David Bradshaw Photos - Vol. XLVIII

[Lee Martin]

Ruger 03 with Zeiss 10x40mm take a North Country walk. Ruger 03 loaded with cast .452" 276 Volcano (drilled 300 WFN GC) deep seated over13.5/HS-6 in Starline .45 Colt brass, WLP, COL=1.450"-1.457". As stated in Vol. XLVII, initial shooting shows tremendous accuracy improvement horrendous fling of parent 300 WFN GC.



Friend, up from Deep South to learn rudiments of tracking a whitetail, surveys uppermost level of a ten-tier beaver pond. His rifle is a Tikka .308 with Leupold scope. We had just tracked a buck down from a ridge of granite ledge and young sugar maples rising to the left.



Prior to hunt we did an offhand sight check at 40 yards. Four shots from .308 Tikka, with a final shot from Ruger 03. Laminated stainless pot didn't separate until hit by cast .45 276 Volcano.







Beaver lodge, iced in, perhaps for the winter. Buck tracked across, close to the topmost dam about 100 yards away, a risk we passed up. We had been on the track an hour, jumping the buck once.



Wasp nest along the track.



Striped maple (also called moosewood) raked by lower incisors of a moose. This is not a whitetail rub.



Sun sets on another glorious day afield...



Score: whitetail----one, hunter----zero.



-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Building carpal tunnel one round at a time"

[sheriff]

Enjoyed the photographic trip, thanks for sharing.

[Fowler]

My favorite type of hunting, one where the iron sighted handgun is not nearly the handicap it is for most any other type of hunting. The deer will almost always win but the chase is always worth it.

[edk]

Great thread, thanks!

[bradshaw]

sheriff and edk.... many thanks.

Fowler has made his bones with the sixgun and states the handgun has its advantage up close. We should clarify that the advantage resides in the discipline, More so than in the weapon. A combat shooter who knows not the value of the rear sight and never stretches distance is nearly guaranteed to miss or wound in the woods. Even at close range, accuracy comes harder to the handgunner than to the rifleman. One may be forced to slice a shot between trees, nail a shaft of light through the trees on a moving animal. The bullet never goes to where your sight picture froze on a moving target. That is called a gut shot. There is time not much longer than an eyeblink to align sights and squeeze trigger. Nevertheless, sights align, eye chiseles front, finger squeezes. The exact same thing doesn't happen twice in the woods, except for trigger squeeze. Body position never exactly the same. Presentation and sight picture never exactly the same. Only trigger squeeze remains the same. Same smooth squeeze as thousands of times before.
David Bradshaw