When Roger asked me to write for Traditional Woodsman, he realized that I am a “gun guy”. Guns are my forte’. I have been shooting since the age of eight; earlier if you include BB guns. I began reading everything I could find on firearms at almost the same time I began reading. I did my first gun-smithing job at the tender age of eleven. I used one of my mother’s spring steel heated curler clips to fashion an ejector for my dad’s Marlin, Model 25, bolt action .22 rifle; and, I am proud to say, it is still functioning as well as the day I installed it 37 years ago.
I love to shoot. My entire family loves to shoot. Rarely a day goes by that we aren’t shooting, or planning to shoot. I am a shooter first, then a hunter. Too many deer to count have made it into my freezer and fed my family. Only one, out of the many, required a second shot. It was a case of bad range estimation coupled with inexperience. It’s also happens to be the only deer that I ever hit with a bullet and never found. I chalked it up to lessons learned. Also, I don’t gut shoot deer. If I can’t get a broadside shot, I’ll take a quartering shot, but only if I know I can put it in the heart or lungs without hitting too far back. If this shot doesn’t present itself, I don’t fire. Period!
This brings me to my article for this week. The most successful hunters are the ones that practice. I hate the mentality that says “I’m shooting a .338 Mag., so I don’t bother about perfect bullet placement”. Here’s a guy that sights in his rifle from a sandbag on a beautiful, fall day. Two shots in the black at a hundred is good enough since it costs him four bucks every time he squeezes the trigger. It has kicked him so hard that his nose is bleeding and he has a small cut over his right eye from a scope kiss; thus insuring a massive flinch when he fires it under field conditions. Unless he gets a shot at a deer this season (let’s hope he doesn’t), he won’t shoot this rifle again until the night before next opening day.
I have always been a traditional caliber guy. I know this doesn’t sell the latest guns in the latest “fashionable” calibers, but I believe a .270, .30-06 or .308 will do any hunting task on this continent provided it is in the hands of a skilled shooter. While “cheap ammo” has become an oxymoron, these calibers are a bargain when compared to the boutique magnums so popular today. Honestly, wouldn’t our friend in the previous paragraph be much better served by a rifle that he can afford to shoot two or three boxes of ammo through per year, and that won’t knock the fillings in his teeth loose every time he squeezes the trigger?
So the secret is really no secret at all. Developing and maintaining basic marksmanship skills is of the utmost importance. Simply put, I believe one should shoot at least once a month. Whether you are a hunter or a CCW permit holder, you have a responsibility to be skilled in the use of your firearm. I used to shoot around 200 rounds per week when I was a serious competitor. Not all of it was the caliber, or the handgun I competed with but all of it required sight alignment, trigger press, and follow through. I am fortunate enough to live 10 minutes away from my gun club and also my family’s 62 acre farm. So what if you don’t?
I understand that many live in areas that require quite a drive to arrive at a suitable spot to shoot. I also will admit that indoor range fees might preclude the urban shooter from being able to shoot as much as he would like. We all know that the cost of ammunition has sky rocketed in the last couple of years. All of these combined make it tough on suburban and urban shooters. I am the first to recommend shooting .22s. However, the noise and power of this cartridge make it too much for the urban shooter. The next best thing is a pellet rifle. Air rifle technology is leaps and bound beyond the Red Riders we had growing up. The newest of the breed really are powerful; and with alloy pellets, can achieve supersonic speeds which is sure to be accompanied by the “crack” which is not good for our purposes here. What we are after is accuracy. There are few pellet rifles with the track record for accuracy of the Daisy Avanti 853. Our club has purchased 5 of these rifles in “used but rebuilt” condition for use in youth marksmanship training activities from the Civilian Marksmanship Program (see picture 1). The Avanti 853 is a single pump, single shot, peep sighted, real wood stocked version that is unbelievably accurate. I have shot ten meter groups that look like one ragged .30 caliber hole. I am sure that any of the three I own will out shoot me. My kids and their friends have spent countless hours in the backyard shooting these rifles. I have fired them over my chronograph and am amazed by the consistency of velocity. Rated at 550 fps, they aren’t the most powerful pellet rifle available and the trigger is a little mushy, but it’s a two stage affair that can be mastered easily enough (see picture 2).
What about handgunners? Here’s a trick I use for my revolvers. I separate a hundred, clean, .38 special cases, resize them and remove the old primers, and drill out the flash hole to about 3/32; and prime the cases with standard small pistol primers. I then take half inch thick blocks of paraffin wax (available in the canning dept. of your grocery store) and place them in warm/hot water from the faucet until the blocks are warm enough to bend a little. The warm block is rolled in a paper towel to remove any water, and primed cases are pushed through the block (see picture 3). This makes a half inch long wax wadcutter already loaded into the cartridge. I then lightly run the case mouth over a candle to melt the end of the wax bullet just enough to keep it from slipping out of the case mouth. No propellant is required and magnum primers will cause primer set back, so stick with the standard small pistol primers. The wax bullets are fairly accurate out to approximately 15 ft. I hang an old towel over the clothes line and shoot into it thereby eliminating ricochets and allowing me to reload the bullets (picture 4). You’ll need to clean your gun after using the wax bullets, as the wax will build up in your rifling but one or two strokes with a bore brush is enough to clean it out. These are not toys. They will shoot through an IDPA cardboard target at six or eight ft. and can bounce off of hard surfaces, so use common sense. They lose energy rather quickly though and rarely travel more than 75 ft.
Remember, safe gun handling skills are a must. Also keep in mind that priming compounds produce traces of toxic heavy metals so don’t fire a few thousand rounds of these in your basement. Always wash your hands with soap and cold water after handling lead pellets and ammunition. Shoot safely and have fun!
Jamie
originally posted on www.traditionalwoodsman.com
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