By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

NOTE: When I read the comments about my Crocodile Hunter rant and learned what a son of a bitch I was, I became despondent and went to Alaska for two weeks to live among the brown bears, a la Timothy Treadwell. However, they didn’t care for me either, so I have returned to the blog. Here is my welcome-home entry.

Earlier this month I was hunting the Tsiu River region in southeastern Alaska and shot an attractive bull moose with an Ultra Light Arms rifle chambered for the .340 Weatherby Magnum. It took one bullet high in the lungs at 60 yards to put him down, which is rare for moose. Usually, you shoot them three or four times and they stand around thinking the matter over and then head for the nearest body of water and die.

But I digress. I was shooting handloads--specifically, 275-grain Swift A-Frames that develop a muzzle velocity of 2,550 fps in that rifle. Now if you’re familiar with the .340, you’re aware that it can shoot 250-grainers at plus-2,800 fps, and 210s at 3,000 fps. So why in the name of the Late Roy W. did I settle on such a long, slow, projectile?

Because they work.... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

From 1963 until 1996, Winslow Arms (first based in Florida, then in South Carolina) produced bolt-action sporting rifles the likes of which were never seen before, and will never be seen again. They were bolt-action centerfires, all based on commercial FN Mauser actions. All had blind magazines, and all were heavy rifles. Not many were made, and photos of them are extremely rare, so you’ll have to use your imagination. In fact, the only photos I know of are on p. 108 of the 1966 Gun Digest. [Editor’s Note: We searched the Internet after Dave wrote this and lucked into the picture above.]

Winslows were made in three stock styles, and in six grades. The Bushmaster was the basic stock, a slimmed-down version of the Weatherby Mark V stock. The Powermaster was a Bushmaster with a fluted, rollover comb and a flared recoil pad. The Plainsmaster was the Powermaster to the 10th power; all lines swooped, flared, dipped, and dived. It looked like a prop from a Buck Rogers movie.

Grades ran from Commander (plainest) to Imperial. Regardless of grade, all Winslows shone... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

In the early 1970s, when I began flying to hunt, you could take a rifle on board a plane in a soft case and ask the stewardess (which is what they were called then) to give it to the pilot and have him keep it in the cockpit. Contrast this with last year, when prior to flying home from a hunt, a vigilant security employee relieved me of a 1/2-inch safety pin before I was allowed to board.

At the Charlestown, West Virginia, airport a couple of years ago, a bunch of my fellow gun writers were forbidden (in contradiction of TSA policy) to take riflescopes with them onto the plane by a dedicated if brain-damaged TSA agent who informed them that the scopes “…could be used as clubs.”

Nor is fishing immune. New York City gets its water from a series of rivers that flow from the Catskill Mountains north of the city into a reservoir system. Prior to 9/11, you needed a permit to fish any part of this system. It was granted pro forma, and was good indefinitely. Immediately after 9/11, all permit holders were told that their cards were no longer valid, and that they must... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

On September 2, Steve Irwin, the self-styled “crocodile hunter” (“crocodile annoyer” would have been more like it) was killed when a stingray barb pierced his heart. Oddly, Mr. Irwin was not pestering the ray when it killed him. I heard on the radio that since Europeans came to Australia, only 10 people have been killed by stingrays. For Mr. Irwin to meet his end like this is rather like an astronomer stepping outside his observatory and getting beaned by a meteorite.

What I disliked about Mr. Irwin (beside the fact that he was an anti-hunter) was that his antics were mostly about him, and not the animals. As was said about the demented Timothy Treadwell, he didn’t accord them any respect. Yanking a snake off the ground by its tail might have entertained him and his audience, but I doubt if the snake appreciated the honor. Snakes, and other dangerous animals, are to be let alone. Unless you want to hunt them, and it’s legal. But they are not stooges for someone who is starved for attention.

There was also a certain amount of b.s. to Mr. Irwin. According to a quote of his: “I’ve worked with more dangerous... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

This past week I got out my beanfield rifle, which is a Savage Model 10FLP in .25/06, and was reminded once again of what a useful cartridge the .25/06 is. Created by a wildcatter named A.O. Niedner in 1920 (!) it’s simply the .30/06 necked down to .257. The cartridge was commercialized by Remington in 1969. It has always sold well, but has never set the fields on fire, and is now in something of a decline, from what I read.

It’s one of those purported dual-purpose big-game/varmint rounds like the .243 or the .257 Roberts, but in truth it’s a pretty poor varmint load—it burns far too much powder for that. For big game, though, it has some fine qualities. Although it comes in a poor second to the .270 as an all-around big-game load, as a deer and antelope cartridge the .25/06 is unbeatable. Used with good 115-grain bullets, it will give you velocities well in excess of 3,000 fps along with very light recoil.

I was introduced to the cartridge by knifemaking great George Herron, a South Carolinian who used a heavy-barreled Ruger Number One in .25/06 to kill something like 150 deer over the years, and George... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Every time you pull the trigger, you send a 5,000-degree flame streaking up your barrel. It lasts only a millisecond or so, but it melts your barrel a little bit each time you shoot. And it can seriously affect your rifle’s accuracy and its point of impact.

Barrels that are button-rifled or hammer-forged (which is just about all barrels nowadays) have stresses introduced by these processes. After all, if you had a carbide die pulled through your throat under tons of pressure, or were beaten into an entirely different shape by hydraulic hammers, you’d be fairly stressed, too. In theory, barrels are stress-relieved after they’re rifled to eliminate these evil forces, but in reality, a lot of barrels still quiver with latent tension.

And when they’re heated by repeated firing, the stresses are liberated, and the barrels shoot all over the place. Not only that, but the shooter finds himself looking through a shimmering wall of heat waves, which makes the mark he’s shooting at appear higher than it actually is.

Some rifles can shoot hot with no changes, but many can’t, so you  can’t let them overheat. The question is, how hot is too hot? I’ve come to believe that if you... [ Read Full Post ]