Innholdsfortegnelse for June - July 2017 i Petersen's Hunting

In the archives of Petersen’s Hunting and Guns & Ammo, there are hundreds of manila envelopes stuffed full of letters from readers. Dating back to the 1960s and ’70s, they are a treasure trove of information—a sort of time capsule. What I found even more interesting than the letters themselves were the responses. Elmer Keith, long-time Guns & Ammo contributor, typed responses to (apparently) every reader letter, which numbered in the dozens each month. I was thumbing through these letters the other day, and a thought struck me: Almost all the letters contained questions of substance. The questions ranged from “What double rifle should I take on safari?” to “What powder gives the best results in a .44 Magnum?” and everything in between. How that differs from today. At Petersen’s…

BULLET BASICS Engineered for use over 200 grains of Pyrodex in Remington’s new high-performance Model 700 Ultimate Muzzleloader, the TMZ is an all-copper projectile built by Barnes Bullets. To prevent the bullet from “slipping” inside the plastic sabot under the acceleration caused when the powder ignites, it’s got a slot swaged across its base. The plastic sabot grips the base of the bullet via the slot and spins it consistently. A polymer tip resists deformation, aids aerodynamics, and initiates reliable expansion. TESTING GROUND The two mushroomed bullets shown were recovered from two different public-land bull elk. The bullet at right impacted at 90 yards; the bullet at left impacted at 330 yards. FIELD PERFORMANCE Each bull was shot broadside through both shoulders, and the bullet was recovered against the hide…

Traveling to hunt the West can be daunting—and expensive. My first reaction is to tell you not to bother—the hunting isn’t that good, folks are ornery, and mule deer taste nasty. On second thought, though, I’ll suppress my baser, selfish instincts and tell the truth: Serious hunters owe it to themselves to make the pilgrimage West at least once in their life. There are multiple methods of journeying to the land of the setting sun, and each has advantages. For the most part, you’ll need to make your decision based on personal criteria, and in purest form, that criteria will likely boil down to this: Is time or money harder for you to come by? Let’s examine the advantages of planes, trains, and automobiles, dissecting and comparing estimates in cost,…

HISTORY The .300 AAC Blackout is a refined version of J.D. Jones’s .300 Whisper wildcat cartridge. Designed to provide 7.62x39 performance levels in AR-15 firearms, it earned SAAMI approval in 2011. It offers full capacity in standard AR-type magazines and easy conversion (only a new barrel is needed to convert an existing 5.56 AR-15 to .300 BLK). Superbly well suited for suppressed use, the short, efficient cartridge has rocketed to stardom in the short years since its introduction. It is currently second only to the 5.56/.223 in popularity among AR-15 aficionados. APPLICATION The .300 BLK is one of the finest choices available for wild hog control and performs admirably on deer-size game inside 200 yards. For all-around use, choose a supersonic, deep-penetrating homogeneous 110- or 125-grain Barnes bullet. For clandestine…

These days wild sheep get most of the glory, while their cousins in the goat family seem like second-class citizens. It wasn’t always this way. Nearly a century ago, when the Roosevelt expedition penetrated the Tian Shan Mountains in western China, the prize was the long-horned ibex. Argali sheep encountered along the way were considered camp meat. I think we have it wrong today. In central Asia we drool over the various races of argali sheep —Marco Polo, High Altai, Gobi argali, and more—and we often overlook the spectacularly horned ibex that inhabit the same ranges. We forget, too, that wild goats almost always inhabit tougher, rougher, and steeper country than wild sheep and so represent, at the least, an equal challenge. The ibex is a long-horned goat of the…

It was the opening day of deer season, November 1986. Daniel, my 12-year-old son, and I sat in a mature hardwood forest not far from our cabin in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Daniel had become somewhat of an expert rabbit hunter. Jumping up and down on brush piles, looking down abandoned culvert pipes, crashing through briar patches—the poor bunnies didn’t stand a chance. But deer hunting… well, that was something else. He promised—oh, did he promise!—he’d be quiet, not fidget, and not complain about the cold. Some promises are hard to keep, and when you’re very young and the world is full of mystery, a vow of silence is a hopeless task. The dam breaks and the questions spill out. Questions upon questions burst forth from the little…

Back in January, Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R) introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that sought to “offer for disposal by competitive sale” 3.3 million acres of federally managed land across the West. Hunters and outdoor advocates took up torches and pitchforks, with rallies, social media campaigns, op-ed letters, and coordinated outreach to members of Congress. It worked. Days later, Chaffetz posted an Instagram photo of himself, dressed in camo, saying the bill was dropped. Then, a few weeks later, the Outdoor Retailer show dropped Utah altogether. One of the largest industry trade shows in the country, Outdoor Retailer has been held in Salt Lake City twice a year for nearly two decades. It’s contributed $45 million to the state economy each year, but organizers took issue with…

Shortly after Outdoor Retailer (OR) pulled out of Salt Lake City, the doors opened on the Western Hunting & Conservation Expo, an annual sportsmen’s show where high-dollar hunting tags are auctioned off to the highest bidder. No one even suggested that Hunt Expo follow OR’s path and blackball Utah. Instead, it was one of the biggest shows to date. The auctions raised more than $4 million, including $280,000 for the Arizona statewide mule deer tag and $250,000 for the Antelope Island Mule Deer Permit. Yet critics say the Hunt Expo—run by Sportsmen for Fish & Wildlife (SFW) and the Mule Deer Foundation—has pushed trophy-caliber animals out of reach for average Joe hunters. They contend states like Utah have put more and more tags on the block, to the detriment of…

POPULATION Most ibex have healthy and huntable populations, except Ethiopia’s (fully protected) walia ibex, now estimated at 500 individuals. Of the others, the most limited is the kri-kri ibex, huntable but with limited permits and a very limited range. Across Europe and Asia total numbers of ibex probably run into the several hundred thousand. MOST EXPENSIVE HUNTS Alpine ibex in Europe due to very limited permits. LEAST EXPENSIVE HUNTS Siberian and/or Gobi ibex in Mongolia; Mid-Asian ibex in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. In these situations, ibex are often hunted in the same mountains, from the same camps, and with the same experienced mountain guides as the argali sheep that share their habitats—but at a fraction of the cost of sheep hunts in the same areas. DID YOU KNOW? When fighting…

EVERY YEAR we think the various ATV and UTVs offered by major manufacturers can’t possibly get any better—and every year manufacturers continue to up the ante. Each season they bring us a new crop of machines that perform better, do more, go farther, and are more comfortable to use. In the past there were three very distinct categories that ATVs and UTVs fell under: utility, recreational, and performance. As technology grew, those lines blurred and new categories were opened, including the likes of Rec/Utility or Utility/Rec. As outdoor enthusiasts, we all want the best value for our money. In 2017, you can find that value with each of these machines. POLARIS For 2017, Polaris pulled out all the stops and hit us with some simply amazing new machines. If you…