have you ever borrowed a rifle on a hunt?
several years ago I booked an ELK hunt and shipped a rifle to a local area gun-shop, several weeks ahead of the hunt ,because the air line I needed to use was known at that time for lost fire arm luggage issues in the past , well as I expected they "lost" my freinds rifle case (who insisted I was PARANOID) and only "FOUND IT" 4 days later.
(when our hunt was about 1/3rd over)
I arrived, and went to the local gun-shop to find it was closed for the day,It was only open till noon on Sundays, (I was really pissed off)(my friend got a great laugh, at that ) and we needed to get into the mountains, which required a drive of several hours, so I borrowed two rifles from one of my freinds that lived locally to our hunt area,that was in our hunt group, I borrowed a 308 win BLR and my friend borrowed a ruger 25/06 bolt action
(All that was available in my freinds collection)
I don,t know if it was a lack of confidence, or a lack of elk in the area, but neither of us even saw an ELK , during the first 5 days of the hunt.
I eventually got my rifle back (big relief for me) after several days, when we went into town for supply's, but on testing the rifles ZERO, I found the scope was damaged in shipping.
(I don,t know how.. the rifle was in a padded aluminum rifle case, that was packed in a padded cardboard outer box)
I continued to hunt with the iron site 308 BLR, luckily the rifle proved to be very accurate, and while I never got an ELK on that trip, I did get a nice 4x4 mule deer.
and my friend got his rifle, back after a dozen phone calls, but the case it was in looked like it had been dragged, for 5 miles behind a truck at 40mph on a dirt road.
BTW In the mean time I came to appreciate the handling characteristics, of the BLR, and eventually bought one in 358 win, which proved to be a very nice deer/elk rifle, thats been used on many hunts as the camp back up rifle.
now many guys tell me a 358 win is only a short range low power deer rifle, but I know from experience that a 358 win loaded with a 250 grain speer bullet over 44 grains of IMR 4064 will drop an ELK very effectively with a well placed shot out to at least 250 yards or a bit more, because Ive seen it done several times.
several years ago I booked an ELK hunt and shipped a rifle to a local area gun-shop, several weeks ahead of the hunt ,because the air line I needed to use was known at that time for lost fire arm luggage issues in the past , well as I expected they "lost" my freinds rifle case (who insisted I was PARANOID) and only "FOUND IT" 4 days later.
(when our hunt was about 1/3rd over)
I arrived, and went to the local gun-shop to find it was closed for the day,It was only open till noon on Sundays, (I was really pissed off)(my friend got a great laugh, at that ) and we needed to get into the mountains, which required a drive of several hours, so I borrowed two rifles from one of my freinds that lived locally to our hunt area,that was in our hunt group, I borrowed a 308 win BLR and my friend borrowed a ruger 25/06 bolt action
(All that was available in my freinds collection)
I don,t know if it was a lack of confidence, or a lack of elk in the area, but neither of us even saw an ELK , during the first 5 days of the hunt.
I eventually got my rifle back (big relief for me) after several days, when we went into town for supply's, but on testing the rifles ZERO, I found the scope was damaged in shipping.
(I don,t know how.. the rifle was in a padded aluminum rifle case, that was packed in a padded cardboard outer box)
I continued to hunt with the iron site 308 BLR, luckily the rifle proved to be very accurate, and while I never got an ELK on that trip, I did get a nice 4x4 mule deer.
and my friend got his rifle, back after a dozen phone calls, but the case it was in looked like it had been dragged, for 5 miles behind a truck at 40mph on a dirt road.
BTW In the mean time I came to appreciate the handling characteristics, of the BLR, and eventually bought one in 358 win, which proved to be a very nice deer/elk rifle, thats been used on many hunts as the camp back up rifle.
now many guys tell me a 358 win is only a short range low power deer rifle, but I know from experience that a 358 win loaded with a 250 grain speer bullet over 44 grains of IMR 4064 will drop an ELK very effectively with a well placed shot out to at least 250 yards or a bit more, because Ive seen it done several times.