Lead doesn’t suit us anymore It’s past time to ditch lead bullets for nontoxic ammo, no matter how big or small the game.

I'm not endorsing this view, or condemning it.  I'm just reposting the topic.

Lead doesn’t suit us anymore

It’s past time to ditch lead bullets for nontoxic ammo, no matter how big or small the game.

In my view, the chances of anyone thing picking up an expended lead projectile are quite small.  Copper projectiles have become very good, however.

I recall when we went from lead shot to steel shot.  It was done in California first.  There was some concern about it, and even a few adamantly opposed to the change, but everyone adapted quickly  At first it was found that basically ranges had been reduced to what they had been some decades prior.  No big deal. Some people started using 10 gauges again for geese, myself included.  But ammo improved and soon the ranges returned to what we were used to.  The 3.5 in 12 gauge pretty much wiped out the 10 gauge.  Now hardly anyone notices, and some feel that steel shot should just predominate everywhere.  About the only real downside is that it made reloading for waterfowl, and other hunting rounds, pretty much impossible.

That isn't the case with copper projectiles.  Interestingly, to a degree, the same story is repeating.  There were some dire predictions that there's be a huge shortage of bullets, but that's proven unfounded. Some people in areas where you don't have to use copper projectiles, which is most areas, have gone to them as they simply prefer them.

I'm sticking to lead until I have to switch . Indeed, I still have a lot of lead shotgun shells that are now decades old, dating back to the pre steel shot days, and I do use them when its legal and I can.  But this isn't the disaster that some asserted it would be.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, October 22, 1911. Black Powder to Smokeless Powder in shotgun shells.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, October 22, 1911. Chinese Assembly opens i...: With the country in the throws of a budding revolution, the Chinese National Assembly opened in Beijing, as scheduled. The revolution was ma...

Sunday, October 22, 1911. Chinese Assembly opens in the midst of revolution.

Hunting season was on, and an add for shotgun shells demonstrated how slowly some technological advances were impacting things.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 19, 1911. Zapatistas advance.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, California (Long Beach), Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mexico (Morelos), Pacific Ocean, Zapatistas

Wyoming Game & Fish bars rifles for Spring Turkey.

Ah crap.

The Wyoming Game and Fish is barring the use of rifles for Spring Turkey Season.

Every turkey I've ever taken has been in the spring seasons.  In the fall I'm hunting something else.  At least in the fall, you are limited to Tom's.

This poses a problem with a shotgun, as you have to be really close.  I don't call turkeys in, as I'm too impatient to do that.  I basically stalk them.  I'm not the only one, but it's fairly rare.

If you stalk them, you are probably going to use a rifle.  You might get close to them, I have, but chances are you are going to be shooting form some distance.  A scoped rifle is the best option for that.

Every single turkey I've killed was with a rifle.  I tired to take turkeys with a shotgun once, and it was an utter failure.  Usually I've shot them with scoped .223s, but not always. I've shot them with iron sights as well.

Well, I guess no more, or I have to added to the list of things to go for in the fall.

Outdoor Life, 1916 and 1926.

Saturday, January 2, 1926.

Last edition:

Friday, January 1, 1926.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art

Sunday, January 2, 1916.

 

Last edition:

Saturday, January 1, 1916.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, American Solidarity Party, Army, Cameroon, Fortunino Matania, Medicine, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Victoriano Huerta, World War One

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, November 4, 1945. Goose Hunters on the Cover of Parade.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, November 4, 1945. Independent Smallholde...: The Independent Smallholders Party won the Hungarian parliamentary elections. Contrary to what is commonly assumed, Eastern Europe didn'...

The Sunday Parade magazine installment to newspapers across the country had a man and woman on the cover, goose hunting.  This cover, posted under the fair use exception, shows how widely hunting remained part of the culture before the post war relentless advance of urbanization cut into it.

The man is carrying a Browning Auto 5 or the Remington equivalent of it.    The device on the barrel of the shotgun on the right is a Cutts Compensator, which was designed to reduce recoil and in later versions allowed for changeable chokes.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 9, 1900. Auto 5.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 9, 1900. Auto 5.:  

Tuesday, October 9, 1900. Auto 5.

 John M. Browning was granted a patent for what would become the "self loading" Auto 5 shotgun, which would go into production in 1902.

A phenomenally successful shotgun, it blazed the trail for all later semi automatics.  It became so popular that Browning had trouble ceasing to offer it in its catalog even after it desired to do so.  The shotgun was manufactured in Belgium for Browning and also offered in the United States by Remington, as the Model 11.  Remington's production of Browning's design ceased in 1947, but FN's for Browning carried on until moved to the Japanese firm Miroku in 1975.  In 1998 full production finally ceased, with FN carrying on with commemoratives for one final year.

Primarily a hunting weapon, you'll oddly see a lot of inquiries on the net today about whether it saw military use.  It did, but mostly as a training weapons.  As great as it was, it's action was not suitable for combat conditions, although you'll occasionally see some that were used as police riot guns.

It still has a huge following.

Blog Mirror: Browning Auto 5 Shotgun Review: Still One of the Greatest Semiautos of All Time

Last edition:

Monday, October 8, 1900. Annexation of the Cook Islands.

Labels: 1900, 1900s, 1940s, 1949, 1960s, 1965, British Empire, Cook Islands, New Zealand

 

Are U.S. or UK Sporting Dogs Better?

Blog Mirror: In the Mist of Tradition

 

In the Mist of Tradition

The 2023 Season. Third Year (or more) Running

I noted last year, when I did this report, the following:

The 2022 Season

The 2022 hunting season has ended.

In 2022, when I wrote about the 2021 season, I started off with this:

 It wasn't a great one, for a variety of reasons.

And that statement was true once again for 2022, but for different reasons, a lot of which had nothing much to do with the hunting season itself.

That's because 2022 has been the year of the field of Medicine, or age, or perhaps lifestyle, or whatever, catching up with me.

Well, I'm beginning to sound like a broken record on that, as it was once again quite true.

On big game, I didn't draw anything.  So, no antelope tag again.

Indeed, sometime in the fall, in one of the blogs linked in here, an out-of-state hunter posted about the great time he'd had in Wyoming antelope hunting and I nearly posted a crabby linked in post regarding that.  If out of staters are getting tags, in staters should be.

I didn't want to insult that person, so I didn't make that post, but I'm still not very happy about it.

I had general deer and elk tags, and I did go out for deer, but no luck.  For deer, I did have a very pleasant early winter hunt, if that's what we call this frighteningly warm mid-year season this year, but the only white tails, and that's what it was limited to, that we saw were on private land where I didn't have permission.  So, no deer.

Bird wise, the season was good for the most part.  Blue Grouse, which are illusive in my experience (a Game Warden who checked me didn't seem to think so) did make an appearance this year, so we did okay, but not great.

Doves were abundant, but I mostly missed shooting at them, which was sort of the story of the year in a lot of ways.  I did get a Mongolian Collared Dove for the first time, so was able to appreciate how much larger they are than Mourning Doves.

Sage chickens were also plentiful this year.

Chukars and Huns, which are in my experience very hard to hit, were abundant, but I didn't do well with them as I missed them more than I hit them.  I did get in a lot of late season chukar hunting close to town for the first time.

Waterfowl, which we hunted more than anything else, was very abundant.

So, not a self-reliance banner year. . . or was it?

Last Prior Edition:

The 2022 Season

Comparison and Constrast. Mourning Dove, left. Eurasian Collared Dove, right.

 

The pause that refreshes.

The The pause that refreshes.

Dove Opener

Rhodie camo.  Politically incorrect, but effective.

The dog found a turkey carcass.

Two doves, with lots of shooting.

Fishing season is over, and hunting season has begun.

I am, by vocation, a hunter.  A hunter of wildlife and fish.  And I'm not exaggerating.

This isn't a hobby with me.  I'm stuck in a feral past, or perhaps a more feral future, but lving in the present.  

And I'm more of a hunter than a fisherman, in contrast with my father, who was the other way around

The first two seasons of the year open on September 1.  Like most years, due to my occupation (which most people, at least who are professionals, would claim as their vocation, although I'd wager that it is with less than half, very conservatively), I worked.  Opening weekend for me, therefore, is usually when I first get out, and I first get out for the greatest of the wild grouse, Blue Grouse.

They are, I'd note, delicious.

This is a somewhat complicated story, but because of the route I take in, I need permission to cross, which is always forthcoming but I didn't hear back in time this year. That meant that I needed to drive into a location a good two miles further from my normal jumping off point.

And the road, due to the heavy rains this year, and the winter snow, was eroded to impassable. So the walk was further than expected.

But still very pretty, in the morning light.

Because of the very long hike, and my recent surgery, I armed myself with a kids model 20 gauge and buttoned my shirt up to my neck.  Because my old M1911 campaign hat was a casualty of a rattlesnake event two years ago, I wore a replacement United States Park Service campaign hat.  I don't like it nearly as much as my old M1911.

I will say that those wearing synthetic hats are, well, missing the point, and the boat.

The entire trip involves some mountain climbing for the dog.

The dog won't eat in the morning (poodles and doodles are strange about this) due to excitement, so I packed his uneaten breakfast with me. When we hit the high country, he was by that time hungry, in spite of his excitement.

Those boots?  White's smoke jumpers.  Best boots ever.

We hike a fair amount. The dog drank out of a few streams, but I also carry a canteen and he's learned to drink out of a canteen cup.

We found and bagged two young grouse.

And ate them one that evening.  I fried both, that night, and had the second one, reheated the second evening.