DoneNOut
Well-Known Member
As per Jim Carmichel:
"These three rifles stand together in my gun rack, like three old men telling hunting tales and sharing memories of days past, of shots well done and misses too, shots close and far, some quick and deadly and others just lucky. And when I trace my fingers along their scarred stocks and feel the cool steel of the barrels through which so many bullets have passed, I can hear the whisper of the sheep mountain and listen to the songs of places far away. And I dream of hunts to come."
I guess you can look at rifles in two ways, as a "functionalist" or as a "romanticist", the latter described above by Carmichel. I heard one guy refer to his synthetics as "Four-wheel drive rifles", a rifle he could take in any weather. That is a very functionalist perspective. (I laughed when I heard the term, for it rings true) A romanticist adds an art to his hunting passion with his rifle. The rifleman and rifle adventure together, a level of trust builds and eventually he attaches to it heavy sentimental value. Like Carmichel, he remembers the hunts by the touch, feel, and scars on this extension of his body.
The functionalist is **** glad he has an all-weather synthetic rifle he doesn't have to pamper when quartering out a kill when he is cold, wet, hungry, and tired. The romanticist returns to the lodge, rifle in hand, to reminisce about the hunt and passes around the beauty that took the game.
The functionalist returns to camp and reminisces about how he took the game, and the rifle is back in a case in the truck where it should be. To the functionalist, passing a rifle around camp would compare to a mechanic passing around the wrench he used to rebuild an engine.
Now... I think most of us share a little of both these perspectives and find a happy medium. Thus, the reason to have a synthetic for the 4X4 function, and the wood beauty for the aesthetic value.
-Brad
"These three rifles stand together in my gun rack, like three old men telling hunting tales and sharing memories of days past, of shots well done and misses too, shots close and far, some quick and deadly and others just lucky. And when I trace my fingers along their scarred stocks and feel the cool steel of the barrels through which so many bullets have passed, I can hear the whisper of the sheep mountain and listen to the songs of places far away. And I dream of hunts to come."
I guess you can look at rifles in two ways, as a "functionalist" or as a "romanticist", the latter described above by Carmichel. I heard one guy refer to his synthetics as "Four-wheel drive rifles", a rifle he could take in any weather. That is a very functionalist perspective. (I laughed when I heard the term, for it rings true) A romanticist adds an art to his hunting passion with his rifle. The rifleman and rifle adventure together, a level of trust builds and eventually he attaches to it heavy sentimental value. Like Carmichel, he remembers the hunts by the touch, feel, and scars on this extension of his body.
The functionalist is **** glad he has an all-weather synthetic rifle he doesn't have to pamper when quartering out a kill when he is cold, wet, hungry, and tired. The romanticist returns to the lodge, rifle in hand, to reminisce about the hunt and passes around the beauty that took the game.
The functionalist returns to camp and reminisces about how he took the game, and the rifle is back in a case in the truck where it should be. To the functionalist, passing a rifle around camp would compare to a mechanic passing around the wrench he used to rebuild an engine.
Now... I think most of us share a little of both these perspectives and find a happy medium. Thus, the reason to have a synthetic for the 4X4 function, and the wood beauty for the aesthetic value.
-Brad
