David E. Petzal

Where'd The Big Texas Mule Deer Go?

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:44:13 -0500

by David E. Petzal

I’ve just returned from a non-triumphal hunt in Texas where four of us, in an area that is swarming with mule deer, went at it for five days and did not see a single shootable head. We saw spikes in battalion strength, regiments of forkhorns, and brigades of little four-points, but nothing with antlers out past its ears that had lived more than a couple of years. The big deer, who knew what was what, had vanished.

A local game biologist said this was a general condition in the area, not just on the ranch we were hunting, and that the rut, for some reason, was late this year, but that was all he knew for sure. My own guess is that the mature bucks had gone nocturnal; they simply hid until it was pitch dark; God knows there are plenty of places to hide in the high desert.

Petzal's Take on Under Armour for Hunters

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:42:17 -0500

Under Armour started as a manufacturer of gym clothes for people with 28-inch waists and 52-inch chests. Recently, they branched out into hunting clothes, and this September, I found myself in a hunting camp where I was the only one not wearing something from Under Armour. Shocked and appalled at how out of touch I was, I got hold of two items from Under Armour. One is the Men’s ArmourLoft Component Hunting Jacket, and the other is the Men’s Big Shell Hunting Jacke t . I’ve worn them in fair weather and foul in New York and Maine and Montana and Wyoming, and am pleased to report they’re nothing short of terrific.

The Component Hunting Jacket is designed to be worn under the Big Shell, or it can be worn by itself. It’s devoid of bells and whistles, and is extremely warm. I don’t know what it’s stuffed with—possibly the undercoats of musk oxen—but if you get cold wearing this thing, best see a doctor. Because the stuffing is so dense, it will not squash down into a fist-sized wad, but that’s about the end of its limitations.

The Big Shell Jacket, despite being labeled a jacket, is about parka length on a person of average height. It’s very light, folds into a small package, is cut quite full, and is very simple in design. There is no special pocket for your Lone Ranger Decoder Ring. Blessedly, it comes in loden green and not camo, which means you can wear it almost anywhere and blend in and you can wear it in the off-season as well. Under Armour says it is wind and water proof, and they are not kidding.

Rot and Evil and the Military Channel

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:32:58 -0500

by David E. Petzal

Like many of you, I’m addicted to both the History Channel and the Military Channel. Were it not for them I would have to learn canasta or take up calligraphy while I wait for the end to come. The Military Channel still runs some good stuff, but I’m seeing it drift farther and farther from bullets and bayonets and more toward show biz.

The first example of this is a program called “An Officer and Movie,” in which a war film is played and the host, the actor Lou Diamond Phillips, quizzes a combat veteran about what the movie purports to show. The concept is a good one, but the films are some of the lamest military flicks ever made (Heartbreak Ridge? Spare me.) Mr. Phillips is no military authority, the officers are given no time to say anything important, and the questions are innocuous. Aside from that it’s fine.

If the Military Channel would like to do something meaningful, how about having Colonel Jack Jacobs host the program? Colonel Jacobs (USA, Ret) won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam and does military analysis for MSNBC. How about running movies like Attack, a film that stars Jack Palance and came out in 1956. It deals with cowardice under fire, and has some distinctly unpleasant things to say. Or Decision Before Dawn (1951) which was the first postwar American film to show Germans in a sympathetic light, and is about loyalty to a cause, and what it can do to you. Neither film makes for easy watching, and I’d love to see one or both on “An Officer…” but I won’t hold my breath.

November 22, 1963

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:11:28 -0500

by David E. Petzal

If you were alive on that day and old enough to understand what was happening, you will remember it with a clarity that attaches to very few of your other memories. I was a brand new soldier waiting for my second haircut in two days at the 4th Regimental barber shop at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, listening to the radio, which said that President Kennedy had been shot dead in Dallas. I have no recollection of my college graduation, which took place only a few months before, but I can remember that with startling clarity.

Even before Kennedy had been laid in his grave, the rumors started, and never stopped. The government said that the President had been shot by one Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, using one of the worst military rifles of all time. People did not believe the government in droves. Who could credit that a twisted geek, a loser who had failed at everything he had ever tried, could have killed King Jack and altered history?

The Melvin Forbes Lightweight Bolt Action Model 24B Rifle

Dave_Maccar — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:38:51 -0500

by David E. Petzal

Before Melvin Forbes came along, the path to a featherweight big-game rifle was to take a conventional bolt action, chop, gouge, hack, and drill it until all the excess steel was gone, then screw in a short barrel the diameter of a soda straw and bed the whole mess in a scrawny stock made out of bass wood. I encountered just such a rifle in a deer camp in the Adirondacks in 1969, and it frightened me so badly I lived in the woods for two days.

In the early 1980s, a West Virginia gunsmith named Melvin Forbes was approached by a customer who, the preceding fall, had been caught in a Montana blizzard and, at the end of his strength, was forced to hang his heavy rifle in a tree in order to slog through the drifts. So when he got back, he asked Melvin to build something really light, and Melvin did. Having a horror of not doing things right, he built what the man wanted using a Remington 600 action, and turned out a .308 that weighed under 6 pounds with scope and was not a boiled-down monstrosity.

The Trijicon Accupoint 3X-9X: A High Quality Scope For a Reasonable Price

Sarah Smith — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:12:42 -0500

by David E. Petzal

Trijicon (which is an American company, by the way) is probably best known for its ACOG red-dot sight, which is currently issued to the United States Marine Corps so they can shoot whoever disagrees with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Even if you’re not a Marine, you should be aware of the company’s line of conventional Accupoint rifle scopes. They are of extremely high quality, and I used an Accupoint 3X-9X (Model TR20-1) on a .270 to end the career of a Wyoming mule deer a little while ago.

I’ve long had a Trijicon 2.5X-10X-56 on my beanfield rifle, so the brand is nothing new to me, but in case it is to you, what makes Trijicon unique is its ambient-light-powered aiming dot system, used in conjunction with standard or mil-dot crosshairs, or with Trijicon’s post reticle (which is what I have on the beanfield gun). The Trijicon system works to perfection, uses no batteries (in case there’s no ambient light a tritium implant takes over), and lets you adjust the brightness of the dot to where you like it.

If You Think You Hit, Keep Looking

Online Editors — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:10:35 -0500

by David E. Petzal

This past week, in Wyoming, I was watching deer come into a field of winter wheat, looking for a nice eating buck. At just about the last minute of shooting light I saw one, facing me at 125 yards. I put the crosshair on the center of his chest, pulled the trigger, and he ran like hell with not a sign of being hit.

Usually the center-chest shot is instantly deadly. Last year, I hit a whitetail buck in Maine in that spot and he simply sagged sideways, deader than meaningful tax reform. But this buck ran off into the dark, surrounded by half a dozen other panicked ungulates. I sat and waited the customary 5 minutes, took out my flashlight and went to the spot where he had his collision with a rapidly moving object, and looked for blood. Nothing; not a drop.

The other two hunters in my party arrived, and they didn’t see any signs of a hit either. But I was sure I’d gotten him. I had a good, steady rest, and when the gun went bang the little green dot* was right where it was supposed to be. So we looked, and after 10 nerve-wracking minutes we found him, piled up about 125 yards from where he’d taken my bullet.

Good Ammo: Berger Bullets

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:07:13 -0400

by David E. Petzal

Recently, at a shoot where I qualified at 600 yards, I heard the word “Berger” so often it was like working at Wendy’s. These Bergers were not beef, but copper and lead; it seemed everyone and his uncle was handloading the creations of Walt Berger, a Hall of Fame benchrest shooter—including myself.

Berger makes target, varmint, hunting, and tactical bullets, all to match standards. The ones I was shooting were the second category, called Hunting VLD (for Very Low Drag), .308, 155-grain. VLDs are made with J4 copper jackets, lead cores, very small hollow points, a very long secant ogive, and a pronounced boattail base. They come in 6mm through .308. What I can tell you also is that they are exceedingly aerodynamic. The wind can’t seem to grab them, and they drop far less than the numbers say they should. Every time I estimated how much to hold over at long range, they hit higher than I guessed.

Sometimes, You Don't Shoot

Sarah Smith — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:59:35 -0400

by David E. Petzal

Twenty years ago or so, Keith McCafferty wrote a great story for us called “The Quality of Mercy,” in which he described watching a doe that was lying curled up underneath some pines, gently eating snowflakes as they drifted down. His freezer was empty, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot her.

This past September, I watched a young Utah bull elk come down to a pond for his mid-morning drink. He trotted into the water up to his chest, sucked up a couple of gallons and then did something I’ve never seen an animal do before. He splashed his left antler--he was a 5x5--in the water, giving it a good soaking.

Guns & Loads For The Living Dead

Sarah Smith — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:26:17 -0400

by David E. Petzal

While scrolling down the channel guide in my customary evening stupor, I noticed that most of the programming concerned the undead. Land of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, The Living Dead Walk Again, The Living Dead Fart*, and on and on. I wondered why all the interest in Congress, and happened to mention it to a friend who is much younger and hipper, and he said, “It’s not about the House and Senate, you out-of-touch old bastard, it’s about zombies. Zombies are HOT.”