Soon testing will begin with this rifle in .243 Winchester and Coyotes beware! We will top this with a 4.5 x 14 Nikon Coyote Special in Camo to test too. Further we will test some special select Nosler Ammo. Keep checking the site!
Author Archives: Ed Hale
The Second Amendment is not for Deer Hunting!
A long time now retired deer hunter said to me a few weeks ago, as a result of Sandy Hook.
What do you need an Assault Rifle (AR) for? Continuing he said “We no longer need that kind of firearm in today’s society. You have your deer rifle, bolt action or single shot or 5 shot semi-auto. So quit it! That kind of rifle is not necessary, he emphatically stated. It is strictly for military use he heatedly exclaimed! I said that the Second Amendment is not about deer hunting! I emphasized.
First, to correct everyone including me, the term AR does not stand for Assault Rifle, it stands for ArmaLite Rifle developed in the 1950’s. That is 60 years ago.
Secondly,civilian rifles are not Military Rifles, only the Military Rifle can be selected to shoot as a fully automatic rifle, a veritable battlefield machine gun if needed. These are available to Police and Military personnel.
Today’s similar looking Rifle for general civilian use is not a machine gun, it shoots only when you pull the trigger. It is not an Assault Battlefield Rifle!
Just like the WW II semi-auto rifle M1 Garand used also in Korea. The Garand’s Semi-Automatic Action has been used by civilians for years for hunters,ranchers and the Civilian Marksmanship programs for 60 years and is no different exept for the larger clip
But if it has a large clip, it has the potential for mass killing. Right? Wrong! All guns can be made into mass killers by insane madmen! It is against the law to do this but it is done by criminals all the time.
Do you think a murderer with that kind of rifle is going to worry if the clip contains 30 rounds or 10 rounds? Do you think laws will restrict criminals from using such a large clip? If you do then I have a bridge to sell you!
The Second Amendment, our Forefathers foresaw, gives citizens the right to be armed with the same weapons, as those who wish your family harm, can readily get. The Second Amendment is about preventing a tyrannic government from taking control as the British tried to do. In 1775 it was the Brown Bess Flintlock a military rifle owned by citizens. If the Criminal populations have access to large clip fed semi-auto non military rifles or more likely to have fully auto versions, then the Citizenry should too. Today our citizens are restricted to semi-automatic weapons as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
Without a form of equal power to protect and defend your family and home and way of life from those who want to harm you, then the Second Amendment has no meaning.
Editorial -Problem and Solution to Gun Massacres
Access to all kinds of weapons have been part of our culture for centuries.
Why now?
The Sandy Hook Tragedy is real. Children died and Teachers died, 26 in total. Parents and students across the country to some degree are still in shock. I understand that.
I am a parent of 2 boys and a grand parent to 7 grandchildren.
This is not a gun control issue.
THE PROBLEM
The problem is a society issue. You know it and I know it.
Guns have been in America since 1620 when the Mayflower landed. Bad guys, criminals, killers and rapists have guns and the law is meaningless to them.
Today in America, divorce is rampant, children are baby sat by violent video games, TV shows that kill human zombies, often without a Mom or Dad to make sense of it. Children are raised by single parents placing the child’s mental development at risk. By exposing them to Hollywood violence and extremely violent video games at a time when they have not yet established right from wrong and good from bad. Today dinner is not at the dinner table, it is in front of TV and Video and Fast Food. Families no longer verbally communicate together. They text in three word sentences. The center of our society is the family. Its foundations are crumbling.
The common thread I have found in my research was that the killer was often a school/college student male with a High IQ and already known to be mentally ill.
Schools and society in general covered up mental issues for social misfits.
These students and young adults did not have a moral compass, lack of church, ten commandments,absent was a way to teach children to Do Good in the world.
Here is my solution:
Federal and State Government should provide significant financial marriage tax incentives for a husband and wife to stay married.
More personal parental moral responsibility – Attend your Church or Synagogue with your Family
State and private schools need better mental health evaluations for children and a way to get help for them quickly.
Local Programs that encourage exercise and outdoor experiences, camping, hiking, fishing, and with a Parent, Hunting with the intent of eating what they killed. Just take a walk in the Woods and Discover with your kids.
Enforce Laws on the books.
State Governments should allow prayer in school, and strictly regulate and enforce a moral code as to what is seen on TV and Video Games with public participation
Federal Government should be reduced in size and scope.
Federal Government should pay down its debt so there is less financial stress on the Parents and Children and Grand Children of America.
We need less of Obama and Biden to reduce stress.
Grandfathers 8mm Mauser and Lyman 2.5x Scope by Ovide Lamontagne
As I mentioned, the 8mm Mauser I use to hunt was my grandfather’s rifle. His name was Ovide R. Lamontagne and he started hunting on the northern end of Lake Umbagog in the early 1930’s. He and his friends blazed and maintained the trails from which we still hunt today (and the trail on which I shot my most recent buck). The reference to number 8 and so on is to certain places along the trail where he and his friends used to take stands or build “cachettes,” the French-Canadian word for “blinds.”
In 1954, my grandfather built a camp on the northern most end of Lake Umbagog. Every year since 1955, our family and some friends have hunted these woods the week before Thanksgiving. In fact, my dad has made it every year since 1955. We access my grandfather’s trails right outside the back door of our Camp. So, you can understand the bond I feel between his gun and the places where I hunt on Lake Umbagog.
His 8mm Mauser is a relatively light, bolt action rifle. There is some fairly ornate etching in the metal work at the bottom of the trigger and the chamber. At the end of the stock, there is a two inch black stock (not shown in this picture). Apparently, my grandfather chipped or damaged the end of the stock, and being a dentist, he used dental molding to reconstruct the end of the stock.
In addition to the rifle itself, I use his Lyman Alaskan 2.5 X All-Weather scope with it. The scope has very fine, almost imperceptible cross-hairs and a dot reticle in the middle of the sight. I have included a picture of the original box in which we continue to store the scope. When I first started hunting with this rifle in the late ‘80’s, I didn’t much care for the scope and brought the gun in to a gunsmith to see if I could change it out. After he looked at the gun and the scope (which are in perfect working order), he said I was crazy because this scope is perfect for the great north woods — and I must admit now that it is!
As you can see from the stock and the barrel, this gun needs to be refinished. But I was told by that gunsmith that when I do refinish it, I should simply hang it on the wall or put it under glass and preserve it. He said this gun is more valuable being preserved than being brought out into the woods.
Of course, I am not ready to “retire” this rifle. This rifle continues to serve me well (as it did on November 13, 2012). I also used it to shoot a 9 point 215 lb. buck in 1991, a 12 point 222 lb. buck in 2005 and the 12 point 244 lb. buck in 2012, in addition to a few eight and four pointers.
Most importantly, hunting with this gun reminds me of my grandfather, his friends and the traditions they handed down through the generations, so I am not ready to “hang it up” just yet!
First Rifles in America by Ed Hale
The Matchlock Rifle (Musket/Smooth bore) was invented in the 1400’s and was used in Jamestown, Va. in 1607. This rifle used a smoldering wick like fuse to impart a spark to black powder that was near the hole that enters the barrel to ignite a larger charge of black powder and propel a lead ball from the barrel. The word “Lock” is used in early firearms as perhaps as a synonym for “mechanism”. This musket was not very reliable, and was superseded by the wheellock below.
The first wheellock rifle-like firearm arrived in America with the Mayflower. TheWheel-Lock Musket likely was owned by John Alden in 1620.. The Musket was a smooth-bore firearm and this one was discovered during a renovation of a home in Duxbury, Massachusetts in 1924. Click on the highlighted words for more details. Later in the 1600’s, it was a home protection weapon, found, and kept loaded in a secret spot at the front door over the years and was forgotten. Black powder is the the propellant of a round lead ball and patch to hold the ball against the powder. The rifle is fired when the trigger is pulled releasing a spring loaded serrated wheel turns on the iron pyrite held against the wheel. The pyrite and wheel create sparks to ignite the black powder in a pan that connects to the powder charge behind the round lead ball.
This firearm is the only of its kind and is owned by the National Rifle Association and displayed in their museum in Virginia. Technology changed slowly back then. A flintlock came on the scene in the early 1700’s below.
The First flintlock musket was the .75 caliber “Brown Bess“, perhaps receiving the brown from the metal acid wash that turned the metal a brown color. See web links. The term “Bess” may have come from its predecessor, the Arquebus or perhaps Blunderbus . It was an imported smooth-bore rifle that was widely used by colonists and militia men of the 1750’s to 1800’s. It was accurate to about 80 yards or so. The colonists used a long-standing version called the Long Land Pattern. Rifles of this type were kept as a pattern to make additional rifles. The weight was around 10.5 pounds. It had no rear sight and the bayonet lug near the bore was used as the front sight. It was a good wild game getter of its time and used by its citizens to hunt and protect the home and town. The continental army depended on citizen militiamen to bring their own Brown Bess rifle and ammo to fight the British during the Revolution. Colonists used the rifle in battle by placing more than one ball in the bore and often used additional smaller balls. The load and shoot time for the Brown Bess was 2 to 3 times a minute. The British were not happy with such barbaric practices as to load many balls like a shotguns double O Buck on their soldiers
My Cousin Colonel Nathan Hale, commander of the Second NH Regiment used the Brown Bess in fighting the British at Lexington and Bunker Hill during the Revolutionary war and is chronicled in the book Saratoga, by Richard Ketchum first published in 1997. My 6th great grandfather Nathaniel Hale inherited his father’s “Brown Bess” in Newbury Massachusetts and used it as his protection weapon and hunting rifle in Falmouth, Maine.
Prior to the American Revolution an evolution in firearms was taking place where German immigrants in Pennsylvania were tooling the bore of muskets making grooves called rifling, one rifle at a time.
This allowed the bullet to spin thus providing stability and accuracy out to 200 to 300 yards. They were made in Pennsylvania for use on the Kentucky frontier and called the Kentucky Long Rifle .
The first true rifle that began to be built in the 1740’s one by one by German Craftsmen. The detailed carvings, storage compartments, and accoutrements (to equip) of this rifle were scrolled metal work on the stock adding to the beauty of this fine rifle made with birds-eye or tiger maple. This rifle was capable of 300 yard accuracy and was enhanced with the advent of the cap-lock rifle and elongated Mini-Ball in the 1800’s. It was this rifle, in flint or cap-lock that began the romance of wood and steel to be made into artwork that is sought after by many rifleman and hunters and collectors today that love a wooden stock. Today the most popular early rifles of this period are the Hawken Flintlock or Caplock Rifle and the Kentucky Long Rifle which is so often romanticized in stories of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. Today there are both collectors and shooter that relive and re-enact the past with these rifles in hand. I thoroughly enjoy the history that surrounds them. Rifles are part of America’s founding heritage and essential to maintaining freedom as well as home protection and sport. Over the next 100 years there were numerous advances we will see in the guns that Won the West, their use in hunting for food, protection and the military.
Since the invention of the rifle some 400 -500 years ago, military rifle applications were always the driving force for rifle improvements. The benefits were seen in civilian use, marksmanship and hunting as well as home protection.
Ovide’s Shut-Out Streak Ends – Wow!
After six shut out years in a row, I am pleased to report that the “streak” ended at 9:00 am Tuesday morning, November 13, 2012 between number 7 and 6 behind the Camp.
It was a rainy morning and I decided to hunt out back with plans to come in around lunch time to put on dry clothes for an expected and predicted clearer afternoon weather-wise and to hunt up high. It was raining so hard early in morning that I delayed my departure until about 7:15 am.
I started from the road at number eight and hunted slow, sure and steady. I thought of how my brother Paul had shot a pretty big buck just behind the Camp by taking it slow. I also thought of my grandfather and his buddies who so many years ago blazed and maintained these trails and the many hunters, now long gone, who had likewise hunted along these trails. Alas, I digress….
Just before 9:00 am, I was walking slowly along the trail through the rainy woods which were drenched with such sound that it masked any noise made by man or beast.
Movement caught my peripheral vision at about 45 degrees to my left side. As I turned my head, all I could see was a rack and a big body walking quickly and deliberately through the woods. I raised my grandfather’s 8mm Mauser and looked for an opening and although there was pretty thick brush in my scope, I decided to fire as soon as I could see the body of the deer.
As soon as the rack and body came into my scope, I fired but didn’t see a flag or anything. I paused for a moment, heard nothing and started walking toward where I thought he was. Sure enough I saw the big body on the ground, but his head was up and he was clearly alive thrashing his thick neck and head made heavy from the rack adorning it. I watched for what seemed like forever, thinking he would expire momentarily, but as soon as his eye met mine, he became even more agitated and I decided that I should show mercy, which I did, with the second and final shot.
Of course, at that moment, I was filled with a rush of emotion and thought of all of you, among others. This has been a long dry spell and so this one’s for you!
Marc helped me with my ATV drag the buck to Monty’s waiting truck just beyond the driveway into the Lawrence camp and we registered it at River’s Edge in Oquossoc. According to the owner, it is a 12 point, 244 lbs. buck and I believe is now the new record. (I will leave it up to the Camp historians to confirm this)!
Monty drove me back with the buck yesterday afternoon, as I am leaving for a week in Florida with Bettie early tomorrow morning (she deserves it!). I hope the other stalwarts left behind (Gerry, Marc, Denis and Ron) are successful. Either way, now that I have my life back, I am already looking forward to the 2013 Sacred Week!
All the best,
Ovide
Really Big Game Rifles, Recoil and Handloading
Perhaps there is no more accomplished rifle in the world for big game than the venerable 30-06 Springfield. It has accounted for game kills of every species in North America and most of Africa. There are many rounds that are based on that cartridge case, particularly the .270 Winchester that even surpassed it in popularity due to writers and hunters such as Jack O’connor in the 1960’s. But the rifle hunting population was eager for more choices and out of that desire came an explosion of stepped up choices to contain the word Magnum in it. The word “magnum” has been used wildly over the years as a got-to-buy-it sales pitch, and it worked.
But after the second or third outing at the “bench” the shooter was no longer looking longingly at his or her rifle with the same adoring eyes. These Magnums often got left in the closet for rifles and calibers such as the 30-06 and smaller calibers like the .257 Roberts, 243 Winchester and the ever popular .308 Winchester and did not punish the shooter. And today they remain popular for many but I like to explore. It is important to remember that when hunting in the field your upright body absorbs the recoil in a more push like motion from really big game calibers.
When rifle manufacturers got the message that Magnum was no longer bringing in the buyers, it is perhaps that companies like Pachmayer® and Limbsaver SVL® were introducing Recoil Pads that could cut the recoil in half of these big Game rifles making them feel like a .308 or a .243.
I went on Safari in South Africa with a Ruger® M77 .338 Winchester Magnum and placed a Pachmayer “Decelerator” on my rifle and found that I could shoot it offhand in my T-shirt with no recoil issues. Nice! The recoil felt more like a push than a punch. With that said, Remington introduced Ultra Magnums and gained another notch in popularity for a time. Ruger introduced the .375 Ruger cartridge and rifle several years back in their M77 .375 African (wood stock) and the M77 .375 Alaskan with a synthetic stock. The cartridge was a proprietary collaboration of Hornady and Sturm Ruger that was unbelted and would fit in a standard action. Innovative! The .375 Ruger M77 was well receive by Big Game Hunters treking to Alaska for Brown Bear or Yukon Moose or to Africa for everything under the sun. With a state of the art recoil pad such as Pachmayer or the Limbsaver, shooting this powerful cartridge was very tolerable.
No longer is the wise shooter getting whacked by a Magnum.
In my ebook African Safari -Rifle and Bow and Arrow, I test the .338 Winchester Magnum, the .375 Ruger, and the 416 Rigby and provide charts and recoil comparisons as well as discuss downrange energy with Leupold Scopes and Nosler Ammo such as the AccuBond.
In the book I demonstrate graphically that recoil reduction that today’s magnums have been largely tamed with proper recoil protection.
So go ahead and grab that big bore and with proper recoil you can shoot it with supreme accuracy. And handloading your cartridge can make it shoot even better.
Here is a brand new .375 Ruger and target with three shots fired with a Leupold VX-3 scope It was at 50 yards that we tried this firing a 300 grain dangerous game Monolithic Solid that would kill an Elephant with a Brain shot.
See the target below.
The three shot group was about 1/2 inch.
With 260 grain AccuBond shown above left this rifle shoots 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards.
In a 600 yard test at Nashua Fish and Game I shot 600 yards with my best groups at 3 1/8 inches vertically while shooting in a prone position with sandbag rests. The bullets were arriving at the target with 1500 foot pounds of energy and the con trail was visible by my spotter. As a reloader I can choose to load this rifle down to equal my muzzle loader. With the reduced load I killed a 200 lb red deer at 50 yards. A heart shot.
Never felt the kick! Really big game rifles can be tamed with proper recoil pads and by hand loading your cartridge. Good Hunting and Shooting. Ed ©
Coyote Calibers
Coyotes compete with we humans for venison, a simple fact. If you leave the Coyotes alone, these pesky critters will eat your downed deer if you don’t retrieve your game right away, and they will eat all the whitetail deer spring fawn crop leaving nothing for you to hunt. (NH Coyote Photo by Mark Nangeroni and enhanced by the Author) So many hunters are spending time after deer season to hunt them. The truth be known, I am a novice at coyote hunting but am a pretty good NH deer hunter when time allows. So I am going to pursue these critters. Rifles that are good at killing a Coyote may not be the best to leave the skin intact for a fur pelt. Varmint calibers like the 22-250 are great long distance calibers but be careful of bullet heads that blow up on contact. They are not the best, in my opinion. Use a solid or expanding hunting bullet. Cartridges that I would recommend are those that leave a clean hole on entrance and exit. The 22 long rifle cartridge, used in a rifle, is a gun that can kill cleanly when the proper round is chosen and the distance is less than 100 yards. I watched a video of a frozen lamb shoulder fully penetrated at 300 yards with a 22 LR but the bullet must have fallen a number of feet before hitting the target. I like the Velocitor by CCI because it is very fast 1435 fps with a 40 grain head and has sufficient energy and bullet momentum to kill at distances of out to 100 yards, so some experts say. Check the web out. See photo below.
I would prefer shots within 100 yards and 50 yards or less being ideal for this round. Below is a Ammo chart I created of .22 rounds and energies offered.
| Ammo Type | Muzzle E | E 50 y | E 75 y | E 100y |
| CCI Std Vel 40g | 102 | 86 | 80 | 75 |
| CCI Mini-Mag Solid 40g | 135 | 107 | 97 | 89 |
| CCI Mini-Mag HP 36g | 127 | 99 | 90 | 82 |
| CCI Velocitor 40g HP | 183 | 137 | 121 | 108 |
| CCI Stinger 32g HP | 191 | 142 | 123 | 107 |
There are many other calibers in the .22 category that will do the job even better than the 22 Long Rifle at longer distances such as the 22 magnum or a big step up to the 22-250, .222 or .223 for example. AR platforms are terrific in .223 for shooting multiple Coyotes as in the U-tube below.
Deer calibers like 30-06 and .270 and 6mm or 6.5mm rounds are fine for yote hunting during the day.
I am interested first in ridding the woods of the excess of these predators that compete with my venison and will not worry about the pelt till the Coyote is on the ground. So grab your deer rifle if that is all you have and your hunting license and follow the hunting rules and get some of these predators. Night time hunting is allowed in New Hampshire with land owner written permission, baiting is possible as well if you go on to the NH F&G website you can see the rules and locate the forms you need for F&G and for the landowner.
Yotes do have a place in the scheme of things, just not enough to destroy the deer herds. They must be managed.
If you want to see some great Coyote hunts just look them up on U-TUBE Coyote Hunting. Great video. A friend has loaned me his .257 Roberts for yote hunting and it will take-em out to 300 yards in daytime without changing the aim-point when zeroed at 250 yards (max point blank range). A hunting friend and I have a .22 LR too that shoots the Velocitor’s out of semi-auto’s very well. Good Hunting! Ed ©
Wolf in Coyote Clothing?
There were three shots from muzzle loaders heard high on a hill in Southern NH a few weeks back, and not far from me on opening day of Muzzle Loader season. As I hunted my way toward the shots, I found no hunters, and no deer on the ground. two more shots rang out from smoke poles in the distance. Two hunters at least, I mused. An hour later, I ran into a hunter that had friends in the woods in a different area who were after a big whiley Buck living in the swamp, swale-grass, and brush and brambles so thick you could not see 5 yards. Good luck to them, I thought. We talked a bit as hunters often do when we meet while on stand. Shhh, my new hunting friend said, “Did you hear that” Yes, I could distinctly hear a Coyote howl in the far distance, perhaps on the trail of a wounded deer. Hey, I said, “from those shots up on the hill”. You bet! Coyotes eat mice and voles and turkeys, and pets, when they can’t kill a deer, their preferred food.
I first published this article in a shorter form in Hawkeye News in New Hampshire and expanded it here for NH Rifleman readers. Recent genetic DNA evidence proves the Northeast Coyote is not coyote at all but part coyote and part wolf. Yes you heard that right part Wolf, try 1/3 wolf or more and increasing. “Eastern coyotes typically weigh 30-50 pounds and are 48-60 inches long, approximately twice the size of their close relative, the western coyote. Eastern coyotes have long legs, thick fur, a pointy snout, a drooping bushy black-tipped tail and range in color from a silvery gray to a grizzled, brownish red. The average life span of a wild coyote is four years. (Less, if I have the opportunity) Though coyotes are often mistaken for a domestic dog hybrid, recent genetic research has attributed the eastern coyote’s larger size and unique behavioral characteristics to interbreeding with Canadian gray wolves. Unlike the wolf or domestic dog, coyotes run with their tail pointing down.”
As part of my research I learned that there are basically two species of wolf in the world, the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) and the Red Wolf (Canis rufus) and both can mate and produce offspring hybrids (mixes) of wolf. Furthermore they can mate and produce offspring with the eastern Coyote (Canis latrans var) as you will see later. For Scientists, this new DNA data is throwing a curveball at them. Example: was the eastern Coyote really Canis latrans and later to become Canis latrans var. a hybrid Coywolf instead. Var. is for Variation.
New studies demonstrate that the Coyote is in the midst of an “adaptive evolution” according to a fully released February 2010 article published by Royal Society Publishing in a format called “Biology Letters” and entitled “Rapid adaptive evolution of northeastern coyotes via hybridization with wolves” by Roland Kays, Abigail Curtis, and Jeremy Kirchman see web site http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org . I quote under the header Discussion in the article:
“The ecological differences between western and northeastern coyotes, on average, are that northeastern animals eat more deer (Odocoileus sp.) but fewer small mammals (Parker 1995), and show no avoidance of forested habitats (Kays et al. 2008). The larger body size of northeastern coyotes is widely accepted as advantageous for hunting large prey, but there has been debate about the origin of this variation through hybridization versus phenotypic plasticity (Lariviere & Crete 1993; Peterson & Thurber 1993). Our results show that northeastern coyote populations are a hybrid swarm resulting from the widespread introgression of GLW (Great Lakes Wolf) genes. This suggests that hybridization introduced genetic variation for the rapid adaptation of more efficient predation on deer, including larger predator body size and skull dimensions. This is further supported by our finding that northeastern coyotes were larger than those from Ohio, which are living in similar eastern forests, but have not hybridized with wolves. Mitochondrial genes are surely not responsible for the large body size, so the observed associations of particular haplotypes with skull morphology suggest that this hybrid swarm is young.”
Further quotes: “Northeastern coyote skulls are not simply larger versions of their western relatives, but show additional craniodental characteristics similar to wolves, supporting the hypothesis of the introgression of genetic variation; northeastern skulls are proportionally broader, with greater areas of attachment for masticatory musculature. In large-prey hunters, such as wolves, these traits are associated with strong bite forces and resistance to the mechanical stresses imposed by large, struggling prey (Slater et al. 2009). Furthermore, the sexual dimorphism we found in northeastern coyotes is absent in western coyotes, but similar to that reported for wolves (Gittleman & Van Valkenburgh 1997). We suggest that these traits confer similar adaptive advantages in northeastern coyotes and allow them to be more proficient in the capture of deer than western and Ohio coyotes. These adaptations presumably allowed the rapid movement of coyote-wolves through Ontario, in comparison with the slower colonization rate of the smaller non-hybridized coyotes across Ohio.”
So what does this information mean to me as a hunter? It means this Coywolf is a highly adaptive aggressive Canid is on a continuing evolutionary path that places it in direct competition for deer meat in my freezer and whatever else it wants to eat. If you did not hunt coywolves this year then don’t cry and whine that you didn’t see any deer to shoot this fall. Get off your duff and go hunt some coywolves. If you want to continue to call them yotes then fine, just remember your “yote” is part wolf and if your deer is down this fall don’t be surprised to see “yotes” devouring it if you don’t find it right away. It has happened to me and I was not a happy hunter that day. All that was left after a nine hour overnight was the spine.
I am not a regular predator hunter but it is increasingly important to hunt these Coyotes with wolf genetics as they have made a highly significant impact in the reduction of spring fawn crops of the eastern whitetail deer (Odocoileus virginianus ). But you can’t relax one bit because they adapt by having more litters.
So, it is not just fun to hunt these adaptive critters, but that we compete for the same venison. In larger packs or by themselves these wild candid’s will kill domestic pets even while the pet owner takes the dog or cat for a potty call even while on a leash.
Given the fact that they eat my freezer meat, I want to introduce them to a fast rifle bullet along the way and plan to winter hunt these critters. Rifles and cartridges that can kill a coyote cleanly are plentiful, in fact any deer rifle will do, but there has always been a following for really fast stuff like a 100 grain .270 shooting 3200 fps down to the .22 Long Rifle. I have a .257 Roberts that I have garnered for such an occasion. It shoots sub-sub moa groups consistently at 100 yards and at about 3000 fps at the muzzle a 100 grain pills maximum point blank range is 290 yards when zeroed at around 250 yards. That means that any yote out to almost 300 yards is a gonner when struck by a pill still whooping along at 2300 fps and 1100 ft-lbs of energy at that distance. Perhaps the best Coyote rifle is an AR platform in say a .223 that will take down more than one yote at a time with no discernible recoil between shots. Many traditional hunters stay with traditional rifles. I am one of those. Coyote pelts can be frozen if prepared properly, and then sent out for tanning. I have used pickling alum on some deer hides and would work well here, aside of professional tanning. Good Hunting! Ed ©
Limbsaver Sharpshooter X-Ring Rifle Barrel De-resonator
This special Rubber manufactured from NAVCOM tunes the 5 main ballistic waves that affect shot grouping according to the accompanying device literature
The author has tested it for several rifle loads in a Kimber Select grade .338 Winchester Magnum with a thin sporter barrel that was capable of MOA-accuracy. With the de-resonator placed an inch back from the muzzle, groups improved up to 30% depending on the bullet weight. For practical hunting within 400 to 600 yards the device is not necessary for hunting with my particular MOA Rifle and 185 grain Nosler AccuBond bullets. But would substantially improve long range bullets that group at 2 MOA which would otherwise limit the hunter 300 yards presupposing an ethical shot diameter of say 6 inches to say 1.5 MOA inches adding another 100 yards to a possible 400 yard kill range. If your gonna spend some big bucks on a Western Mule Deer or Elk Hunt I would sure have one of these in my pack.
You can spend several hundred for a new barrel to achieve that capability or play with your barrel bedding costing hundreds or simply put the de-resonator on your rifle and go shoot. At a cost of 20 bucks it is an inexpensive fix and a great Christmas Stocking Stuffer. Good Shooting! Ed ©