Ha!


Just saw these last four or five post I've been busy with other things.

Haha, i do appreciate that!

Why Zee...... I never knew you cared......

I agree that when the term ethics enters the discussion we are indeed heading towards a very slippery slope. We, as hunters are our own worst enemies (I just wrote an article about the divisions within the hunting community and how a united front is necessary to combat the antis, but that is neither here nor there).

That said, I have to take issue with the passive aggressive "cow shoot" statement you made -- oh, did I say cow shoot? I have killed a truckload of wild hogs in my day, and only a couple were behind a fence. While the occasional mature boar would offer himself for sacrifice in my quest to test the effectiveness of a bullet/load/caliber I was currently testing, most you encounter are of the smaller and dare I say softer variety. Sorry, but what a bullet does on a 120 lb doe or 100 lb sow doesn't tell me anything useful if I plan on hunting something much larger and dangerous. I clearly stated in that thread on our recent trip to Hondo, that we are performing live bullet testing -- on the media that counts the most. Now I have in the past been vocal about what have been termed "game farms" and about the lack of challenge on some of the smaller facilities, all ranches are not created equally. Just a couple of weeks ago, while in Texas, I watched an experienced bow hunter chase an elk for two and a half days. He never caught up with it, so I guess it's not like shooting fish in a barrel.

When I have thousands of dollars with of trophy fees on the line, I want to know exactly what my chosen load is going to do on a similarly sized animal -- period. This is just good responsible thinking IMHO. As Mark pointed out, we have had a couple of incidences of real aggression from these "cows" that I would never take lightly as unlike a 100 lb sow, these animals can actually kill you.

I understand the point you were trying to make, just not the way you were characterizing what we did. We aren't selling this as anything but science. I make it a point to test well and report accurately as I feel I have much to lose if I don't.

JMHO. Take it for what it's worth.

Had I whispered my point, I'd have been paid no never mind. So instead, I beat two pans together and got the undevided attention of the room.

If you understand the reason of my post, I hope you now understand my choice of examples.

I shot a pig in a trap last week for the sole purpose of testing a bullet to be used in a much more socially dangerous circumstance. Believe you me.........I understand what you are doing and why. There is no glass house with flying stones.

That may be the case, but you deliberately chose your words, and from here it smells a bit like condescension, but I may be wrong.

I know that 1,600 lb + bovines are on the extreme end of the game spectrum, but that is more what I prefer to hunt and therein lies the challenge.

I used the words that Trademark (I think it was him) used in your very own thread. It sounded "catchy" and like something he'd used or heard before. So, I just transferred it over to here.

I didn't come up with it. He did.

I'm not so sure you fully understood the point of my post and that's a shame.

Looking at it again, I see that you yourself used the phrase.

U didnt beat two pans together, you made passive aggressive snide comments that cut at many peoples hunting. Granted that u may in fact be superior in that u dont hunt behind a fence. You pressed attacks and cut at the type of hunting many many here do, then after many paragraphs and a response you pared it down and sai that you were only referring to craig. Funny that u tried to throw i witty words bc whitworth or I used it so we would recognize it, but i thought you were just talking to craig c?!? Obviously not, its subtle but obvious. That will certainly make people distrustful of ya

I said: "Definitely no cow shoot in the pasture" in the thread about the Texas trip. You can tell about how folks feel about what we did by their responses and just as loudly by their absence.

Yeah. Neither of you got it.

He got it.

oh i got the message, both the subtle and the not so subtle. i agree with kral but if he tried to shoot a waterbuff with a .223 single shot with a 3" barrel i'd caution against it.

i'd also hope he didn't take it personal if i voiced that opinion. i know i haven't.

I would too! But, I'd hold his beer and watch if he did.

;-)

Oh I got it too. I too can speak in the overt and the covert. As far as hiding your identity is concerned, while I get it as I have worked in sensitive fields (as has tradmark), you might want to also distort the most prominent feature on your face, your moustache.

Hell, I can shave that.

But then I'd have to blot out my mouth as well. So, in reality, the stash serves two purposes.

Looks epic.
Covers half my face.

Win!!!









:sarcasm:

Haha!

Passive-agressiveness, my favorite!

Say what you want about high fence ranches, I can take it. It's not something I do very often and I don't think anyone present is under any illusion that it was something it wasn't. Contrary to what 'some' might think, this wasn't shooting cows in a pasture but it wasn't chasing Cape buffalo through the brush either, which was kinda the point. That said, there were no stunts involved. No one was using marginal equipment and A LOT of work went into choosing guns and loads. All those present used proper tools and shots were placed carefully. There wasn't a Fudd in the crowd, it could've been a shooting clinic. Every critter taken was mortally wounded on the first shot.

Outside my box of familiarity??? Gimme a break, this is not closed-mindedness, thank you very much. The idea that the .357 is a 50yd deer gun at best didn't come from rifle hunters, armchair quarterbacks or internet speculators. It came from those who tried and discovered its shortcomings. Getting another 200fps out of the cartridge with a long barrel, which essentially duplicates original ballistics, would get you to 100yds with a well placed shot. The .357 requires velocity to work because it needs expansion to be effective. It's not about ability, it's strictly a question of terminal ballistics. Making the shot is only part of the equation. You can't push a shot well beyond the point where the bullet will do what you need it to do to insure a clean kill. This is where responsibility and ethics come in. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Hunting with a portable rest and a cartoonish revolver is a personal choice and that is fine. This is something else entirely. Sorry but I'll never relent on the fact that pushing the cartridge to 200yds is an irresponsible stunt.

I also wholeheartedly reject the direction our nation is going with the attitude that "anything goes" and that it's somehow wrong to point out what is wrong, outside the parameters of political correctness. Or that it is a requirement of friendship that you defend a friend's bad behavior. We've seen that a time or two. Sorry but that's not how I operate. If Chris and Ernie cannot handle the dissent, then they shouldn't post about shooting game animals at +200yds with a .357Mag.

Same goes for the guys shooting elk at 1400yds with rifles.

Yet, it seems to be working to that distance.

You are free to disbelieve.

i know of about 6 verified cape buff kills with hardcast bullets, i know of 2 verified failures with good shots and one barely recovered. now, is that a good rate? i think not, and i think that posting the standard, "well, it worked right here" is not a good stance until there's a large body of work, not a few, here it works instances. i've seen a few failures with a .357 on deer with good placement at a much closer range with the same exact bullets which is why we question that, and i'm known for taking a stand on the light side of calibers for big game, but this is ridiculous.

let me ask you, would you question it if you had seen failures?

It's not a matter of disbelief. It's a matter of how one interprets the results. If a dead critter is your one and only measure, then I reckon so. However, looking deeper, you may very well have a dead critter from a bullet that completely and utterly failed. At the risk of being labeled narrow-minded, that's from killing critters with bullets that failed.

Case in point, took this 80lb doe at about 40yds. Deader than a doornail. Problem is, I shot her with a rifle I was planning on taking to Africa to use on kudu-sized critters. It failed miserably but still killed the doe. She was only anchored when I brained her. The 300gr bullet from the .405 hit the shoulder blade and came completely unglued. It made a nasty but shallow wound. Only a piece of the core made it to the vitals. It shouldn't have done that but it did. Some of us are obviously satisfied with results like this. Others go to great lengths to test and make sure this doesn't happen any more than necessary. On elk, kudu or eland, this would've been catastrophic and resulted in a lost critter and a BIG trophy fee.



Another case in point, I shot two deer with a new .250Savage a couple years ago. (I only hunt with rifles for meat at the end of the season) A good sized 10pt buck and a big doe. The 100gr Remington CoreLokt killed the deer deader than a hammer but the bullets suffered jacket/core separation in both cases and penetration was barely adequate. This might be good enough for 'some' but I was disgusted. It made me switch to Barnes bullets for all future hunting with that cartridge.

Ernie with another. Harvested today.

I have some of the pics and stuff from hunters last year but I'll just wait till more role in from 2016

It's a rare occasion indeed when a thread reaches 100 posts.

My $.02:
Is it pushing the limits of what should be attempted to take a medium sized game animal with a 357 at almost 200 yards? Definitely.

Do I see myself doing so in the near or distant future? Absolutely not.

If someone asks me whether they should? I'd tell them to pick a much more suitable gun for the job.

That said, do I disapprove of Ernie and Zee doing so? No. They've both shown that they're skilled handgunners. Ernie especially has so much long range experience that if anyone is going to make that kind of shot, he's the one I'd want to attempt it.

Skill and bullet placement can't always make up for choosing the wrong tool for the job.

I think the journey to find the point of failure is what many of us here are trying to do.

And "failure" can be somewhat subjective in how the results are interpreted.

Blowing up on the outside, I would consider failure.
Coming apart on the inside after adequate penetration and internal damage, I do not consider a failure.
Poking a hole all the way through with little to no damage to the internal organs, I would consider a failure.

Consideration as to isolated incidents or continuous occurrences must be taken into account.

And thorough documentation must be gathered if either side is to prove their position. Thorough!! A picture of a bullet fragment without visual reference as to what was struck, how far, at what angle, and at what speed, etc.........

Complete data is how you prove a point. Partial data collected is just that..........partial data.

"The difference between screwing around and science is..........writing it down." Or, in other words........complete data.

that is the problem here, i don't disapprove, but discuss. it, does not, in anyway make me upset or worry to see them shooting like that. if we are gonna discuss it, then lets discuss. i never throw up any pics or results from any hunt i've had and not wanted, nor expected a discussion. in fact, on the other thread the reference to this discussion and brought up the whole issue on whether a .357 is appropriate was brought up first by none other than Zee himself, so it's fairly disingenious to feel attacked and whatnot. i didn't realize this was a year old, but it wasn't brought up by any of the naysayers.


sooooooo............if i showed a pic of a dead cape buff from a .357 we would all agree it's appropriate for cape buff right??? show up to africa with a 308 and try and hunt a cape buff with it, see how your ph reacts. same principle here.

once again, ZEE brought this whole thing up on the loper's thread, till then no one chimed in anything.

I brought it up because we had new data. Complete with pics and what not.

Up until that point, we just had numbers on paper and speculation. With the taking of the antelope, we had a new, revised basis of discernment.

A pic of a dead animal is just that. A pic of a dead animal. The proof is in the pudding.......as it were. Gotta get inside and touch the unmentionables. Get your hands dirty. Play around. Study.........dissect...document......learn.

I see a pic of your dead doe and, other than simply taking your word for it..........I learn nothing tangible. It's a dead animal with a bunch of blood on the outside. There is no thorough documentation.........in that picture alone.

Ernie with another one. Just a few min ago

He can fill in details later

No sir, the nameless and faceless one, stirred the pot. It was inflamatory rhetoric and that cant be denied. You are exactly correct. THE doe and THE antelope.

How far, bullet, etc. good pic

And THE 2nd doe.

One data point at a time.

We will not change each others opinion at this point, I don't believe.

I am looking towards more data. Taking each new example as an test bed unto its own. Not drawing a conclusion in certainty. Treating each as just more information.

Others have already seen what they need and drawn their own conclusions.

We're all learning. As long as we keep an open mind about it.

I'll give the facts as they were texted to me. I may be incorrect since I'm not there and I'm actually running a lathe right now.

First. 85 yards. 40 yard recover

Second. 99 yards. I have no idea

That's all I got.

I could go over last years stuff but it would be from memory and it's from customers that may or may not be on here to help support with data.

I actually don't do much hunting with these things...I build enough of them that I don't want to touch one in my off time.

I do hunt a lot with a 357 tho...

me too. those are interesting and what i would consider the outside limits of the cartridge from my experience. good shooting.

On each deer I was trying to make sure I did not hit either shoulder just to see what the bullet performance was. With both deer the shoulders was not touched at all.
The first deer was quartering away from me slightly at 85 yards. I shot this deer from the standing position using the bog-gear as a quick rest. All three of the deer were still hunting, not stand or ground blind.
On this first deer my impact was about 3 inches left of what I wanted to do ideally.
Normally I would not try to get a bullet to impact here as I would like to get the offside shoulder when their quartering away from me. She went 40 yards approximately and was down
Second deer I thought was smaller than the first one but she was in tall grass versus the first deer was more in the open.
The second deer at 99 yards was actually larger than the first deer. So much for initial perceptions of size
Both Dan and I thought she was basically broadside to us.
She was not. She was Quartering toward us.
I went into a double kneeling position for the shot.
Again consciously trying to avoid the shoulder for the purpose of seeing what this bullet would do without hitting a shoulder.
I can tell you I will not try to avoid shoulders at all cost again, as both times I shot further back than I would've wanted to.
We had a blood trail all the way to her but she went further.
On both deer there were complete pass-throughs.
I didn't have anything as a reference point or a para calipers to measure the diameter of the exit wound but I would say that it was close to a double the size of the bullet diameter or maybe one and a half times I'm not sure. The exit diameter seem to be the same on both of them and neither time did the bullet hit ribs to create other damage
We are eating a late lunch in Sheridan right now and are going to go see if we can find an elk this evening.
We didn't do nearly a thorough autopsy as we did with the buck antelope as we were in a hurry to get done and get out and see if we can get lucky on an elk tonight.
So consider the information incomplete.

THAT ain't happening!...I don't own a .223