686

This one was shot in Gatesville (west of Waco) last year, and there have been some killed in north Louisiana. They seemingly travel a long way sometimes.

Thanks for being straight about it. It is very hard to read news stories and commentary on things up there and understand what is actually going on, since no one (understandably) wants to print anything negative about Native Americans. I’ve spent a fair amount of time around reservation land in the lower 48, and managing relationships/boundaries/rights is always going to be difficult; and to some degree rightly because of the mistakes/illegal acts/total war/genocide/evil committed against the tribes/Nations for decades/centuries. I don’t know the history with the Alaska tribes, but I’m pretty familiar with how things went for the plains tribes. It’s a tough situation. I think as Nations/groups of people we are still coming to terms with it and figuring out how to go forward. (Side note - once I asked a Dutch colleague how they talk about WWII with Germans (we were doing business in Germany on a VE anniversary or something), and he just said “We don’t. No one talks about the war!” (Just like Monty python said)) The story I referred to around Kotzebue basically sounds to me like the natives don’t want anyone else allowed into the areas they like to hunt, (even through its not legally theirs - it’s Federally owned land) and at the moment I think, got a commission to grant that request (which is now being legally challenged). But no article I could find just said “the natives want to exclude non-natives from these areas, even though it’s federally owned.” You kinda have to read between the lines. I don’t understand the provenance of how we acquired Alaska from the Russians and if they “legally” acquired it from the natives or what so I’ll have to go down that rabbit trail now…

Very interesting - thanks! You’ll have to excuse my ignorance on a lot of this: A buddy and I have been looking at doing a caribou hunt up there. I would prefer moose, but the logistics of shipping moose meat back is difficult, whereas caribou meat can fit as checked baggage. One of the areas we were looking at operates in the northwest out of Kotzebue, but apparently “the native” (tribal)? lobby has recently gotten some of the northwest closed to all but subsistence hunters. I’m guessing that’s part of what you’re mentioning - Alaska seems very different than the lower 48 in regards to native/tribal hunting rights. (In the lower 48 tribes generally have special rights on reservations, not outside the reservations) What’s really weird to me is that the regs I’ve seen don’t seem to mention the tribes specifically in the subsistence sections, but that’s what it seems to be about. Is that your impression? Is there a lot of friction between the tribes and non-tribal? Why is the term “native” used up there instead of “tribal”? Or is the term not really referring to tribes, just folks that have been there for a long time? I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading about relations, history, and current dynamics with the plains Indians of the lower 48, and it seems like Alaska has a different and maybe more dynamic situation going on currently. (Even though we had a lower 48 tribal rights case reach the Supreme Court last year). Any other thoughts to explain the dynamic? Confusing situation. Thanks for posting!

Fantastic thread, I just found it last night and read everything up to now. A couple questions: Do you mix any fat with the moose when you’re grinding it for burger? Do you dry any into jerky? What loads are you shooting from your 270 and what do you limit your shooting range to on moose? Do you hunt close to the house or have to drive out a ways? Do you get a subsistence moose permit or do you have to draw a tag? I think Rinella was discussing some really controversial legislation on tag allocation amongst Alaskans that was proposed last year - would/did it affect you? Would you rather shoot a cow or a bull and is the meat any different between the two? Thanks for posting!

Glad things are coming together! As mentioned above, I also prefer the lighted reticle, really helpful in low light (esp for bad eyes); it also helps me focus on the target in general. I have the ballistic turret in my Swarovski, but with a 300 Wby, you probably won’t need it. Regarding bringing the meat back, I would try to haul it back and have it processed in Texas, that will give it some time to age in the coolers, and save a lot in shipping cost. My buddy got a tuna bag and it worked great for a quartered out elk, the full cape and ~50lbs ice.; might have held two elk with no capes included, and the ice kept fine: Note: we deboned the meat off the shoulders and hams before putting in the cooler. A bag-type cooler works pretty well for keeping the skull cool.

Yeah, the carbon is 7.5 and the aluminum is 8.5. They are built pretty stout.

The inside is some kind of stiff rubber, shouldn’t leave a mark on wood unless you really, really crank it down, which you won’t need to do, as you can put the tripod cradle right at the center of gravity of the rifle. It’s a very stable platform, but the downside is it is big and weighs ~8lbs.

Did you upgrade the bolt shroud on that Tikka? Mine is broken and i need to get a replacement at some point

Oh it was a little stressful, but I don’t really like the Ruger American stocks and since I know a replacement magpul or Boyd’s will be a nice upgrade; it made plunging that saw into the stock easier to manage.

Also a shout out to the bogpod death grip as a tool for teaching young shooters. Clamp the gun in tight and let them focus on cheek weld, point of aim, and trigger discipline. The best part is they can’t wave the muzzle around everywhere when they’re excited or need to reload.

Oh there was some luck involved, but she had her first experience with observing a splash and altering your point of aim, etc which was great. Regarding cutting the stock: Remove stock from rifle. I have a vice on my workbench and got the stock level in the vice. If I recall, the recoil pad was glued on, not screwed on, so I cut the recoil pad off first to see what the inside of the stock looked like, it’s hollow with a couple of holes for screws for a screw-on recoil pad, no surprises. Then I measured to where I wanted the length of pull to be and marked it plumb. (about 11.5”, which is what the pink .22 Rascal is). There is a way to measure length of pull that might be a good idea for you to do to get it as close as possible to correct for your kiddo. I used a circular saw to make the cuts, didn’t come out perfect, but ok. I then stuffed some old memory foam in the hollow of the stock and used a piece of a new foam shoe insole to make a recoil pad fitting the end of the stock. I used some black shelf lining vinyl type material to cover the foam and then fastened with electrical tape. Also used the insole foam to make a little cheek riser/cushion that is under the elastic shell holder which kinda hides everything. Not perfect but functional, and I’ll either buy a magpul stock for this rifle in a few years , or I’ll upgrade to a carbon Christiensen.

Did some shooting this weekend; I’m rusty and going to need to get more time in before my elk hunt. Got both the kids shooting a 300blk that I cut the stock down on. Oldest hit the steel from ~270yds with subsonics using an estimated holdover as I forgot my rangefinder. She was stoked. Right handed but left eye dominant and shoots left handed. Watching your kids shoot a 22 off the porch is pretty great.

Quite a jungle there. We’ve only had 8” of rain since thanksgiving at our place. I wouldn’t of had the patience to wait for the pig and would have shot the trash pandas on sight.

Orangutans are fucking mean. Dude almost loses his toes in the next clip.:

I think you are correct. Either the hunt planner I talked to gave me the wrong impression or I got the wrong impression. I surrendered the buck tag today, so we’ll see what happens.

You can tell it was recorded by a girl because she didn’t dub Ukie techno music over it before posting

@deadshank what elevation is your Idaho hunt at and what terrain? A factor for me this year - I partially tore my left calf muscle six weeks ago. I was on crutches for 4 weeks. It feels much better now but the Ortho specialist told me nothing athletic for 12 weeks or I’ll risk re-tearing it. 6-12 months for “full” recovery (never really back to 100% probably). So luckily I have my gear pretty well sorted out as I’ll need to be focusing on rehab and fitness this summer. Definitely don’t want to explode my calf during an elk pack out.

77 and 771 around Pagosa Springs. It’s an area managed for access and not for trophy quality, so there are a lot of hunters, but my hunting partner has a family cabin there that puts us in a great spot where we can hunt all day miles off the trail and get a hot shower/cold beer/warm meal/soft mattress every night which makes it more enjoyable and less work. 35 sounds like a beautiful area. There is so much “point creep” right now for trophy areas - I know I’ll have to go landowner tags at some point if I want to get a really nice bull. Luckily I’m still in the stage where I feel truly thankful for any elk I can put on the ground, so I’m going to enjoy that for as long as possible. I also drew a mule deer buck tag which I’ll convert into a preference point and I bought a moose preference point as well - maybe in 20 years I’ll have enough points to draw a moose tag.

Colorado Elk draw was today and I was successful again with a bull tag.

My eyes aren’t great either. Good glass useable up to at least 16 power helps me a lot. The absolute highest magnification on a scope usually causes too much eye strain for me, so I back off the max power for what is really useable. My Swarovski Z6i 3-18 x 50 really reduces eye strain for me. Swarovski Z5 3.5-18 x 44 would be great glass. $1400, 1” tube, 16oz. weight Zeiss V6 3-18 x 50 fantastic $1800 30mm tube, 22oz. Zeiss V4 4-16 x 44 $1150 slight step down, 30mm tube, 22oz. There are boatloads more at lower price points, but when I put people behind my various riflescopes in the field in lower light conditions, they usually enjoy looking through the Swarovski glass versus lower end glass. My other scopes are mid-tier vortex, Sig BDX, and Nikon. If it is work/a struggle to get on target / see target / focus, etc. and you’re feeling eye strain off the bench in the middle of the day, it’s only going to be worse hunting in lower light conditions when your under pressure. My dad was being cheap years ago and took a 40 year old Leupold 3-9x40 scope on a hunting trip that he was struggling with as I described above, and it almost really screwed things up for us. We are in a golden age of optics right now. It’s really incredible if you think about it.

Exterior passengers. That’s going to make a mess.

Shit’s on fire again

Hell yeah they geolocated the russians again off their propaganda news and picked off one of the big mortars

Ukraine staying out in front of the grain issue, good:

Great timing by the shooter putting that rocket through the gap in the trees behind the truck. Stugna-P seems legit.