.270

i don't know any of em but i still don't like em so they are all fat and lazy and steal from babies and kill kittens are far as i'm concerned. Lark

thr rut stops and starts for several months. to be scientific it depends on when the cows start estrus. then they go in and out until they're all bred or until the time of the year is too late for them to have a calf when they need to have it so the calf can get big enough before the snow to survive. to me, the full moon seems to bring it on stronger, but as in everything in nature, daylight hours is what triggers it. days get short, cows get horny. so basically, it just depends on the year. cornfused yet? if ya ever figger it out, let the rest of us know. it's a mistery sorta like how did the incas make copper chisels and why is casey's family naturally good at playing the banjo. Lark. p.s- i've seen elk rut like hel l in december. it's like old people diapers, depends.

whatever, i guess we have different opinions. don't get youre feelings hurt. i think the auction tag deal is bad for everyone but the rich guys and the guys that guide em. is it ok if i have that opinion? the contribution to the pot is negligible. Lark.

wondered how long it'd take for somebody to get their feelings hurt. so you're the only guys that "live it"? i guess you're the only guys who can have an opinion too? unless it's the same as your opinion. then it's ok. just don't have one contrary to yours, that's what you're saying isn't it? must be nice to live on a cloud. the internet makes some guys real tough. i can think of a buncha guys on this site that you best not say that crap to their face. we are all hunters and we all have our own opinions and should be welcome to them, no matter what they are. and personally, i take real exception to the derogatory generalizations you've spewed about some good folks. but who am i? what right do i have to have an opnion? now run back and tell your buddies and your rich "hunters" how tough you were on the internet. run along now. Lark.

i hope he gets butthole cancer too. rotten deal losing a fine rifle. i recently bought a pre 64 that was a .300 h&h and some dummy reamed it to a .300 ackley. both h&h's and the .458 in the 70 have the magnum action with the top strap cutouts for the long case. i had a .375 barrel put on it. what an incredible rifle. i hafta agree that that the pre 64's are better tho. with the mauser extractor they ain't ever gonna leave a case in the barrel and the control round feed where the cartridge jumps up into the bolt face really makes it feed smooth. lotsa folks have the post 64's, but they just ain't as slick as the old ones. but they did leave the model 70 safety on em. there isn't another one like it. ruger advertises a "model 70 style" safety, but it just sticks up along the bolt where it looks sorta like one. it's still just a trigger safety like the remingtons and other wannabees. i really like the .375 round. the long taper feeds and extracts real well, the balistics are really impressive for a 100+ year old round too. someone was inspired. Lark.

be in good shape and hunt all day. just because you get warm don't mean the elk ain't still there. start about 2 or 3 am working your way in and become part of the herd. and follow em all day. the guys that hunt a little in the morning and then again in the afternoon are missing a lotta opportunity. the elk are still there. use the wind and be sneaky. bow shootin' elks is a lotta fun. Lark.

i can't figure being so shallow as to hunt just to shoot and stuff animals. the hunt is where the joy of hunting is. just being out there in country with a good rifle and maybe some folks you care about. these guys that need beaters and a posse and a lodge and gourmet cooking every meal really don't understand what American hunting is about. i don't know how you put up with guys like that iranian bill. i know i couldn't o' done it. all i need is my boys and my .270. Lark.

in my opinion, and that is my opinion, it ain't hunting if you ain't hunting. 99% of these auction hunters are pudgy, soft rich guys that don't know anything about hunting, they hire a buncha guys to corral an animal for em and they jet in and shoot it. in their own jet too. if they did away with all auction tags the only people that would notice a lack in funds would be the guides and their posse. if you add up all the money that auction tags bring Az each year, it is a very small % of what it takes to run the department. i think somebody told he the other day that just the money brought in from application fees for bighorn, just application fees, is more than all the auction tags combined. the auction tags are a ruse that rich guys use to get great tags. nothing more. i'm all for the raffle tags. at least joe hunter has a chance at them. that's my take. Lark.

wasn't too many years ago that what the high dollar tag guys and their guides are doing now, was illegal. law read that the hunter was supposed to actually be on the hunt. it was mainly so guys couldn't keep a lion in a tree until some rich guy could get there and shoot it. but dragging some softy in where you have an animal pinned down from all angles to shoot it is no different. other than the dogs. when there's lotsa money involved, the laws are easy to ignore. i think if i knew where there was some really huge animal i'd rather either keep it to myself or find some deserving guy with a tag and put them on it. Lark.

hey ville-gas. i thought you just et em where they dropped? Lark.

my trophy room. it's even bigger than it looks. Lark

may not be a sin, but it will get your @$$ kicked around my campfire. Lark.

i don't plan on shooting over 300-400 yards. bc seems like something to not worry too much about. i'm just gonna use hornady innerloks. if i ever go to africa i'll look at bigger bullets. Lark.

pamela anderson?!?! well hel l, where do i sign? now they have some real credibility with her on board. all they need now is bill cosby and jared from subway and they have the trifecta of intelligence. if managing means killing these horses, then i'm for that. that's the only way to manage feral animals. somebody said to neuter em? huh? well, i guess if you neuter em with an '06 that'd be a good sollution. right now there ain't a bunch of em. but they hang around on the river and get hit by cars all the time. wouldn't be too hard to just cap em all and have the problem over with. the longer you wait, the more there will be, the bigger the problem gets. the forest circus shouida stuck to their guns and got it over with while the idiots whined. then it'd be over with and done. Lark.

that one bull grew a spike in a really wierd place. he's a 6x6x1. Lark

main thing is to get the heat out of it as quick as you can. in the heavy part of the shoulders where the neck connects is where most animals sour. if you have a chainsaw that you can shut the oiler off, hang em up and split em. then either cut off the front legs or at least open up the armpits to let the heat out. cut the sirloin tip away from the hind legs too. you can take a knife and split em down the backbone all the way to let some heat out too. might even prop the slit open with sticks. water is your friend. nothing takes the heat out like cool water. this is a photo of a really big bull my son shot with a bow a few years ago. in sept and fairly warm. cooled down nicely. the big chunks on the tarp are the boned out neck. lotsa excellent meat on the neck. the rest is backstrap and filets. it's ok to lay meat on a plastic tarp, but don't wrap it in one. plastic makes heat. Lark.

bill, i've read a bunch about that. it's a kind of wierd thing about the .375. wonder if the ruger is the same way? this is my first foray into the elkaphant rifle business. shot it last week a few times. shoots incredible. had a screw on brake installed that i can take off when hunting so it won't bust my ears. the pre 64 model 70 Winchester is one sweet rifle and i love my .375. i'm going to use 270gr for elk because i like velocity. and 2900fps with a bullet that big is real impressive. put me a real nice leupold on it. i'm all a'cited about it. what kind of rifle is yours? Lark.

hey guys, "energy", "knockdown", "ft/lbs", whatever you wanna call it, are purely fictitious numbers on a piece of paper when it comes to shooting animals. take a certain weight bullet, shoot it a certain velocity, and you get a certain number. a number that means absolutely nothing when shooting animals. say a bullet develops 2000 ft/lbs. the best way to describe what that means is to picture this: you have a 2000 lb weight hanging from a rope. you hit it dead center and it will swing a foot, theoretically. when you shoot an animal, the bullet pierces it, then it expands, losing energy the entire time. different bullets react differently. hollow points, plastic tips, fmj's, copper bullets, spitzers, etc, all react differently. when you try to say that certain calibers are no good after certain ranges it is a bad argument. it depends on too many variables to be a good measure. use a bullet that is designed for what you want to do, and go shoot something. of all the numbers that have true value in shooting, "knockdown" is the least important, and is basically useless. shoot a good bullet out of a .22/250 and shoot all the deer you want. i've dropped coyotes dead in their tracks at 700 yds with mine. shot a lotta deer and other stuff too. dumped muleys where they stood with mine. if you're shooting an animal a buncha times, you're probably not hitting where you think you are and you might wanna change bullets. if you're hunting big dangerous animals, then you want to use big bone crushing caliber that nothing will stop, with a bullet made to kill big stuff. if you're hunting coues deer, then use something appropriate for that purpose. don't use numbers to make your decision. it all come down to marksmanship and using the proper bullet for the job. Lark.

i can remember all the way back into the 60's how the azgfd, the Az wildlife federation, sheep clubs, etc. all wrote about the problems with horses and burros and the sheep habitat. they all still have the same opinions. the animals would camp out around the water and run off anything else that came around. did you know that a hlorse eats 3x as much as a cow when grazing? if you have a grazing permit, you have to remove 3 cattle for every horse. not to mention what they do to the fragile desert when they run in herds. it's all been proven by "science", if you think there is no competion, you're either very sadly misinformed or someone has lied to you. wild horses and burros can, will and have, caused a lot of devistation to anyplace they inhabit. it's a "scientific" fact. i remember when wild horse annie got the gov't to protect feral equines and i remember what happened after that. before they were protected a lot of folks shot em to get rid of em. they didn't shoot em all tho. after they were protected the population got ridiculously high. they aren't a noble wild animal, they are a dang pest and nuisance that need to be dealt with before they take over, and they will. research history, or at least listen to someone who has. every excuse to let these things remain is pure bull$h!t and anyone who wants em to stay is no friend of wildlife. they will call cause great harm. there are other folks on this site that remember wild horse annie. this is a real problem. shoot em all. Lark.

better than a bow, so yeah it'll work. use a good bullet and don't shoot in the brush. i love the .22/250. Lark

if "science" had anything to do with it we wouldn't have wolf/dogs that have a couple dozen generations on em and still ain't wild. fact of the matter is they're a pain in the @$$, are nothing but detrimental to a desert that is quite fragile at best, have been proven to be very prolific and if you don't take care of the problem, it's only gonna get worse. won't be long and they'll be farther up the river and will be screwing over some of the best desert bighorns in the world. and "science" has proven that one of the worst things on desert wildlife habitat and populations is wild horses and burros. wait'll the folks that brought us cecil get ahold of it. next thing we know they'll be an endangered species, even tho they're crossbred and inbred to hel l and are of no value to anything. shoot em, get it over with. i'll vollunteer to be an equine assassin. i own lotsa horses and mules. i really love mine and care very well for em. unlike the idiots that turned these ones out and like the idiots that wanna "protect" em. if that's too hard for folks to accept, then just shoot the males and let the rest die off. only take a generation or 2 for em to be unwild again that way. Lark.

i just got my .375 h&h back from western precision. i was gonna have a .375 ruger barrel stuck on a pre 64 model 70 action, but i found a .300 h&h model 70 that some dummy reamed out to .300 ackley and had a shilen .375 h&h barrel screwed on it. shoots 270 gr hornadys 2900 fps with no problem. think about that, 270 gr bullet and 2900 fps. factory loads. when i get to reloading it's gonna be amazing what it'll do. and the ruger will do a little better. i plan on hunting deer and elk with mine this year. but i ain't never met a rifle i didn't like, except a 7-08. as far as a use in Az? hel l yeah. Lark

never been on a deer hunt with em, but i refuse to even hunt with anyone that uses copper bullets for elk. biggest farce i've ever seen. some even with a .338/.378, direct lung shots, barely missed the heart, one bull ran over half a mile, over a big knoll and off into the jack pines. had to track it with lanterns. another was hit 2 times in the lungs, good shots, with the same rifle. only way we caught up with it is he hit it in a front and hind leg and busted the joints too. i think it would have gotten away if he didn't hit the legs. still made it a half mile into the trees. another horrible recovery job. every elk i've ever seen shot with a copper bullet ran off. with big rifles too. and any one of them wouldn't have made it 100 yds with a .243 and lead bullets. a couple years ago i was with 4 guys, 3 used barnes, one guy used winchester silvertips. all shot good 6x6's. all 3 with barnes ran off, with good lung shots. had to be tracked down, with a lotta effort. the one with silvertips made it maybe 50 yards. i hear people talk em up, but i've had nothing but bad experiences with em. Lark.

3 or 4 guys with good rifles and few boxes of ammo could take care of things quickly. hot as it is, they'd be gone quick too. too bad they are there, ain't there fault, but they ain't doing anyone any good and they really cause problems. and they aren't "wild" mustangs. they're feral horses that have been turned out by folks that had no business having a horse to start with. the bleeding heart crap just makes the problem worse. shoot em, get it over with. the wild horse and burro program is a farce. if they get involved then there never will be a real sollution. Lark.

with midget deer the bullet doesn't matter as much as where you hit em. any bullet will rip right through one. with their small vitals, they always seem hard to kill to me. Lark.