Monthly Archives: July 2018

Deer Management in New Hampshire

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The New Hampshire Fish and Game department has over the years created a very helpful website. Below is a very well written summary of how New Hampshire manages its whitetail deer population by NH Deer Biologist Dan Bergeron. The chart is also found in this article. As you can see since 1982 to 2016, the total deer harvest has tripled state wide from around three thousand to nearly ten thousand.

https://wildlife.state.nh.us/hunting/deer-mgt.html

In addition to this deer harvest information there is a mountain of data found in the 2017 Wildlife Harvest Summary.

https://wildlife.state.nh.us/hunting/documents/2017-harvest-summary.pdf 

From a hunter perspective here in Southern NH, Posted Land is a fact of life. Some hunters can gain written landowner permission to hunt in these posted areas. Do your research! It may pay off!

Other hunters seek out New Hampshire’s Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) where hunting on state owned land is encouraged. See maps below

https://wildlife.state.nh.us/maps/wma.html

Way up north near Errol and further to Pittsburg, NH there are miles of open land provided by lumber companies and miles of dirt roads to get you far off the beaten path if you desire. Deer densities are lower but there are fields, deep coniferous woods and waters are simply wild. A marvelous opportunity to get away from it all.

What is so terrific about the NH Fish and Game website is that it is comprehensive provides a rich resource for information on New Hampshire Wildlife, Licensing,  the Department itself etc. A great source of educational information.

For those of you who spend time with the Harvest Survey, there is enough information by town to see where you may want to set foot this fall to deer hunt. New is good!

NH Antler and Trophy Club host a yearly gathering of Trophy Deer. See this facebook page for big bucks of New Hampshire.

Good Researching and Good Hunting!

 

 

 

 

Smith & Wesson: M&P Shield® M2.0™ with Integrated Crimson Trace® Laser

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Contact:
Matt Spafford, Smith & Wesson Corp.

1-844-772-5159

media@smith-wesson.com

 

M&P Shield® M2.0™ with Integrated Crimson Trace® Laser

Now Available in .45 Auto

New Models Available with Red or Green Integrated Crimson Trace Laser

 

 

SPRINGFIELD, Mass., (July 30, 2018) – Smith & Wesson Corp. today announced that it has expanded its M&P Shield M2.0 pistol series with the addition of the new M&P®45 Shield™ M2.0 pistol with integrated Crimson Trace® red and green laser, chambered in .45 Auto.  An ideal choice for those looking for a concealed carry firearm in a larger caliber, the new M&P45 Shield M2.0 pistol builds off of the proven M&P Shield M2.0 pistol series, providing confidence and reliable performance, day or night, in a slim, lightweight, and easy-to-carry profile.

 

The M&P45 Shield M2.0 pistol with integrated Crimson Trace red and green laser delivers all of the familiar M&P Shield pistol operating features, including a slim profile and 18-degree grip angle for a natural point of aim.  The M&P45 Shield M2.0 with integrated laser features two laser modes and ambidextrous laser activation.  The pistol is designed with a compact 3.3” barrel and the enhanced M2.0 feature set, including a light, crisp trigger and the M2.0 aggressive grip texture for enhanced control.  The M&P45 Shield M2.0 pistol ships with two magazines: one seven round extended grip magazine, and one six round flush magazine.

 

The M&P45 Shield M2.0 pistol with integrated Crimson Trace red laser has an MSRP of $499, while the configuration with integrated Crimson Trace green laser has an MSRP of $549.

 

For more information about the M&P Shield M2.0 family of pistols, including spec sheets and images, please click here.

 

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from M&P, be sure to follow Smith & Wesson Corp. on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

 

About Smith & Wesson 

Smith & Wesson Corp. is a provider of quality firearms for personal protection, target shooting and hunting in the global consumer and professional markets. Smith & Wesson is world famous for its handguns and long guns sold under the Smith & Wesson®, Performance Center®, M&P®, Thompson/Center Arms™, and Gemtech® brands.  Through its Manufacturing Services Division, Smith & Wesson Corp. also provides forging, machining, and precision plastic injection molding services to a wide variety of consumer goods companies. For more information on Smith & Wesson, call (800) 331-0852 or log on to www.smith-wesson.com.

 

Timney Trigger for the Weatherby Vanguard?

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Truth is, the average hunter could have lived with the original trigger. However, I am not an average hunter, the quality engineer in me wanted better. Reduce variation, Cpk. That said: I tried to adjust the original trigger. I noticed at the range that when I expected the trigger to break, it wasn’t, and had to apply slightly more pressure to the trigger. I took the rifle apart per the Manual to adjust the set screw to a lighter poundage. I could not. The spring in the trigger was at its lowest setting and could get just around 3 lbs. 10 oz. out of the Weatherby Trigger, that was it. Not bad, but ceteris paribus (all other things being equal) I wanted 3 pounds like my other rifles.

As a potential long range hunter who goes on hunts that can cost thousands of dollars and has high marksmanship standards, it made sense to upgrade the trigger. The Timney is adjustable down below 3 lbs too for target and also smoother and crisper than the factory trigger.

Some research with my friends at Timney finds a Timney Drop-in – Weatherby Vanguard Trigger pre-set at the factory to 3 pounds. Wow! Nice!

Easy-Peasy! In a few swift motions following disassembly procedures in the Owners Manual, I removed the stock mounting screws and removed and replaced the trigger as a drop-in and screwed a single screw in the trigger base to mount it. Then replaced stock and trigger plate and screwed the mounting screws back by torquing the rear trigger screw to its 35 ft-lb setting first, then did the same for the forward mount screw to the same torque.

Photo below is the removal of the stock and trigger housing. When reinstalled, remember to torque to 35 ft-lbs first ( I use a Wheeler Fat Wrench to set the torque)

Photo below of the forward mounting screw. Set to 35 ft-lbs after the rear screw has been torqued near the trigger.

The Vanguard Trigger is held in place by a single screw. Below image is the original trigger.  This trigger has nearly 1/4 inch uptake movement to touch the sear. The Timney has no uptake and is right on the sear at the get-go.

Photo below is the new Timney Trigger installed and pre-set at 3 pounds pull.

 

Done! Total time was about 20 minutes. My Digital Lyman Pull Gage indicates that the Timney trigger brakes at 3 pounds or so and amazingly crisp. At a cost of $129 dollars, I think the Timney upgrade is worth it for those long range shot and increased accuracy. Further, that any shot at a moving target as in a walking deer, you want to know exactly when your finger pressure on the trigger will fire the rifle. Cheers to Accuracy!

Good Hunting!

©2018 All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Weatherby Vanguard 6.5 Creedmoor/Leupold VX-6 – 600 yards with 129 grain Nosler ABLR Hunting Bullet

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Thanks to Weatherby, Leupold and Nosler, this shooting test is comprehensive as it marries the Weatherby Vanguard Weatherguard to a Leupold VX-6 3-18 44mm Gold Ring Scope and Nosler AccuBond bullets for deer hunting. Lets see how the marriage unfolds…

My friends at Nosler were out of stock for testing 129 grain AccuBond Long Range hunting bullets (very popular), but I found some on-line to test the Weatherby Vanguard Weatherguard with. This bullet has a G1 ballistic coefficient of 0.561 and exits the barrel around 2680 fps from a cold barrel. I hand-loaded the cartridge with 39 grains of RL 15 powder, a max load I had already proved-in at 1 MOA at 100 yards.  According to the Nosler reloading guide, RL 15 at 39 grains was the most accurate. My chronograph measured the first 3 shot spread was 10 fps  with an average velocity of 2680 fps. Later shots from a warmed barrel showed an increase in velocity and spread. Hunters don’t shoot with a warmed barrel. It is a cold shot that counts in the field, accordingly I was not overly concerned with the warmed barrel velocity variation.

Now to test that premise and data, I shot those first 4 rounds at 600 yards in prone position at Nashua NH Fish and Game 600 yard range. The shots had about a 6 inch spread left to right and had a vertical spread of around an inch. Very nice indeed! The wind was not a significant factor as it was a calm day. The bullet dropped 14 minutes from my 100 yard zero. Accordingly, I turned the Leupold VX-6 Turret up 14 minutes and I was on paper.

I had to adjust left and down to hit the bullseye. I am now sighted in for 600 yards, though I will limit my hunting shots to 400 yards or less. With the Leupold sight picture I was comfortable at 12x though my prone position felt very low to the ground. The value driven Weatherby Vanguard, with it high cheek rest and Monte-Carlo design aided greatly with my scope alignment height. I just can’t believe you can get this rifle new for under $600 bucks. The Leupold VX-6 however retails for nearly double what the rifle costs but it delivers the best clarity in low light at long range that I have ever experienced at this price point and with one twist go from 3x to 18x. Crazy good!

In a hunting situation I will be hopefully using shooting sticks, perhaps standing or kneeling. The delivered Kinetic Energy from the 24 inch Weatherby barrel at 400 yards is 1250 ft-lbs thereby providing excellent energy for penetration on a mature whitetail deer. The Nosler AccuBond was designed to mushroom with the lead bonded to the copper jacket, thus the bullet remains largely intact as it penetrates.  See the table from www.jbmballistics.com below. I could have shown more data at longer ranges but this works for a hunting situation I might expect.

Calculated Table
Range Drop Drop Windage Windage Velocity Mach Energy Time Lead Lead
(yd) (in) (MOA) (in) (MOA) (ft/s) (none) (ft•lbs) (s) (in) (MOA)
0 -1.5 *** 0.0 *** 2680.0 2.342 2057.0 0.000 0.0 ***
25 -0.6 -2.5 0.0 0.1 2640.7 2.308 1997.1 0.028 5.0 19.0
50 -0.1 -0.2 0.1 0.3 2601.7 2.274 1938.6 0.057 10.0 19.1
75 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.4 2563.1 2.240 1881.4 0.086 15.1 19.2
100 -0.0 -0.0 0.6 0.6 2524.8 2.207 1825.6 0.115 20.3 19.4
125 -0.5 -0.3 0.9 0.7 2486.8 2.173 1771.1 0.145 25.6 19.5
150 -1.3 -0.8 1.4 0.9 2449.1 2.141 1717.8 0.176 30.9 19.7
175 -2.4 -1.3 1.9 1.0 2411.8 2.108 1665.8 0.207 36.3 19.8
200 -4.0 -1.9 2.5 1.2 2374.8 2.076 1615.1 0.238 41.9 20.0
225 -5.9 -2.5 3.1 1.3 2338.0 2.043 1565.5 0.270 47.5 20.1
250 -8.2 -3.1 3.9 1.5 2301.6 2.012 1517.2 0.302 53.2 20.3
275 -10.9 -3.8 4.8 1.7 2265.5 1.980 1470.0 0.335 58.9 20.5
300 -14.1 -4.5 5.7 1.8 2229.8 1.949 1423.9 0.368 64.8 20.6
325 -17.7 -5.2 6.7 2.0 2194.3 1.918 1379.0 0.402 70.8 20.8
350 -21.7 -5.9 7.9 2.2 2159.2 1.887 1335.1 0.437 76.8 21.0
375 -26.2 -6.7 9.1 2.3 2124.3 1.857 1292.4 0.472 83.0 21.1
400 -31.2 -7.5 10.5 2.5 2089.8 1.827 1250.8 0.507 89.3 21.3

This marriage is bliss! It is one excellent deer hunting rig, a Weatherby Vanguard Weatherguard topped with a Leupold Gold Ring VX-6 in the recoil friendly 6.5 Creedmoor with Nosler AccuBond Bullets. This combination is perhaps much better from an accuracy standpoint than I will achieve in field  hunting conditions.

I retested the rounds at 100 yards after the 600 yard shoot and set the Leupold back to zero. The rifle shot a 3/4 inch 3 shot group with a cold barrel. Very pleased with that!!

It is up to you the hunter to set your limits within your capabilities. We owe that to the game we hunt!

Good Hunting!!

© 2018 All Rights Reserved.

 

New Hampshire Rifleman Worldwide Readership

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For those companies who send products for us to test, we say; Thank You!!

We are delighted to share our often stellar test results in hopes of increasing sales and educate our readers on the pros and cons of the products we test. We are very happy with test results on Leupold products, Ruger Rifles, Savage Rifles, TC Rifles, Weatherby Rifles and for Nosler and Hornady bullets. And pleased with testing of the Sig Sauer P320 just recently.

New Hampshire Rifleman Magazine is growing yearly with a worldwide readership nearing 60,000 views. The hottest readership month for us is November with over 8000 views and focuses on hunting and cartridge/caliber selection.

The most popular of my articles is the “The 270 Winchester vs the 6.5 Creedmoor”.  Our readers can’t get enough of it!

The largest portion of our readership is right here in the USA, second is Canada, third is South Africa and New Zealand. We have readers in UK, Poland, Czech Republic and South America (Argentina) as well as other nations. 

Here is to a second half of 2018 that is even better than last year!

Cheers!

Ed Hale – Editor-in-Chief