Why you want an accurate gun

[snapbang]

As a young man growing up in Michigan I started hunting pheasants and small game then evolved to deer hunting and eventually out of state for elk and antelope. I remember the phrase if you can hit a paper plate thats good enough. Nowadays I actually scold people for such a statement.

As a young ignorant kid that made sense sitting on a bench shooting at the vitals of a deer larger than the size of a paper plate. Luckily I enjoyed shooting and reloading. I demanded better.

It paid off in a place called Lake City, Michigan. I had purchased a Mark X barreled action and made a homemade fiberglass stock ( before they made them). It was in a 270 Winchester. The stock wasn't pretty but with 135 grain hollow point boat tails it shot like a dream. Nobody even taught me to hunt so I made lots of mistakes. Not very patient.

I saw a nice racked buck my first day out but I was to wiggly. He saw me and bolted. The second morning I was sitting at a stump and heard turkeys scratching and carrying on behind me. I had grown accustomed to the noise as they hung out there the day before. After an extended period of time I decided to watch turkeys for a while and slowly shifted my position only to find no turkey but the buck from the day before making a scrape about 130 yards away.

There was way too much brush to make a shot so spent the next 15 minutes trying to find a hole in the brush. None found. I had the stump to benchrest on. The deer started walking off. I put the cross-hair on him and followed. Eventually I found a hole ( and it wasn't much of a hole) and took the shot. It was the biggest Michigan deer I ever took. 12 points to me and 14 to some others. Never would have brought that deer home with an average shooting gun.

Same for my first elk in Colorado. Had to shoot between 2 trees at 375 yards. All the trigger pulling and fine tuning got me both of those animals.

If you know someone who believes hitting a paper plate is good enough then someday you will hear a story of the one that got away. Hope its not you.

 

[Sideshow]

Beautiful.......

 

[Mnt monkey]

Only accurate rifles, all of my rifles will shoot in the teens ,,not the quarters, not half inch,, mentally I cannot hunt with a rifle that will not do that , sometimes I don't shoot up to my rifles potential,if I buy a rifle or I have one put together / built, and it does not shoot in the chains I'm either getting rid of it or rebuilding it. I don't consider myself a perfectionist or a type a, I just will not accept anything but one hole when it comes to my shooting, especially if I plan on hunting with the rifle

 

[edmehlig]

As a young man growing up in Michigan I started hunting pheasants and small game then evolved to deer hunting and eventually out of state for elk and antelope. I remember the phrase if you can hit a paper plate thats good enough. Nowadays I actually scold people for such a statements.

As a young ignorant kid that made sense sitting on a bench shooting at the vitals of a deer larger than the size of a paper plate. Luckily I enjoyed shooting and reloading. I demanded better.

It paid off in a place called Lake City, Michigan. I had purchased a Mark X barreled action and made a homemade fiberglass stock ( before they made them). It was in a 270 Winchester. The stock wasn't pretty but with 165 grain hollow point boat tails it shot like a dream. Nobody even taught me to hunt so I made lots of mistakes. Not very patient.

I saw a nice racked buck my first day out but I was to wiggly. He saw me and bolted. The second morning I was sitting at a stump and heard turkeys scratching and carrying on behind me. I had grown accustomed to the noise as they hung out there the day before. After an extended period of time I decided to watch turkeys for a while and slowly shifted my position only to find no turkey but the buck from the day before making a scrape about 130 yards away.

There was way too much brush to make a shot so spent the next 15 minutes trying to find a hole in the brush. None found. I had the stump to benchrest on. The deer started walking off. I put the cross-hair on him and followed. Eventually I found a hole ( and it wasn't much of a hole) and took the shot. It was the biggest Michigan deer I ever took. 12 points to me and 14 to some others. Never would have brought that deer home with an average shooting gun.

Same for my first elk in Colorado. Had to shoot between 2 trees ad 375 yards. All the trigger pulling and fine tuning got me both of those animals.

If you know someone who believes hitting a paper plate is good enough then someday you will hear a story of the one that got away. Hope is not you.

It’s amazing how many guys I see at the range that get 4-6” groups at 50 yds using a rest on a shooting bench and say I’m good to go??? GRRRRR

 

[Ninering62]

As a young man growing up in Michigan I started hunting pheasants and small game then evolved to deer hunting and eventually out of state for elk and antelope. I remember the phrase if you can hit a paper plate thats good enough. Nowadays I actually scold people for such a statement.

As a young ignorant kid that made sense sitting on a bench shooting at the vitals of a deer larger than the size of a paper plate. Luckily I enjoyed shooting and reloading. I demanded better.

It paid off in a place called Lake City, Michigan. I had purchased a Mark X barreled action and made a homemade fiberglass stock ( before they made them). It was in a 270 Winchester. The stock wasn't pretty but with 135 grain hollow point boat tails it shot like a dream. Nobody even taught me to hunt so I made lots of mistakes. Not very patient.

I saw a nice racked buck my first day out but I was to wiggly. He saw me and bolted. The second morning I was sitting at a stump and heard turkeys scratching and carrying on behind me. I had grown accustomed to the noise as they hung out there the day before. After an extended period of time I decided to watch turkeys for a while and slowly shifted my position only to find no turkey but the buck from the day before making a scrape about 130 yards away.

There was way too much brush to make a shot so spent the next 15 minutes trying to find a hole in the brush. None found. I had the stump to benchrest on. The deer started walking off. I put the cross-hair on him and followed. Eventually I found a hole ( and it wasn't much of a hole) and took the shot. It was the biggest Michigan deer I ever took. 12 points to me and 14 to some others. Never would have brought that deer home with an average shooting gun.

Same for my first elk in Colorado. Had to shoot between 2 trees at 375 yards. All the trigger pulling and fine tuning got me both of those animals.

If you know someone who believes hitting a paper plate is good enough then someday you will hear a story of the one that got away. Hope its not you.

Great story, TY for sharing it & the lesson with us.

 

[Matthew323]

I forget which gun writer from the early part of the 20th Century said this, and I am undoubtedly paraphrasing.....

"Only accurate guns are interesting."

 

[Mnt monkey]

Townsend whelen I believe

 

[HC]

Right you are mm.

 

[Mnt monkey]

And I could not agree more with him

 

[Mnt monkey]

Very first rifle I ever built myself was a 35 whelen I'm partial to that gentleman

 

[Matthew323]

All of my flintlock longrifles (3) were able to shoot into a 1.5" 5-shot group at 100 yards off of a bench rest.

EASILY!!!!

One each .45, .50, .62 caliber.

One Douglas GAA barrel. (.45)
Two Getz barrels. (.50, .62)

When I was doing my part, on an ordinary day I could shoot offhand 5-shot groups at 100 yards into 2.5"-3" groups at 100 yards.

On a really good day, 2".

On a couple of REALLY, REALLY good days, 1"-1.5".

On one extraordinarily fantastically great day, it was 3/4". (the .45)

The barrels from a machine rest were probably capable of one hole groups at 50 yards all day long.

It was the human behind the rifle, ME, that was the limiting factor.

 

[Mnt monkey]

That's what I'm talkin about!!

 

[Matthew323]

Very first rifle I ever built myself was a 35 whelen I'm partial to that gentleman

I always wanted a .35 Whelen, being as it is a necked up .30-06.

The .35 Whelen always seemed like such a good all purpose cartridge, with the ability to shoot heavier bullets.

 

[Mnt monkey]

I gave the rifle to my nephew it stayed in the family it's built on a real nice old Mauser 98 also chamber a Brown Wheeling kind of a Ackley improved had a lot of time with it too

 

[Matthew323]

I gave the rifle to my nephew it stayed in the family it's built on a real nice old Mauser 98 also chamber a Brown Wheeling kind of a Ackley improved had a lot of time with it too

So you're a wildcatter?

 

[Mnt monkey]

Brown whelen, 65x55 AI, 257 Roberts AI, that's all, I don't mess with them anymore, I spent years shooting benchrest cartridges,and a lot of time behind the 308 shooting bench rest out to 600 yards,shot of so 6.5s I don't think there's one I haven't spent a lot of time shooting,, 7 mag 300 wins 7 STW,, I don't own any of those rifles anymore, I don't consider myself a professional shooter but I've been blessed to spend a lot of time with a couple of the best shooters in America I won't drop any names,, gave all that up just to muzzle load that's what I plan on spending the rest of my life doing,I got a couple of centerfire rifles left I got a really nice 338 Norma that I plink a little bit with,,even some little small rifles deer rifles that I shoot with the grandkids and my sons but 99% of my shooting the rest of my life will be behind a muzzleloader

 

[Mnt monkey]

45 Cal 1 and 20 twist 300 grain arrow Max I need nothing more than that or sack full of fury bullets

 

[snapbang]

Townsend Whelen. He had the dream job. Playing with guns and ammo using government money.

I too had an Interarms Mark X action in 270 Winchester re-bored to a 35 Whelen some 35 years ago. It was done by a man named Cliff La Bounty or something real close to that. He was out of Washington State I think. I knew very little at the time about rates of twist and some of that jazz. He asked a lot of questions and one was what are you using the gun for. Answer: Elk. He gave it a twist faster than the one Remington put in their 35 Whelen. Consequently I can shoot 250-300 grain bullets very nicely. Very nice to use 250 grain bullets for elk. Ive done it and it works great.

My Whelen will shoot 250 grain Speer hot-core bullets at 2700 fps with 62 grains of IMR414. Yeah thats a lot hot but the cases ( conversed from 30-06 ) show no sign of stress, the primers still have dimples, and the primer pockets are still tight. I only neck size and seat the bullet touching the lands. I always thought if I had made it to Alaska or somewhere for moose I have some 300 grain Barnes original.

If your going hunting for really large game I would recommend this cartridge with he appropriate twist for the bullets you want to shoot.

 

[Mnt monkey]

I agree I think it's a great cartridge very consistent, I used to shoot the 225 Sierras in mine now there's a lot of good factory ammo is available it's nice to see the the cartridge make a comeback several years ago

 

[Matthew323]

That's what I thought. You can load the cartridge to normal 30-06 specs with 200 grain bullets, or up to low magnum specs with 300 grain bullets; and be ready for everything up to grizzly bears.

And not have to suffer from magnumitis!!