Hunting buffalo with Cold Steel

I admit to finding Lynn Thompson's self defense handgunnery to be not only laughable, outright dangerous, and foolish, (go to 7:30 mark to see his technique of firing as soon as the muzzle leaves the holster) but there's no denying that the man pushes the limits of his world.

Here a buffalo goes all ninja on Lynn's well aimed spear throw and tries to take him out. He's pretty handy with a double action .454 Ruger, and fortunately doesn't take his own advice by firinghalf of his rounds into the dirt while getting the front sight on target:


Too close for comfort!

Pretty women

. . . . .who hunt tasty animals. Awesomeness!

Did you get the feeling that they were compensating for something? I sure didn't. It seemed to me like a group of women who loved to hunt various animals with all sorts of weapons. The giant alligator with a quiver of arrows in its head was hard core, but I think my favorite part was seeing the deer mounts in their cabin with fluffy scarves and such on their necks. Nice touch!

My wife frowns on dead all things dead animal. Years ago when we lived in a small apartment, my wife found a set of antlers that I had mounted on a plaque and brought home to hang on the wall in the spare bedroom. She insists that dead animal mounts are a no-go, but I have high hopes that she'll change her mind one day when I bring home a beautiful hog mount or something. Or maybe a bison. We'll see if she notices.

The food chain

It's been a busy day, folks. Sorry about the light posting.

Anyhow, I just found this article on Drudge and found some of it to be amazing:

The National Park Service has counted 1,825 Burmese pythons that have been caught in and around Everglades National Park since 2000. Among the largest so far was a 156-pound, 16.4-foot one captured earlier this month.

That's a ton of snakes! More than I would have ever thought, but it makes sense considering the environment those suckers are living in. The article goes on to note the dramatic decline in small mammals around the everglades. I wonder why!

There's an alarmist theme to these everglades/constricting snake articles, and I get why, but this isn't the first time in the history of the world an animal from another continent has been introduced here and thrived. Horses and wild hogs are just two critters that come to mind. Since the Burmese Python and other huge snakes are doing so well here, it's only a matter of time before their names end up a paper tag on the end of a hunting license. And honestly, who wouldn't want one stuffed on their wall with a tall, fictional tale of taking down such a beast?

So that brings me to the question of the day: What gun for a massive python? Colt Python? Will there be an archery season? Chris Brackett will sure be excited. Will it be added to the Super Slam? Someone will have to call Jim Shockey and tell him to bring his smokepole. Personally, I would forgo the treestand and take after a trophy constrictor with a spear and loincloth. More sporting that way.

I wonder what a Boone & Crocket score would look like:

Burmese pythons can grow to be 26 feet long and more than 200 pounds, and they have been known to swallow animals as large as alligators. They and other constrictor snakes kill their prey by coiling around it and suffocating it.

There's a picture of one of them coiled around a good sized alligator, and you've all by now seen the picture of the one that died while eating a huge gator. It's like Jurassic Park down there!

Menace to society

This post is many parts; the lesser of the post being the first, which is that coyotes in King George's county, Virginia are now in an almost continuous open season, and hopefully this will extend to other surrounding counties, as my county is starting to see their population increase. I take issue with some parts of this ordnance, the main one being that if you use a rifle, it has to be larger than .22 caliber. I'd love to see some evidence of how this regulation was established, and would enjoy seeing some bureaucrat publicly defend it. It's asinine. If you frequent predator forums, you'd be hard pressed to miss that hunters note the faster calibers being the ones that put coyotes down quickly, and thus "ethically" like the DGIF official wants. The gist of it is hunters have had well hit coyotes run off after being hit with larger calibers with less velocity, and anchored them well with the same hits with zippy small caliber rifles. Call it what you want, but there's definitely a trend. My guess is that this regulation is put here now to make sure that icky AR rifles don't end up being the killing tool for coyote hunters.

I'm going to go off on a tangent for a minute: this caliber restriction applies to whitetail deer hunting as well, and I've never seen any scientific evidence or studies that show that .22 caliber bullets are less effective than anything larger. The .223 Remington cartridge is a premier deer round in states where it's lawful, but general public ignorance and baseless ordinances have led them to be demonized. I've argued this with people for years, and none of them can offer anything other than "it's not powerful enough." Do you have proof of that claim, because I've seen evidence that says otherwise.

Interestingly enough, many hunters that I've known throughout the years who subscribe to this bullshit tote a magnum caliber rifle that they can't shoot because they flinch with it on every shot, and believe it has more "knockdown power" because it's so biiiiiiiiiiiig. I've tracked a ton of hit deer for them, too, some of them where the hunter felt confident to shoot a 180 lb running doe square in the ass because their cartridge case has a belt, and that bullet will definitely make it to the vitals, sure. "IT'S A GREAT BRUSH GUN!!!!" - my personal favorite. To be blunt, I've tracked more dog-sized Virginia deer hit with a magnum than I can count, but never had to track one hit with a .22 Hornet, .22 Magnum, or .220 Swift. I don't account this fact to the caliber, but to the fact that the trigger man did his job and hit them properly, and did not rely on 30 extra grains of powder, 2 more millimeters, and piss poor shooting to get the job done. Just to ensure that this dead horse is adequately beaten, if you claim that to use a .223 Remington or other similar caliber cartridge on deer, you have to "hit them just right," you are implying that using a larger cartridge means that you don't have to hit them just right. Get it?

Good. Moving on.

The "no hunting on Sundays" is an archaic regulation that needs to be repealed. I don't know where it comes from, but to my knowledge folks believe that God will be angry with them if they're in their treestand on Sunday vice raking leaves or fixing the sink. The Lord didn't smite David for eating the showbread, and I don't think He will condemn Elmer Fudd for sending a ballistic tip through Wile E's guts. If you believe otherwise, then I invite you on a witch hunting journey with me in Salem. It'll be swell! My county this year has had a continuous doe-day this hunting season in a vain effort to control the population, and if they let hunters hunt one more day out of the week, a balance in the herd might be struck. The insurance companies would surely be happy with this concept, as they wouldn't have to shell out millions every year because of all the deer hit by vehicles.

Next up on my list of shit I don't like is this:

King George doesn’t allow the use of high-powered rifles during hunting season. Bullets fired by more powerful weapons travel farther, and that can be dangerous in areas with dense populations or flat terrain, which is the case in King George.Caroline County has the same restriction.

Now, this DOES NOT apply to shooting coyotes in the county -- it's for deer hunters -- but going off on a tangent again (I can do that, you know) I note that this is an asinine regulation, and it's one that plagues many counties around mine. Whoever came up with this should be kicked in the balls. The concept is that rifles are dangerous because the bullet has the potential to go further, so some counties only allow hunting with shotguns and muzzleloaders. The problem with that is that that concept is baseless:

Of Pennsylvania’s approximate 900 miles of border with other states, it was found that the centerfire rifle was unlawful along the entire boundary with the exception of western Maryland. They found that in no case was any state able to provide definitive information upon which they based their decision. In fact, most reported that they simply responded to the public perception that shotguns were less dangerous than centerfire rifles. At that time, PGC staff found there was no data to support the contention that shotguns and muzzleloaders are any less risky than centerfire rifles. They found, instead, that in the “shotgun-only” states this appears to be “an issue driven by emotion and politics rather than sound scientific data.”2

You mean to tell me that laws and regulations subjected on Pennsylvanians was born out of politics and emotion instead of facts? Weird. Don't quote me, but I think this sort of shenanigans has happened elsewhere in the country.

Anyhow, the conclusion from the linked study from Pennsylvania is that shotguns are "more risky" when fired from the ground at a zero degree angle, and Paw Paws 30.06 is "more risky" when fired at an angle, such as from a treestand -- but the risk factor in the study is based on the "danger zone" after the projectile has ricocheted, which is based entirely on the distance that it travels. My point is that who cares if the round ricochets one mile or ten: it's one bullet, and it's dangerous no matter how far it goes before it lands. It would be different if the bullet rained death down on everything below it during its brief flight, whereas the further and longer it flies, the more harm is done. That's not the case though; what we're talking about here is if a hunter fires a rifle at a deer, and the bullet skips off a rock and heads out of the pasture, that if it strikes Timmy in his back yard a thousand yards away it's "more safe" than if the round came down and struck grandma in the next county. Sorry, but that dog don't hunt.

According to the PA study, the criteria for the "danger zone" came from studies done by the US military on the ricochet distance for small arms for military ranges. So yeah, a two mile danger zone behind Edson Range is a good idea because thousands of Marine recruits fire millions of rounds there, and all those rounds will fall in a predictable area. Finding out how big that area is and making sure some developer doesn't build a Kroger there is in the public's interest. How this somehow applies to Elmer and his carbine is anyone's guess; I just don't see how a shotgun slug bounding half a mile is less dangerous than a .30 caliber Accubond skipping two miles. The telling part to me is the chart on page 26, where it shows that the probability of a rifle round ricocheting when fired at a 10 degree down angle is 38%, and the probability of a .50 round from a muzzloader or a shotgun slug ricocheting from the same angle is 91%; what I get from this is that there's less chance of an errant projectile to begin with if I stick with a rifle, damn the distance it flies. Go ahead and look that chart over real well. See how much more probable a ricochet is when you don't use a rifle?

It seems to me that we have the dumbest possible people struggling to make public policy, which I guess is better than letting them figure it out on their own using common sense, or worse, emotion.

Venison jerky

Years ago, my family would make venison jerky, which became somewhat of a problem because the more you make, the more you eat. It's not like defrosting half a tenderloin to cook for tomorrow's game; you make jerky in huge batches, and it sits there waiting to be snacked on. A friend at work makes jerky and brings it in every now and then, and it got me on the idea of making some.

Too bad there's a Game Stop or Home Despot in place of every deer stand I used to have. How many Game Stops does a town need, anyhow? If I did have the time to shoot and clean a deer, I don't have anywhere to hunt, which leads me to think that I need to not put so much effort into dodging them in my truck on the way to work.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes

The title of this post is often heard on ARFCOM, and it means that if you take big risks, you risk getting hurt bigtime. On one post at ARFCOM in the General Discussion forum, I found an example of the big risk/big hurt rule:

The protester, Julia Symons of Melbourne, was accidentally shot in the face while the shooter was aiming at a low-flying bird.

She staggered into the arms of two friends, saying "I've been shot, I've been shot". She was carried from the water with pellets still stuck in her face and one of her teeth shot out.

This happened in Australia. From the article, it seems that the protesters sneak into the water early in the morning before the hunters get there, and then do their best to spook the birds so that they don't land in the water. It's precisely at that moment - when a duck is slowing down to hit the water - that hunters take aim and shoot, as they are not moving as fast and are easier to hit. This sort of activity was bound to lead to this sooner or later. Thankfully the woman lived, and hopefully she has learned her lesson.

The protesters continuingly break the human safety laws by going into the water before 10am and very few of them understand the safety zone of a shotgun."

Perhaps hunting-protesters should have to attend a hunter's safety course before heading out for a long day of danger on the water, or maybe it's bad policy to interfere with Natural Selection. I don't know about you, but I don't go about my day trying my best to meet Darwin.

**Edit - The protesters don't bother with eye and ear protection, which is pretty stupid considering they are wading around amongst duck decoys in the water while hunters blast away at ducks with birdshot. That women is extremely fortunate.

Poop hunting

The company, Jaworski Jagdreisen, which organizes hunting expeditions, insists there are elephants in the area of Zimbabwe it sent the hunter, identified only as Waldemar I, the Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper said.

"From what I know, (the hunter) should have seen elephant excrement there," it quoted the company owner as saying.

There's not much more to this story, but it gave me a chuckle. I gather that going on a safari hunt costs big bucks, as well as time spent going there, so I'd be pissed too if I went on a hunt where the animal I was seeking didn't even exist.

"Wha? You didn't see any poo mate?"

I don't think I'd be game for an elephant hunt, but shooting a lion or some other dangerous critter would be cool. Or even better, go after a big cat with a spear or a knife! I'd have to be clad in kevlar to pull that off, but not too long ago there were dudes who were crazy enough to do it while basically naked and holding a shield made of grass. That's either really brave or really stupid. I'm probably more towards the latter.

**Oh, and do read the comments.

"Are the elephants armed too?" Ughhh, yeah, I'd say without a doubt that elephants are pretty well armed. You don't think Hannibal took elephants over the Alps and into Italy because he like scratching their ears and feeding them, do you? And the arguments about eating elephant are pretty stupid too; I think Americans in general don't understand that just because an animal is on another continent and doesn't have a white tail doesn't mean that it's shot and left to rot in the sun.

Future Weapons: Railguns

I get a little hot and winded reading American Handgunner, so to read about the US Navy's sweet foray into the world of railguns got me going this morning:

The Navy would like to have a fully functional 64-megajoule system aboard a ship by 2025.

A shot of that power could reach a target 100 nautical miles away in a matter of minutes. The projectile would travel so fast that no warhead is needed; kinetic energy is sufficient to destroy its target.

Killing baddies with the shear awesomeness of fast moving metal! RIGHTEOUS, RIGHTEOUS!!!!

Now, the Navy wants to have this weapon adorning their poop deck by 2025, which isn't all that far away. My hopes are to be toting one of these beasties with a walnut stock in the backwoods of the Old Dominion no later than 2050 or so. Think it's possible?

Once I vaporize a few hundred groghounds and a dozen elk with very fast metal, I envision writing an article on the matter about how 10 megajoules is not humane enough to drop an entire herd of whitetails with one round, so it's best to stick with .22 caliber railguns or higher and leave the pussy .17 caliber rounds for the plinkers.

What gun for gator?

Certainly not a .22 for my pick, but to each their own.

The huntress demonstrated the utility of her knife when the gator wasn't feeling the power of whatever .22 caliber weapon she first used. Good for her.

Also, browse the comments for a chuckle. I found this one to be the best, from commenter Ryan:

Some of you people are fricken nuts. You live in your little condos in the city eating tofu and drinking lattes and buy your mexican raised meat from your local grocer. What's the point in arguing with people who think Obama is a great president. I'm going to bed so I can get up in the morning, drop my daughter off at school and go shoot a deer with my bow and arrow. Afterall, it helps feed my family for nearly a year.

Well said!

Update: More reading in the comments reveals the reason for the .22:

Attention city people with big mouths and no knowledge of gator hunting.

It is illegal to hunt alligator with anything other than a 22. Its dangerous to shoot into the water at close range with anything that has more power. The reason for the poor weight/meat ratio is because it is the tail of the gator that is eaten, not the body which holds the bulk of the weight.

Alligator are not endangered. They do need to be culled to avoid overpopulation. By taking a few you keep the population stable so there is plenty of food for the gators. If you dont know what you are talking about, best to keep your mouth shut rather than be viewed as a ignorant loud mouth fool.

Yes, it may shock you but some people still harvest their own meat. If you get your meat in a plastic wrapper there is no reason to bad mouth people that still choose to legally obtain their own meat from wild game. It's the law!

The comments are where it's at, apparently.

Hey buddy. . . got a light?

In spades, my friend.

Last night a friend and I decided to do an equipment check for a foray into the wild world of hunting predators. I bought an el-cheapo WorkForce 1Mil candlepower spotlight and spiced it up with a little red brake-light tape, and then bolted on some picatinney mounts that I had lying around. Llllllllllllllike a Glove!!!!

The rigged spotlight works perfect, and before I put the red tape on the lens I did a side-by-side comparison against my Surefire 6P and Streamlight TLR-1, with 65 and 135 lumens, respectively. The tactical lights held their own. I was particularly impressed with the TLR-1; it cast a long perfectly white beam out to the 120 yards that I could see, and it had a nice bright cone for searching that lit up anything inside of fifty yards. The 6P was quite nice as well, although I need to get the 120 lumen head for it.

We sound checked the various calls that my friend had, and we managed to call in a huge owl. That thing just about scared my heart out of my chest; he came in all stealth-ninja and landed in a tree about ten yards away. How they can soar through the woods with a five foot wingspan and not make a freakin sound is downright amazing. I don't know much about owls, but this one didn't seem to appreciate the red filter on my spotlight. Does anyone out there know if they can see the red light spectrum?

We weren't at it for very long; last night was mainly about finding out if our gear worked or not. This was all on my friend's property, and he has seen an abundance of coyotes, foxes, and bobcats recently. Night time hunting works for both of us in particular - working through the week from dark to dark is the norm, and when we get home it's time to be a daddy for a few hours until the kids go to bed. I didn't get into the woods for deer season the first stinkin time this year as I didn't have the time to go; not that I had anywhere to go anyways. There is a subdivision or a Starbucks in every patch of what used to be woods that I hunted in my youth.

I have a feeling that shooting coyotes in the dark may turn out to be awesomeness. In my humble opinion, the AR platform was taylor made for the role, and I'm going to be playing around with different gear until I find out what works the best.