes are not always predictable, and often, stuff happens.
 
The time will come when you will need a second shot. When that happens, things will be frantic and you will need it fast. A fast second shot is possible, but it takes the right equipment, practice and a near-unconscious knowledge of where everything is in order to pull it off.
 
It's a safe bet that today's muzzleloader hunters fall into two distinct groups. The minority is the traditional group that opts for flinters and sidelocks. You are the purist. In choosing that camp, you have had to study your firearm in detail. You know the intricacies of patch thickness, speed blocks, cow's knees and such, or you wouldn't opt to be in that camp. The other group, the vast majority, is packing a modern inline. You just want to hunt. It's to this group this primer on the fast second shot applies.

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It is an association that has been cast in stone for decades: muzzleloaders equal short range.
 
The fact that history records 500-, 800- and 1,000-yard muzzleloader matches as far back as the 1700s in England, France, Germany and the colonial United States seems to escape everyone, as we continue to believe that frontstuffers were never meant to go the distance.
 
Much of that came from the replica Hawken rifles that dominated the U.S. muzzleloading scene from the 1940s through the mid-80s. That all changed when an obscure Iowa railroad worker gave us the first commercially successful inline rifle in 1985.
 
With the inline craze came fast-twist barrels, telescopic sights and long saboted bullets. Such advancements made placing a bullet within a pie-plate-sized circle at 200 yards not just doable, but expected. It's as easy as using a centerfire rifle. Before an inline user attempts a long shot at game, he needs to prepare for it and understand what's going on in his rifle.

Baseline Accuracy
Don't even think about taking a 200-yard shot if your rifle isn't capable of placing three shots within 2 inches at 100 yards. One inch is much preferred. The reason is geometry, and it holds true for muzzleloaders as much as it does with centerfires. If the shot is 2 inches off the mark at 100 yards, it won't be 4 inches off at 200, as some believe. It's a non-linear progression. Two inches off at 100 is 8 inches off at 200. That's a miss - or worse yet - a cripple.

You must spend the time to work up an accurate 100-yard load for your rifle before you start lobbing away at 200. Fortunately, muzzleloaders are pretty predictable. Most fast-twist .50-caliber barrels found in today's muzzleloaders shoot best with a load of about 100 to 120 grains behind a well-designed saboted bullet in the 275- to 325-grain range. In spite of the hype, I have yet to find a 150-grain load that shoots with adequate long-range precision in any rifle.
 
Also critical for long-range accuracy is bullet choice. Here again, most any bullet will do if your shots are 100 yards or less, but to stretch 'em out, you need quality. Choices are few, but fortunately, widely available: Buffalo's SSB in 275, 325 or 375 grains, Power Belts in 290 to 300, Winchester Platinum Tip in 300 grains, or the latest entry, Hornady's 300-grain SST in either the Hornady version or the Thompson/Center Shock Wave offering (same bullet, different packaging).

All of these bullets have demonstrated the ability to shoot 1 inch or less at 100 yards from a bench in quality scoped rifles. In New Mexico, more elk, mule deer and antelope are dropped at long range with the 325 SSB over 120 grains of Pyrodex Triple Seven than any other load. The combination works.

Triggers
As goes the trigger, so goes the group. You can't shoot tight groups with hard, clunky triggers. Triggers must break clean at no more than 31/2 pounds to be dependable long-range performers, and here, your local gunsmith can be your best friend. A large part of the reason the T/C Encores have a reputation as tack drivers goes back to the superb trigger. If yours isn't right, have it fixed or forget about shooting at long range. 

The Three-Shot Group
Many of the groups you see advertised touting the virtues of various rifles are fired under near-lab conditions. Notably, every shot in the group is fired from a squeaky-clean barrel. They look impressive, but they don't represent what happens in the real world. Squeaky-clean barrels do odd things, most rifles shoot best with a slightly fouled bore. One reduced-load fouler shot is the usual prep.

What your rifle does with the next two or three shots WITHOUT CLEANING is most indicative of what you can expect in the field. Fire the fouler, then two or three shots to determine the group, then clean and start again. Don't quit experimenting until you have a load that will turn in a tight group under these conditions.
 
Anyone who hunts in open country fully understands why this is a must. If you take the long shot, and either drop the animal or miss clean, then all is well. But if you hit a tad off center, you must know precisely where that second shot will go, and you sure don't have time to clean your bore. When you need a second shot with a muzzleloader, it's because things got cheeky and at that point, precision is critical.
 
Pyrodex is the No. 1 propellant choice for hunters for that reason. It burns much cleaner, leaves less residue and allows you to fire that three-shot string without excessive crud buildup to affect accuracy and make reloading difficult. Beyond three shots, it gets tough, but for the first three, the fouler has little effect.
 
After you work the kinks out at 100 yards, the next step is a no-brainer. You must practice at 200. Hunters who don't are just asking for trouble, and those who do develop a confidence that makes a big difference when that long shot presents itself. They know they can because they've done it. Yes, the long shots are doable, but not until you and your rifle are ready.

Ralph M. Lermayer
GunHunter Magazine - September 2005

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Each year, manufacturers roll out their latest super-magnum offerings. Some of these rounds, particularly the .270 WSM and .300 WSM, are great. But the majority of them can't do anything that any number of long-established cartridges have been doing since before I was born. In fact, one of my favorite deer cartridges, the .260 Remington, has been around in one form or another for over 30 years.
 
It began as the 6.5-08 short-action wildcat and was soon adopted by savvy hunters and long-range competitors. When Remington legitimized it as the .260 Rem in 1997, silhouette shooters flocked to it, too. I am not an active silhouette competitor, but all of the factors that drew silhouette shooters to it, like low recoil, efficiency, excellent downrange performance and reduced wind drift, drew me to the diminutive cartridge as well. It might not look like much on paper, but thanks to the high sectional density afforded it by those long, heavy-for-caliber bullets, the .260 far outperforms its paper ballistics.

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The Model 750 is Big Green's sharpest autoloading rifle to date.

Remington introduced its first autoloading rifle, the highly successful Model 8, in 1906.
 
Manufactured under a royalty-producing basis with John Browning, the Model 8 was designed as a hammerless solid-breech rifle chambered in .25, .30, .32 and .35 Remington.
 
The gun had a 22-inch barrel that recoiled within the confines of a rigid metal barrel jacket. Made with a straight grip, or English design, the rifle held five rounds within a box magazine, which, at the shooter's option, could be loaded singly or with a full clip. It sold for $30 retail!
 
The Model 8 was so successful, it stayed on the market for 30 years. Its successor was the Model 81 Woodsmaster, which sported a traditional hunting stock and a semi-beavertail fore-end. Like the Model 8, it was available in five ascending grades to satisfy even the most discriminating hunter.

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Anyone who ever held or admired the better bolt-action rifles made before 1960 is immediately aware of a difference - a big difference - between those magnificent examples of riflemaking skills and those of today.

This is not meant in any way to criticize today's rifles. They are, in fact, precisely what we shooters have demanded: lighter, stronger, accurate, no-frills descendants of their predecessors. But the early rifles had a heft, a feel, meticulous attention to fit, finish and detail, painstaking wood selection, precision hand checkering, and silky-smooth functioning and other qualities not found today.
 
They were heavy, often exceeding 10 pounds without a scope, and we demanded lighter. Our preference drifted to composite stocks, and the manufacturers responded. Computer-driven machinery all but eliminated the need for the tedious and expensive hand-fitting vintage rifles demanded, and the ever-present price point has made hand labor a thing of the past. 

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I did it - hit him right where you told me to, behind his shoulder!" my excited hunter said. I simply nodded an affirmative. He'd indeed hit the buck behind the shoulder - but a long way behind it.
 
As he collected his gear and reloaded, I replayed the scene that had just unfolded. The buck was a good one, a solid 10-pointer with about a 22-inch outside spread and lots of mass. I'd seen that whitetail a couple of days earlier and estimated he was at least 5 years old.
 
The buck was exactly what we were looking for. He'd responded to my rattling horns, but came in cautiously. With some extra grunting, I was able to coax him out of the brush for a good broadside shot.

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John Moses Browning was a genius firearms inventor, although he never lost an opportunity to borrow from another inventor, such as Herr Mannlicher. He was also an astute businessman, selling his designs for a prime Yankee dollar.
 
John's machine gun - previously developed by another - was extremely important to U.S. troops in at least three wars. But it was the advent of his Model 1894 Winchester that earned Browning greater fame worldwide. When that rifle (and it was a rifle initially) came along in 1894, it made a 6.0 earthquake impact on the shooting world.
 
Hunters appreciated the two blackpowder cartridges chambered in the first edition, the .32-40 Winchester and .38-55 Winchester. But little did these happy sportsmen know that only a year later there would be a second quake, even stronger, as two new smokeless rounds were added to the Winchester Model 94 cartridge line. 

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The .405 Winchester was introduced in 1904, the same year Theodore Roosevelt was re-elected President. The large rimmed cartridge was developed for the Winchester Model 1895 lever-action rifle, which became a favorite of Roosevelt's. He called it his "big medicine" gun.
 
Teddy not only used the straight-walled round on elk, moose and bears in North America; he and his son, Kermit, also considered it their "go to" cartridge for hunting dangerous game. In Africa, they used their .405s to dispatch charging Cape buffalo, rhinos, lions and leopards. Hair-raising accounts of those hunts contributed greatly to the success of the rifle.
 
Those were the days of Martin and Osa Johnson, producers of the "I Married Adventure" travel and hunting films. They swore by their .405 Winchesters, too, using them to stop many a charge of dangerous African game. In India, Charles Cottar, a renowned hunter of "man-eating" tigers, also saw the value of the Big Medicine gun and switched to it from the .32 Winchester.

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I learned about handload problems on big game hunts the hard way. Cartridges that worked okay at the range failed in the field. Although the rifle I was using was prettier than an ocean sunset and accurate with certain loads, it was extremely sensitive to pressure.
 
I lost opportunities on two fine animals - neither touched by a bullet; both clean misses at medium range. The first was a record-class antelope, a true 16-inch trophy. The shot had no chance. The primer blew, and when the smoke cleared, the buck was beating a path toward the Nebraska border.

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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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We started up the mountain in pre-dawn darkness, with the stars just beginning to fade. We were headed to the top of the Skeena range, hoping to find the band of goats we'd seen in the spotting scope the previous evening.
 
Reg Collingwood, my guide, set a heart-attack pace. As the slope steepened, we were forced to stop every 20 or 30 minutes to catch our breath. At timberline, my legs finally gave out. "Gotta rest a minute," I wheezed, flopping down to lean against my pack. Reg followed suit, breathing as hard as I was.
 
I lay there gasping, silently cursing my rifle. The British Columbia hunt had been sponsored by a gun company, so I was obliged to carry an imported .30-06 wearing a large steel-bodied scope. Complete with sling and a magazine filled with ammo, the outfit weighed 11 1/2 pounds. That much heft was bad enough when I rode horseback, but wore me down when I headed through the woods on foot. The worst was yet to come.

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Your first shot at game is your best chance for success. To make that first shot count, though, takes preparation and then good judgment and shooting skill in the field. The following 10 tips will help you place your first shot where it counts.

Know exactly where your bullets hit at various ranges. If a hunter hasn't fired his rifle to determine the bullet drop and wind drift at 400 yards, he has little business shooting at that distance. Ballistic tables in ammunition catalogs provide a bullet's approximate trajectory. But they don't take into consideration the difference in bullet velocity from your rifle or slug gun.
 
From example, when I first bought a .25-06, I thought the velocity of its Speer 120-grain flat-base spitzer bullets fired with 49 grains of IMR 4350 powder was slightly over 3,000 feet per second. I sighted the rifle to hit 2 inches high at 100 yards and happily hunted with it for a couple of years, thinking the bullet drop was 5 inches at 300 yards and 17 inches 400 yards. I shot a couple of mule deer and antelope at ranges between 80 and 175 yards and thought I had a really flat-shooting rifle.

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Ask today's shotgun deer hunters which slug is best, and you're apt to get 4.1 million answers. According to research by the Hastings Barrel Co., that's how many of the nation's approximately 10 million whitetail hunters go afield each season with shotguns. Each, it seems, has a different opinion on the subject.
 
Long-range accuracy is the ultimate quest for some hunters, while others hunt in thick woods where 50 yards is a stretch. There are also differences in hunting techniques, brand preferences, shotgun barrels, and the priority any hunter gives to slug shooting. Thus, state-of-the-art in shotgun slugs is many things to many people.
 
Contrary to what you might have heard, most slug hunters don't use a dedicated deer gun. They use one shotgun for hunting birds and small game, and simply switch loads when the deer season rolls around. They typically keep their shots short, use smoothbore barrels and rifled or full-bore slugs and no optics.

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"Wanna shoot it?" asked Mr. Bennett, who then quickly added with caution, "It's a .30-06!"
 
I turned and looked up at my dad standing behind me. He smiled and nodded his approval.
 
I could not believe it. For most of my 8 years of life, I'd dreamed of shooting a .30-06. For as long as I could remember, I'd heard campfire discussions between my dad, uncles and their friends about the best whitetail round in all of North America. Two calibers had always been mentioned: the .30-30 Winchester and the extremely powerful .30-06.
 
Some considered the .30-06 far too much gun for our small local whitetails. On the other hand, some of the top hunting writers of the day were '06 fans. I knew that because of the articles my mother read to me from the pages of Outdoor Life, Field & Stream and Sports Afield. While other mothers told their youngsters bedtime stories, my mom read to me from the pages of the best hunting and shooting publications of that era. I strongly suspect there was an innate interest in hunting not only in my mother, but also in me. I came by it honestly!

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Any shotgun used on the whitewing dove fields at Rancho Caracol, Mexico, has to be tough. Offering some of the best dove shooting in the world, the lodge keeps an ample selection of Beretta 391 autoloaders on hand for its American clients.
 
Those gunners burn thousands of boxes of shotshells each year. But because of Mexico's Draconian gun laws, most visitors use the lodge's autoloaders rather than take their own. Those Italian guns see a lot of abuse, not only because of the number of shells they fire or the rough treatment they get in the field, but also due to the quick-fouling Mexican shells they are forced to digest.

"Our guns fire an average of 25,000 rounds per season," said lodge owner Dean Putegnat, whose armory contains a good selection of wood- and synthetic-stocked Beretta 391s and a few over-and-unders used mostly for quail. "Some of those autoloaders are six years old, but every one I bought when I first opened the doors is still in use today. I replace a few parts at the end of the year, and we clean the guns thoroughly after every hunt, but other than that, they just keep on going."

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There was a time when no glass came between a shooter's eye and his quarry. As optical sights became more affordable and reliable, they were so embraced by hunters that manufacturers almost quit installing open sights on big game rifles.
 
However, interest in using open sights is on the rise. This is due to the growing popularity of cowboy-action shooting and a nostalgia for hunting with classic guns. Competitors in cowboy-action events have discovered that, with practice, they can shoot pretty darn well without glass.
 
My father hunted with an open-sighted Winchester Model 100 and never had a problem filling his deer tag. I watched him shoot groundhogs at 200 yards with that .243-chambered gun.

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Many hunters take great pride in how their rifle performs and looks. I can live with an ugly rifle as long as it shoots well. Many riflestocks, after several years of use, start to look like they were scavenged from a battlefield or used as a club. With minimal effort and the proper tools, you can refinish a wood stock, often making it good as new. Or, you can paint the stock and give your rifle a new personality.
 
Painting a wood riflestock is a good option if your rifle has gouges and scratches that can't be raised or repaired. Painting can also provide camouflage, which can be immensely beneficial if you get close to game. Whatever the reason, painting a stock is not difficult and can be completed in a couple of evenings.
 
Unless you are inclined to paint the metal surfaces of your rifle, your first step should be complete disassembly of the gun. Remove all parts from the stock with the exception of the recoil pad, which can be left on the stock and not interfere with the painting process. Next, take fine-grit sandpaper (400 works very well) and rough up the exposed surfaces of the stock. Then you can use Testors Contour Putty, available at hobby shops, to fill in all the dents and potholes your rough handling has created. Let this set up for a day or so and then smooth the surface of the stock with sandpaper. After sanding, wipe the dust and debris from the stock with a damp rag and let stand overnight.

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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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Most centerfire rifles I own are practical hunting tools. Because they must survive saddle scabbard wear and inevitable nicks and dents as they're lugged through the woods, these rifles forego figured walnut in favor of workaday synthetic stocks.
 
My rimfires are a different story. Used mostly for plinking and hunting squirrels and rabbits, they're not subject to the same kind of abuse.
 
That means I can justify buying high-quality bolt .22s I'm proud to show and own. This is where I indulge my taste for hand-checkered knurled walnut and deeply blued, high-gloss steel.
 
Sure, these rifles cost more, but economy isn't everything. You've gotta kick up your heels every now and then.
 
There are a number of custom-quality factory .22s to choose from. That wasn't true a quarter-century ago. When Winchester discontinued its classic Model 52 bolt rifle back in 1980, the only top-grade production .22s still available to American shooters were the truly excellent German-made Anschutz models a few lucky sportsmen might discover at local sporting goods stores.

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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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My introduction to the new Sako 85 rifle wasn't really fair, neither to the gun, nor me.
 
I was jetlagged, handed a rifle and scope I'd never seen before and had to pass a rigorous shooting test in front of a bemused audience to get a hunting license. To hunt in Finland, a candidate must group three offhand rifle shots within a 30-inch circle target at 85 yards. No problem, even for the travel-addled.
 
Then the candidate gets 20 seconds to place three shots in the center of a moose target traveling about 10 mph. Only four seconds are allowed per shot as the target traverses between two earthen berms, and the resulting score is flashed on a digital sign for all to see.
 
Doesn't sound difficult for a lifelong shooter. But refer back to the described handicaps in the opening scenario.

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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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Recoil is the rearward motion of a gun on firing. Kick is the slap of the gun's movement we feel. One thing for sure about kick: The less we endure, the better we shoot. There are a few steps you can take to reduce recoil, from modifying your shooting techniques to altering stock design and changing loads.

Shooting Technique
When I first sighted-in my .338 Win Mag off the bench, the rifle's kick made my old football injury act up. I decided the only time I would shoot the gun from the bench again would be to check its sight alignment - and that would be with a sack of lead shot between the butt pad and my shoulder.

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Ever since the invention of the rifle, a common hunter's complaint has been "I couldn't see my sights! I could see the animal, but when I tried to aim, I couldn't see the front sight against its body."
 
As defense against such failure, hunters have put ivory, silver, gold, white paint and even tiny mirrors on open sights to lighten them for a better sight picture. While each of these "brighteners" helps to one degree or another, none matches the visibility of today's fiber optics and "glow-in-the-dark" sights.

What are Fiber Optics?
Advertising being what it is these days, fiber-optic sights are widely misunderstood. Do they really glow in the dark or only in low light? Do they run on battery power, solar power or nuclear energy? Are they truly fibers?
 
Fiber optics used in communications are bundles of thin, flexible glass "hairs" surrounded by mirror-like coatings (called cladding) and protective plastic housings known as buffer coatings. From the outside, they look like regular wire cable, but inside they are a super-efficient conduit for light.

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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 five years ago, an executive for a company that makes reloading powders lamented that fewer shotgunners were loading their own shells because of the budget-priced factory ammunition on dealer's shelves. The skyrocketing cost of shotshell components over the last couple of years has exacerbated that situation to the point that about only one in 10 shooters at my local trap and skeet club now load their own shells.

On the shelves of the local mega-mart sit boxes of Federal Field & Target, Remington Sport Loads and Winchester Universal 20- and 12-gauge shells at a bargain price. These loads were introduced a few years ago to compete with inexpensive imported shells. The American-made shotshells apparently did a good job of competing because there are now far fewer imported shells on the market.

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Story by Greg Rodriguez

-- Through tests, the author finds that T/C's new bolt gun is aptly named.

Photo: The Icon's solid receiver top is visible here. The rifle has an attractive high-grade walnut stock with cut checkering and distinctive, curved accents.

Thompson/Center's line of muzzleloaders, switchbarrel rifles and hunting handguns has made them an industry leader. Most companies would be content to own those market segments, but T/C's Greg Ritz felt a new bolt-action rifle would help grow his company's share of the firearms market to an unprecedented level.

Ritz tasked the T/C design crew with creating a rifle a cut above anything else on the market in looks and accuracy. T/C queried prominent custom rifle builders like George Gardner of GA Precision, as well as key players in shooting competitions and hunting circles for feedback on their idea of the perfect rifle. T/C's designers and engineers took that information and added a few twists of their own to come up with a slick action that would serve as the heart of the new gun.

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Q: How far can a shotgun slug travel? - John T. / Cedar Key, FL

A: When fired at a 30-degree upward angle, a shotgun slug can travel for more than a half-mile. This is its absolute range. Normal "effective range" of a slug is 80 to 125 yards when shot from a horizontal barrel. A conventional-velocity slug fired from a level barrel 5 feet above the ground will travel 240-250 yards before falling to the earth.

- Dave Henderson

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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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There were lots of things I liked about the Howa action upon seeing my first one back in 1970 when Weatherby introduced it as its then-new Vanguard. I recall Roy Weatherby telling me he was a bit apprehensive about offering a second line of rifles with his name on it, even though he felt it would not compete with his flagship Mark V Magnum. His reasoning was simple enough: Not only was the Vanguard line priced considerably lower than the Mark V, but also Roy vowed it would never be chambered in Weatherby Magnum calibers.

Well, you know what they say about never saying never. Today, 36 years later, the Vanguard is indeed available in Weatherby Magnum chamberings (though only two, the .257 and .300), and it remains a very stable and profitable line for Weatherby.

So much for the Vanguard. Many of you may be familiar with Howa as a Smith & Wesson or a Mossberg. Strange as that sounds, in 1979 the old Interarms Corp. began marketing what was essentially the Weatherby Vanguard rifle under the name of the Japanese company that manufactured it: Howa. Shortly thereafter, Howa also private-labeled the same basic rifle for S&W and Mossberg, but in both cases they lasted only a few years. All three companies used the same Model 1500 designation, and the only difference between them was the roll stampings on the barrel and receiver, and slight differences in the configuration of the stocks.

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Some folks say that shooting whitetails is easy; the hard part is scouting and predicting where they'll show up. 

Well, at least the scouting part is true. If only shooting were so easy. Seldom do bucks stand broadside and stone-still like they appear on magazine covers. 

If you hunt from a treestand and have some type of rifle support -- a rail around the stand, for instance -- it's usually not hard to place a bullet where you want. But let's say you're walking to your stand and a huge 10-pointer bolts across the path in front of you. In the brief instant a shot is presented, you don't have time to find a tree, a rock or some other means to steady the barrel. You have to shoot right now!

It'll sure make you wish you'd practiced from the offhand position like those shooting writers often preach. 

The next time you're at the range, make a point of firing from the standing, sitting, kneeling and prone positions and see how well you do.

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Judging wind is more art than science, and overplaying it can cost you game. 

One of the more common bits of advice to shooters is "Allow a little for the wind." Most of us know the wind will blow a bullet off course. Most of us don't know how, why or how far. Any of us planning on shooting much beyond 200 yards should. Wind can turn a hit into a miss, easily shifting a projectile off course by more than a foot at 300 yards.

The atmosphere is much like a giant ocean with various currents flowing in many directions. Air, in fact, is like water in that it has mass and exerts pressure. Turn a bullet loose in this atmosphere and, even though it is moving rapidly, it is slowed because it has to push (buck) air out of its way.

Bullets also get deflected off course if air currents are flowing at any angle other than parallel to their line of flight. This is in agreement with Sir Isaac Newton's first law of mechanics that predicts an object will move at a steady speed in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force. Air is that force.

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