Alas! Too any moral compasses appear to be battery-driven these days.

Yep! Always have a low-tech backup for your latest battery operated whiz-bang new toy. Amazing how some of that old stuff still works. I recently used my Lyman 55 powder measure throwing a bit less than 4 grains of 700X and was impressed with how consistent it threw these light charges.

As an aside, SFC Petzal,...after you wrote a "thumbs up" recommendation on Mr. Heavey's new book, I was shocked to read his latest article in F&S wherein he made mention that you had never shot or fired a gun. Perhaps the next time you see him you can remind him about the difference between a rifle and a gun. If distant memory serves, such a indiscretion was always good for a few laps around the parade field.

As I am now an old fart, I am sticking to my compasses. I have toyed with GPS's and find them tedious and at times baffling. In addition, I hate all the added bells and whistles which serve only to confuse my aging brain. My good fortune is to have a good memory regarding where I have been and seldom fail to retrace my steps. However my good ol' compass has gotten me out of a few scary situations down these many years, when I was "turned around"; in other words wondering just where the hell I was. Yes, Ontario Honker, it was usually someplace in the Quebec or Labrador taiga.

I worked with a guy that had all of these"apps" on his "smart" phone, a flash light app, a level app, measuring app, etc., it was all fun and games until the battery died, then I pulled out my string plumb bob and straight edge......

Proverbs, I agree. I have had brand name batteries (duracell) ruin two flashlights in the last year. I should be able to leave them in my pack and not worry about green dust going everywhere when I go to use them in a few months. Also this post is a good reminder as to why it is always good to have iron sights to backup your red dot.

I am teaching my grandson to shoot and I make him use iron sights. He wants to use a scope, but I tell him master the iron sights first, then the scope. If the scope lets you down you will have a backup. It is amazing to me how few people can even sight in iron sights today. He thinks that I am old fashioned and he is right. I have been on a couple of hunts where the scope failed (cross hairs broke in a Weaver) and the iron sights saved the hunt. Since the iron sights were already sighted in, no problem. I got a nice mule deer with that rifle.

Happy Myles: I wish you another enjoyable excursion; you obviously lead a interesting life. Sadly, I never made it to the Dark Continent. Just about the time I acquired the wherewithal to go I had become so obsessed with the pursuit of big Whitetails that I could not bring myself to do anything else. In addition, I had absorbed so many accounts of the old Africa, that I was not sure that I really wanted to be disillusioned by experiencing the new one. Probably a mistake. Another of life's disappointments was just missing out on the old India of Jim Corbett, et al. Did you ever manage to get there? Anyway, it sounds as though life has treated us both unusually well. Speaking of jungles, I fell in love with the Amazon and Orinoco country. Many trips. Another world entirely and one that I could go to live in if I were able.

I'm all for the best in electronic gadgets of every sort, but Dave's story demonstrates the importance of knowing how to do things. I'm amazed regularly, even within the hunting and shooting community, that what were once common skills are now unknown.
Compass versus GPS is a perfect example. Today the extent of some men's ability is to know that the needle points North, but they'd never be able to make application of a compass to find their way in or out of the woods.
Some guys couldn't sharpen a knife on a whet stone if their life depended on it! Without a machine with grinding belts and a perfect pitch platform, they are lost.
I have been in the gunsmith's shop and seen guys bring in their rifles to be cleaned -- not because they had plenty of money and didn't want to bother with the "dirty work" but because they didn't know how.
Maybe this is turning into an ad for the F&S Total Outdoorsman Manual...

Thanks, reminds me to check the batteries in my range finder before I leave Wednesday. Though don't think I will need it it the Cameroon jungle.

To Happy Myles: Yes, I did, and glad of it; the set would have cost $80 to replace. Have fun in Cameroon, and don't drink the water.

A compass is nigh onto useless in the dense flat timber of this country unless you want to spend all of your time looking at the thing instead of for game to shoot at (and even then there's a good chance you'll still wind up walking in circles). Hunting without navigation equipment was never a problem in Montana where everything is up and down with a road or moving body of water always somewhere downhill that would take me to civilization. But up here that technique doesn't work. It's all flat with too much swamp and muskeg. And the water doesn't go anyplace in a hurry. Or often anyplace at all. So I relied on following my own tracks out if necessary. Then I almost bought the farm twice when caught in snowstorms. I detest electronic technocrap but a GPS proved to be an absolute godsend. Not so much these days as I have given up big game hunting and only hunt birds. Really, I don't think a blind man could get lost field hunting geese or chasing pheasants off tulie ditches. Anyway, even if I somehow did lose my way, all I'd have to do to get out is say "dogfood" and keep up with my mutts as they made a beeline for the rig at a gallop.

Happy Myles,

Stay safe in Cameroon and shoot a big one for us!

Cheers

Happy,

Do have a good trip. Sorry to hear this is to be your last, but judging by story and pictures you have had many wonderful trips that you now carry as memories. Priceless.

I fly to Namibia via Frankfurt this coming Friday for what I hope will not be my last African trip. I wish us both luck. The novice and the veteran both.

I hope the Kalahari treats me well, and my many rounds through the 375 keeps me from making too big a fool.

A flyer,
Just my last trip to the jungle. Already have paid for a trip to Tanzania and one to Mozambique. I know you will have a grand adventure in Namibia, it is a smoothly run country. What is your primary goal for trophies? I have hunted there four times, all good trips. Have even visited the hospital in Windehoek, courtesy of an unfriendly leopard. All the best, and kindest regards

Oh, good. I had understood it was your last trip to Africa.

First on my list is a nice Gemsbok. Interesting creatures, and I hear they have good ones there.

I always carry my old compass as backup for my battery operated GPS. Don't bet your life on a 1.5 volt battery.

My range finder if it dies it dies. I've done well for years with out it.

Any battery operated scope is just waiting to die next time you see a 10 pointer.

Jerry

Ha, ha Tom Warner that was good! I'm an old fart too and I still use my military issue lensatic compass with the tritium cells on the direction indicators. If I can see it I can find my way out.

Single-use batteries leak and corrode electrical contacts, not to mention expose you to potentially harmful stuff.

Rechargeables are multiple-use so they're built tougher (at least, usually), and normally don't leak, but break down over time due to repeated handling, heating up and cooling during charging or use, and due to compression by springs both on the charger and on the device (flashlight, etc.). If unused over a long period of time, they just lose charge completely, leaving you with a dead device or light. After a few uses, sometimes they simply refuse to accept a charge, even though you're using the charger that came with the package when you bought them.

Mixing chemistries of rechargeables (e.g. NiCd with NiMH) or mixing rechargeables with alkaline or carbon-zinc is guaranteed to render your rechargeables dead, turning them into very expensive single-use batteries. Mixing rechargebles of different age, storage capacity, charge state and sometimes even different brands or batch of manufacture within the same brand, can turn your perfectly OK rechargeables into paperweights. And since nearly all rechargeable battery types contain some "tamed" version of a potentially harmful or explosive chemical (lead, cadmium, lithium), they're going to be unsafe paperweights. They're a pain to dispose, and NiCd's are banned in some places.

NiCd's are the toughest rechargeables, which probably explains why they're still used in military applications and even in some power plants as back-up. As long as you follow the charge/discharge cycle religiously, they can last for hundreds if not thousands of charges. On the other hand, their storage capacity is lower than NiMH and Lithium-Ion, and, again NiCd's are banned in some places.

Flashlights require batteries, and they're an integral part of our outdoor gear. Photography is something we do to document not only our hunts, but also the function fire and accuracy tests of new rifles or new loads. With most cameras now being digital (good luck finding film for your 100% mechanical Nikon F, made in 1959, low serial number), batteries are a necessary... whatever they mean to you.

Another drawback to compasses, especially up here, is that one can encounter surface iron ore deposits that are magnetic. The needle will dance around like a school marm at a barn raising.

We got this new thing called steam, great source of power except it's kind of high tech.