Good post and true! Welcome to handgun hunting! I look forward to pics of your successes. Id ad to type of weapon used, the type of hunt. We need to quit splitting on private vs public, fenced vs unfenced, guided vs unguided. Handgun hunting should be more popular than it is, we have to change that.

RandyB, I like your style.

"Finally, as evidenced in this very thread, it is so very easy for us to decide "our way of hunting" is best and that those who go off in a different direction somehow don't fit our idea of what a hunter is. If we are going to save our hunting heritage and be able to enjoy it ourselves and pass the heritage on, we'd best all get on the same page. Those who want to end hunting are very good at creating divides. So whether we hunt at home, out west, internationally; with handguns, rifles, muzzleloaders, archery tackle; we are all hunters. We all treasure the land and the game. We love our chosen tools and the time it takes to master them."
Randy

SCORE!!!

Perfect Ernie.

It can get catty between us a little but nothing compared to traditional bow/compound bow hunters/crossbow hunters. Those guys will cannibalize each other in short time.

Oh, I have witnessed some of those "love feasts," with the stick and string world, here concerning handguns, and other places too.
Still, at the end of the day, it is so childish.
Those kinds of arguments led me to spin this up the other day.
Enjoy

I don't care if you hunt with a 2 inch revolver or semi-auto and iron sights, if that's what you like, it's legal, and you can kill game with it. That same semi-auto or revolver with a longer barrel and iron sights. Either barrel length from above and a dot sight, reflex sight or scope-COOL! I don't care if you handgun hunt with a specialty pistol, whether it is a straight wall case or bottleneck case, regardless of length, weight or optic/sight. Even In In The RIFLE World, SBR's can be very short/lighweight rigs and then you see the other extreme; there are rifles that weigh over 60 pounds with 30 inch + barrels. Yet all of those are rifles! I have listed a variety of handguns (whether you like it or not they are all handguns), and if they are legal in your area where you are hunting, and it is what you want to use, go and have a great time. I really don't care if your max limit on big game is 25 yards or 1400 yards-Live within your limits, but do not impose those limits on others. If it is legal, your handgun/bullet is capable, and you are capable in those conditions, go and have a great time. I have seen to much childishness at times...It's not really a handgun hunting IF...It can't or should not be done because...It is not real handgun hunting, if, you use an optic...And, all the other silly things that get said sometimes. Support your fellow handgun hunters and handgun shooters! Just because you can't do it or don't like it, does not mean it is wrong, unethical, or impossible for others. Firearm owners and hunters do an excellent job of shooting themselves and others in the foot at times-Don't be that guy!

I read that and gave it a 'like' pretty soon after it was posted. Good job and true.

Couldn't have said it any better, Ernie. I feel the same.

I can say Dick is one heck of a nice guy. He picked me up one morning about 15 miles from his house in the rain and showed me the beautiful playground he does most of his handguning. It was like we were old friends. Thank you Dick

Well said Sal.

Well said ernie, you inspired to start doing more work with the lil ole 357 and have had lotsa fun this far. We aint done yet either. The stick and string world was one i am intimately familiar with and the toxicity and in fighting is insane. Id like to think this is a place we can celebrate our successes with our chosen equipment and celebrate each others. I look forward to seeing what we all come up with this year.

Tradmark,
Keep me updated how it goes for you.
E

I will! Its gonna be fun!

Yes!

I have been out of touch with this forum for awhile and just got caught up on it. I have been busy getting ready for my hunting season and am now finishing up a trip where I was guiding some antelope hunters in Wyoming. And I have 2 other elk hunters coming in tonight. (OUCH! who does the OUTFITTER/GUIDE anger here??)

At any rate, to Ernie and the other cooler headed guys who posted here: THANK YOU.

As far as the desire for a handgun hunting record book system, Safari Club International has a complete and excellent system going for handgun hunters on species worldwide. I know the Director of the Handgun Records Book, Mr. Leon Munyan. If any of you would like his contact information, PM me.

I have posted on this site before and I will continue to do so: I encourage all of you to enter your handgun species taken with SCI. It serves several purposes: It gives those of us interested in such matters as total score as far as how your animals compare in size to others taken with similar weapons; it helps support SCI which supports your right to hunt just as the NRA supports your right to own guns; and it helps keep handgun hunting "legitimate," so to speak; both to the non-hunting/anti-hunting public and also to other non-handgun hunting HUNTERS. I am getting ready to enter a few more myself.

Gregg

James, Sixshot, funny you guys mention the west. As a young boy I use to pull the covers over my head with a flashlight in hand and read my outdoor life and field and stream magazines till I fell asleep. My father would often find me asleep and turn my flashlight off. Always woke up with magazines stacked neatly by my bed. When it came time for me to leave I home I turned down a baseball scholarship to go to college in Colorado. College was my excuse to venture out west. My father laughed and said go west young man. Killed my first animal in 1981 with a handgun and haven't turned back. Something about the ast keeps drawing me back. James, you have a museum in your home. I know I've seen the boxes and boxes and books and mags. I hope you or maybe a group from our forum can figure out what to do with the vast collection of info you have acquired. It would be a shame for it not to be saved.

Ernie, you nailed it as have others.