Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2021 i Petersen's Hunting

BULLET BASICS With varminting season upon us, it seems appropriate to spotlight one of the all-time-great varmint bullets. Made by Nosler, the 50-grain, .224-diameter projectile shown here features a very thin jacket, soft lead core, and a profile engineered for extreme accuracy. A polymer tip protects unfired bullets from damage, aids ballistics, and initiates explosive fragmentation on impact. TESTING GROUND By nature of the featured bullet’s design, this review must be different from our norm, since recovering a fired bullet is impossible. (They fragment on impact.) I’ve used this bullet extensively on prairie dogs and some on coyotes, shooting both factory ammunition and handloads in various cartridges, including .223 Rem., 22 Nosler, .224 Valkyrie, and .22-250 Rem. In every case, the results were dramatic and instantaneous. FIELD PERFORMANCE Because Nosler’s…

The storm door scraped six inches of snow from the front step as I stepped into the cold, sunny morning, icy glitter sparkling across the blinding white surface. Buttoning my blanket-lined denim coat against the biting cold, I stepped back into the warmth, boots tracking snow on the rug, to snatch a blue wild rag. With the silk wrapped twice around my neck and knotted under my chin, I donned a pair of dark aviator shades, tugged my black Stormy Kromer over my ear tips, slipped on insulated leather gloves, then picked up the rifle leaning near the door and stepped into the bright, new world. The snow had fallen softly, without being driven by the usual wind, smoothing the earth into a white sameness. A shelterbelt of dark cedars…

Secretive, powerful, and ultimately stealthy, Puma concolor is one of America’s most lethal predators. Known colloquially as mountain lion or cougar, our big cats are also far more abundant than most folks believe. You never see them, right? Well, not to creep you out, but if you’ve spent any time at all hunting, fishing, or even just hiking the West’s backcountry, they’ve seen you. If they’re so secretive, how do you hunt them? And what sort of bow or gun should you have? Being potentially dangerous game (when wounded), should one be armed with a powerful big-bore firearm? Where can you hunt them? Midwestern and eastern states have just a few, and most of the huntable populations are in the West. On a scientific note, cougars have the widest range…

For hunters who dream of owning a Zeiss, like I long have, the company has made things a bit easier on the budget by offering what some could consider an introductory line of riflescopes. The Zeiss Conquest V4 series of scopes hit the market a few years back, with much of the same famed European design and engineering the company has long been known for but in a package that can be found on the street right at the $1,000 mark. Now, whether that could be called an affordable optic, I’m not going to claim, but in my opinion, the Conquest V4 series does represent a great value at that price for the kind of performance the scopes deliver. AN AXIS OF OPTICS It’s a long way from Oberkochen to…

Just wanted to say I thought your “From The Editor” letter about the “new” way to hunt whitetails was spot on. The same goes for the article “Unchained” by Darron McDougal. I gave up on some popular hunting magazines a few years back because it seemed like they were all advertisements and no reading material. I signed up for Petersen’s Hunting during the shutdown, and it makes my day every time it shows up in the mail. Great job! Keep up the real writing. DAVE ANDERSON Via email [This] is exactly how I was brought up hunting. Since I was about three years old, I walked with either my father, grandfather, or one of my uncles. We would clear out an area on the ground so we would not rustle…

The herd of pronghorns sails across the chaparral of southwestern Utah, heading toward a sort of shimmering mirage. Is it a distant salt flat? Or a trick of the light? Neither, it turns out. The antelope are headed toward an industrial-scale solar farm, banks of energy-capturing panels marching a half-mile in every direction. “Developing existing solar energy zones and designating additional renewable energy zones on public lands are likely to accelerate under a Biden administration.” If that scenario sounds futuristic, then you haven’t been keeping tabs on the renewable energy plans of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The BLM has already designated 19 Solar Energy Zones (SEZs) that, if built out to their anticipated capacity, could provide power to two million homes. The first of these industrial-scale solar projects…

A few years ago, I attended a weeklong event for writers where we had the chance to try out dozens of firearms from various manufacturers. The crowd ranged from serious competitive handgunners to former special operators with a few all-around gun guys like me sprinkled in. Even given the diverse interests among the group, one firearm seemed to be everyone’s favorite: the Ravage, a custom precision rifle chambered in .22 LR built by Vudoo Gun Works. The Ravage handled like a centerfire precision rifle but without the recoil or ammunition cost. It was incredibly accurate and flat-out fun to shoot. Like most of the writers present, I loved shooting the rifle but winced a little at the price, which was north of two grand. Still, I was intrigued by the…

Let’s face it. The men and women who settled this country were more adventurous and resourceful than most of us will ever be. They built lives in harsh settings, where the only way to survive was to find many uses for what you could forage, grow, or hunt. Not so with us. Even hunters, who generally have more interest and aptitude in self-sufficiency and the ways of the “Old Ones,” have let too much of this wisdom die out. (Plenty rightly belong to history: I’ll take antibiotics over a mercury-laced “purgative” any day.) But hunters have a lot to learn from our ancestors. Which brings me to bear grease. Peel the hide off a black bear, and you’re rewarded with a thick layer of white, creamy fat. Instinctively, we know…

I LOOKED around me and wondered how in the world I’d gotten into this situation. I was “ledged up,” trapped in a place where there was no obvious escape. I’d been following hounds that were hot on the trail of a mountain lion. As usual, the big cat chose the worst possible route across a boulder patch on the side of a mountain. It wasn’t the first time I’d been ledged up, and I had always found a way to get out, but this situation was a serious, life-threatening dilemma. It was 1965. I was 25 years old and had the great luck of meeting Willis Butolph, a Government Hunter who made his living hunting stock-killing lions, bears, and coyotes. Willis was in his 60s and was one of the…

If you thought last year’s presidential election was close and contentious—with the outcome still in some sort of limbo as this issue was going to press—then you’ll appreciate the post-election indecision of Colorado’s Proposition 114, a ballot initiative that would require the state’s wildlife agency to implement a plan to reintroduce and manage gray wolves. It took nearly two weeks for ballot-counters to conclude that the initiative passed—50.8 to 49.2 percent—with only 52,000 (mostly urban) votes out of the 3.1 million cast statewide determining the outcome. That squeaker of a decision is a good metaphor for our collective view of our largest wild canine, which polarizes Americans like, well, presidential politics. Speaking of which, the week before the November 3rd election, the Trump administration announced it was removing the gray…

The Aimpoint Micro H-2 Red Dot Reflex Sight gives predator hunters quick and easy target acquisition when a coyote is coming in fast. The 2-MOA dot offers pinpoint accuracy while the battery allows for uninterrupted use of up to 50,000 hours to ensure the sight won’t fail in the field. This sight can be paired with the 3X-C Magnifier on a TwistMount Ring and Base when some added magnification is needed to improve accuracy at distance. $745–$1,253; aimpoint.us When hunting predators and varmints, a quick, stable, and versatile shooting platform is a necessity. The Bog DeathGrip Tripod features a patented clamp that holds any firearm securely. The adjustable legs and retractable steel feet provide a stable shooting platform in any terrain. The tripod is offered in two models: one model…

We accept that mountain hunting requires serious physical effort. So much that it isn’t for everyone. Come to think of it, many North American hunts are more challenging than much hunting overseas. It’s often said that African hunting is easier—a good hunt to save for when you’re older. This is partly true, but it varies. All tracking hunts can be tough, whether for buffalo, eland, or elephant. But something rarely mentioned: Leopard hunting is exhausting, and in the end you get your leopard or you don’t. If you don’t, then you go home and save your pennies so you can try again. Oh, there is a third option. The leopard may get you. It doesn’t happen often, but because of camouflage and speed, the leopard is the most likely of…