You bet! Go to http://www.ruger.com/micros/crkt/index.html?r=y

See the new knife selection! Wow!

Wishing you great hunting success!

Good Hunting!

Kudo’s to all our Veterans and their wives and husbands for protecting and serving the greatest nation on Earth. God  Bless!!! Please say a prayer today for a Veteran!!

Reflections: As a Veteran of the Vietnam Era in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s I served in the US Naval Nuclear Submarine service aboard the USS James K. Polk SSBN 645 . First as a Seaman, later as a Sonar Technician with Ocean listening and electronics skills. Though I had no rifle per se, I was aboard a submarine that could place a  bullet pointed missile in the enemies left or right pocket from very very far away.

I was at the age of 20 years old, qualified to load Nuclear Torpedo’s on the Polk. I turned 21 under the Atlantic Ocean on submerged patrols that lasted 2 months or more. My Sub was 425 feet long, a football field and a half long.  Yes we experienced and done things that would turn most folks hair white as a matter of course.

We were part of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and carried 16 missiles with 10 nuclear warheads on each one. Do the math! Periodically we had drills to fire missiles, I was stationed in the Missile Compartment as a phone talker near an officer with one of the keys. We were still in a Cold War mode against the Soviet Union at the time and before the Ronald Reagan/ Mikhail Gorbachev Star Wars era and before the Berlin Wall came down.

My wife was an equal part of my team that kept me going at home. We had just had our first son, Christopher.

To occupy my mind after I Qualified Submarines and received my Dolphins, in my off watch time, I would often read books and visualize hunting places and the game I  might encounter. I was unwittingly creating future adventures as a reality. I also imagined flight in gliders such as the Libelle and to use cloud updrafts on cumulus clouds to fly cross country in my mind using Cloud Streets and later made flying a reality achieving my Private Pilots License. And here I am today having achieved some of those adventures like my African Safari with one of my sons. Being a part of our Military was an honor and am proud to have served our nation. Run Silent Run Deep has a special place for me.

God Bless our Veterans who keep us safe!!!

Yes back-straps are easy to cut out of the back muscle but chops have visual appeal. My wife has lamb chops dancing in her head when she sees these delectable morsels of Venison.

Trimming the length of the chop is done with a meat saw or in my case, a saws-all. With a sharp knife you can cut the chop to the bone as in the ribs above and then use a meat cleaver and rubber or wooden mallet to cut the bone where the spinal cord runs(seen above).

We vacuum seal all of our meat, and freezing does a great job of aging meat and improving flavor.

Cooking venison should be done with lots of heat to sear in the juices for a very short time so that meat browns but the inside is medium rare but never well done unless you like shoe leather. If your meat is gamy soak it in milk overnight. Butermilk will also tenderize.

Rear legs such as the one at right will make steaks, stew and ground venison or sausage. Afterwards boil the bones still laden with meat fragments and make a hearty soup.

Bon Appétit!

The Savage 11/111 Long Range Rifle was sighted in for Max Point Blank Range MPBR for 292 yards with Nosler 140 grain solid gilding copper E-Tips for this 7 mm Remington Magnum.

The rifle performs best when it has a long range scope such as the VX-6 3 x18 with a 44mm objective lens. I just love this scope for the zoom capability that can count points on a buck at very long ranges and in very low light. Further, that if I needed to light up the cross hairs I had infinite adjustments.

Hunting rifles are at their best when tested at the range with bullets and powders. The Savage 11/111 Long range hunter has a synthetic stock, with a free floating, button rifled barrel with an accu-trigger set at around 2.5 pounds. I find that the muzzle brake, for my skill level is not necessary but nice to know if another shooter needs it. The recoil pad that is on the rifle is excellent.

In the field from my tree stand the rifle looked like this as rain fell. I used a little camo on the rifle barrel and forward bell of the scope but as it turned out was not necessary.

Wind was blowing toward me so that wind drift was not an issue. The spike buck was crossing a field that was 320 yards long, measured by my laser rangefinder. It was raining lightly but I was satisfied that I installed a monopod rest that I could shoot steady from. The buck was literally running and bounding and would stop occasionally for 10 seconds or so to be sure it was safe to do so. Based on my early laser rangefinder estimates the buck was out at approximately 310 yards and on the second foray of bounding the buck stopped again. The VX-6 main post rested on the deer’s vitals like they were tattoo’d in place.

I held the crosshair high on the withers expecting the bullet to drop 6 inches and squeezed the shot off crisply with the Savage AccuTrigger. The rifle bucked and the mighty Nosler bullet struck exactly where I was aiming. A large puff of  water mist occurred at the withers and the buck fell over. The buck disappeared at the shot. I spined him, or so I thought. The buck appeared standing again in just seconds but did not move.  I cranked another round in the chamber and lowered the crosshairs just behind the front shoulder and squeezed again. The bullet struck with such force that a hollow “thwock” echoed back. Amazingly, it looked as if the bullet knocked him over like a silhouette target hit by a cannon. The buck was knocked over so forcefully as to flip him on his back ready to be dressed out. Now that is what I call power. The Nosler Copper Bullets exited the muzzle at 2945 fps and arrived at 300 yards at a speed of 2384 fps and delivered 1767 foot-pounds; an elks worth of punch. The Nosler fully penetrated and exited as I have already demonstrated in other articles by expanding to twice their size and maintaining virtually all of its weight.

The first bullet struck non-vital tissue above the spine.  The second bullet exited forward of the shoulder, seen in the image below.

Rifles are best when coupled with a scope and bullet that is up to the rifles capability. The Leupold VX-6 certainly fills that bill perfectly. The Nosler E-Tip will make a believer out of you too. Nosler’s AccuBond would have been another great choice but today we tested the E-Tip.

This test is a wrap as a great rifle, scope and bullet combination and easily proved itself at 300 yards. Now I have some tasty venison for my family and a rifle and scope and bullet that are proven performers.

Good Hunting! © 2015

This deer camp in Bertie County North Carolina was recommended by a shooting friend.

http://nchuntingcamps.com 

I did not find this hunt fun or worth the investment by the end of the week. Deer were not so much small as I found them young in age across the observed deer kills at 1. 5 years to 2.5 years in age. In my humble opinion the operation was run poorly and most hunters left unhappy.

Linda the camp cook was my high point as her food was great, she was accommodating and always had something good to say.

I am preparing to hunt New Hampshire Whitetail’s this next week with greater appreciation even though they are fewer.

All else being equal, you are successful like we all hope you are, and kill your deer. Congratulations!

Now take it to a deer meat cutter, aka butcher. Or cut it yourself as I have done. What can you expect? There are many ways to estimate the amount of meat you will get. The measuring tape method is widely used at or near the time of kill. A chart (see website below) was produced with data collected by the Pennsylvania State University-Department of Science, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission-Division of Research.

http://uafg.org/deer_weight_tape.html 

By measuring the chest girth you can come up with an estimate of your deer’s live weight. You can use a string too, and then measure the string. Also, if you know the dressed weight, you can come up with the amount of freezer meat as well. Many NH registration stations have a weight scale. If you know the dressed weight then using the chart at the website you know the amount of approximate meat you will get provided your shot or shots did not ruin any quantity of meat.

Some quick stat’s: 40% loss is a round estimate

The Quality question; how fast did the deer succumb to the shot? Immediate? 2 hours? 10 hours? What? How far did it run after the hit? 100 yards? 500 yards?

A deer that succumbs (is killed) immediately within minutes is the best you can possibly achieve and is immediately retrieved and gutted to cool the surrounding meat will produce the best tasting venison. This is so because there was little time for the deer’s system to react to the wound e.g. fever, hormones, adrenaline etc which produce the heavy gamy tastes.

A while back I killed two Pennsylvania deer with bow and arrow that died within a few minutes and the deer ate the best greens and corn later in summer. My wife was so impressed with the lack of gamy flavor and the tenderness of the meat that she demanded I go back and get more the following year. Of course I complied, happily!

In the case of a big older buck that has been chasing does for a month, you are likely to have gamy and tougher meat any way because his body is full of hormones and in some cases loses weight because he is so concentrating on reproduction that he is not eating. Yes all that for a large rack of antlers! You bet and I will eat all of it too!

All that said with a gamy animal; make lots of hamburger and place frozen ground meat or steak  in whole milk (buttermilk is best) overnight in the fridge. This is done to drain away the blood which carries much of the gamy flavor. It even tenderizes the meat as buttermilk has enzymes to tenderize the meat.

It is best to vacuum seal your meat because it lasts the longest in your freezer. Freezing fresh venison for a month or more aids in reducing gamy flavors so I freeze all my meat before cooking.

If cooking venison steak, anything more done than medium rare will be tough as there is little fat in the meat.

Good Hunting! © 2013

For those who own .375 caliber rifles and reload, there are bullets available in the 250 grain class and heavier for most manufacturers. Having said that, Hornady has had the ever popular 220 grain flat nose for deer hunters but is manufacture has been temporarily suspended now in its third year of suspension I believe.

The 225 grain spitzer is also temp suspended.

I suggest you do as I did and write Hornady a note that you are looking for this bullet. http://www.hornady.com/thanks-for-contacting-us

The Sierra 200 grain .375 FN is available on back order from Sierra.

I have developed reduced power reloads for both the 200 grain and the .220 grain in my rifle and you can too if you do some research on .375 Cartridges and use a Chronograph.

The 235 grain Hot Core is also suspended from Speer. Don’t know the reason but was able to stock up a few years ago.

I will share the response from Hornady on the 220 grain in hopes they will make them available again.

Stay Tuned!