Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote

[Reemty J]

Dave if you want to be a slave again, I am sure there are a few ol boys on here would buy you..........and make you call coyotes for them!!! We could do a silent auction on here.
Ever notice Hebrews are heavy in the fur business and finance? Has been that way for a 1000 years............also ever notice that people who leave Europe and populated America, they usually went to climates similar to what they lived in the old country. Norweigens and Sauerkrauts populated minn, the Dakotas, Montana...........used to the cold and farming. Wooden shoes went to places in the west where there was irrigation, that's what they did in Holland, so they knew what to do here and they are good at it.
Got happy fingers today, cant stop typing...........................

 

[DSheetz]

I did notice that the immigrants tended to look for places that were close to the lands they had left it made their lives easer as they didn't have to relearn every thing . I f you go up in the mountains around here you can still see the homes that they built in a lot of areas . They were short and most had sod roofs some were against banks so the live stock could graze on them also . If you go out to the grass lands most were built out of stones with mud and grass to lay them up with . They all had sod roofs timber was in short supply they had to make a several day journey to the mountains to get lodge pole pine to make roofs to put the sod on them . They were short small and had few small windows easy to heat good for the windy cold winters of this part of the world . If you look at pictures of the time period you will almost see a bird cage with a small song bird in it . The woman's best friend and company in a sparsely populated world where you may only see your husband and kids for most of the year . You would make the trip to town in the spring and again in the fall . For my Grand parents it was a three day trip to and then another three day trip home twice a year . They knew what water holes were good or what creeks had fish and rabbits for hunting or eating to camp at along the way . My granddad had an old 41-70 single shot that my grandma would shoot 410 shells out of to kill rabbits for the evening meal . They would have salt pork for the morning meals . You soaked it in water for at least a day before you cooked it to get some of the salt out of it . They lived on a lot of antelope . Grandma told me you shot them when they were bedded if they had ran any time soon they tasted terrible . It was an all day job when you shot one you dressed it and cut it up that same day . You then cooked it by frying it . She had a 25 gallon crock so that's what you stored your meat in . You put a melted layer of lard in the bottom of the crock let it harden laid a layer of fried meat on then another layer of lard . The heating killed the bacteria and the lard sealed the air out when you wanted some of it you scraped most of the lard off a piece that you dug out of the crock , and re did the frying of it so you had a hot safe meal . You used some of the same lard to fry your potatoes or may be some parsnips . As they had no electricity , refrigeration and canning wasn't an option then they did what they had to , to live . If you had running water it was in the creek by the house . Your wood cook stove had a water tank on the side where you heated you bath water , dish water , or any water you needed hot . You built a fire in the stove in the morning before you could eat or have a cup of coffee man oh man am I spoiled these days.

 

[Reemty J]

Dave, were you guys some of the neighbors on that show "Little House on the Prairie"?

 

[DSheetz]

Nope they had a home stead 60 miles north west of Douglas Wyoming out by the Bear Creek Stage Station . Granddad was born in 1901 in Missouri . Grandma was born in Kansas in 1913 . They each moved to Wyoming before they knew each other . Granddad was a farmer and Grandma had uncles here . They met and were married when she was 16 . Her Mom died when she was 12 her dad was a blacksmith and lived to be 101 . He was going to fix a leak in his roof and fell off the roof never recovered from it . Grandad's Dad was a bootlegger and moonshiner around St Joseph mo. . Even in the 40's and 50's there were a lot of people here that didn't have electricity . A lot of them did have gas refrigerators by then , you lit A pilot light and it heated ammonia to cause it to expand then as it contracted and condensed back to a liquid it cooled they even had a small freezer in the top of them , the cotton was pretty tall if you had one of them , and running water as well as lived 50 to 60 miles from town went to one room schools till high school . We got a lot of paved roads in the 60's the Eisenhower era that wanted paved roads for National Security . Here in Douglas we had mostly gravel streets till the mid to late 70's and a population of 3500 . I watched them build the four lane highway through my Grand parents farm down at Orin Junction on the North Plate River in the late 60's till then we only had two lane highways here . My Mom was a kid Born in 1933 when WWII broke out . They were on the road in a two ton truck, between Lander Wy. and Casper Wy. stopped for gas at Shawnee Creek station when they learned of Pearl Harbor . My Granddad went to work for Chicago North West Railroad then and was stationed in Lander . Grandma stayed on the farm and small ranch at Orin . The Army Air Core built an air base at Casper to train B-17 gunners . My dads brother Homer was stationed there for training as a tail gunner ( he was one of the luckiest tail gunners ever ) He was shot down twice over France and lived , most tail gunners didn't .

 

[DSheetz]

I don't know how J hawkers and Red legs got together . There parents both had people killed on both sides in the Civil War .

 

[DMP25-06]

I have been an automobile mechanic for over 51 years , and when I was a kid I was always curious as to what made mechanical objects work , so yes , I was and I still am a "TINKERER" , especially with my firearms .

When I get a "new" gun , whether it is new in box , or used ( New to me ) , I always dis-assemble it to verify that all appears to be safe and in a workable condition .
I will bed the action and recoil lug , check the bolt and receiver for fit and smooth operation , check the safety and trigger and try to adjust the trigger to a smooth pull of reasonable weight , and thoroughly clean the barrel . Sometimes , I will replace the trigger assembly with a quality , adjustable after-market trigger .

I will then install my choice of base and rings , and scope , and then bore-sight the scope using a Bushnell collimator-style optical bore-sighter .

I very rarely will shoot factory ammo , preferring to reload my own , so I will begin load workup , and tinker until I get close to achieving my goals of velocity and accuracy .
If I choose to buy a rifle that shoots magnum cartridges ( example - 7mm Rem. Magnum ) , then I try to work up loads that perform in the magnum velocity range that are accurate .

I have a Remington Sendero 7mm Magnum , that I bought used , that after tinkering , will consistently shoot 162 grain A-MAX bullets at less than .75 MOA .
However , when I had my first trip to the shooting range with this rifle , it would scatter the shots all over the paper , the empty cases were very hard to extract from the chamber due to the side of the chamber having a ridge , just above the belt area of the case that after firing the case would be held in the chamber until I tapped back on the bolt knob to extract the case which would have a scar on it's side . Also , the bore was so coarse that I could not get it cleaned .
A trip to my gunsmith corrected the problem in the chamber when he removed the barrel , spun it in his lathe , and using emery cloth , removed the bad spot in the chamber . Looking through his bore scope , he said that the barrel was so coarse that I should replace it , but , having limited funds to spend , I thought that I would try some of the bore-lapping bullets that might help smooth the bore .
Using the fire-lapping bullets ( 130 grain ) , loaded to a low velocity reduced starting load , I would shoot 1 shot and clean , and repeat for a total of 10 shots of coarse grit coated bullets . 10 shots into about 2" .
Clean again , then using the fine grit finishing bullets , 5 shots and clean ( this time the group was approximately 1" , and the cleaning patches were much easier to push through the bore ).
Clean again and shoot 5 more of the fine grit coated bullets , but this time all 5 bullets were clustered together overlapping each other , and the group size measured slightly less than .25" . The bore cleaned easily , feeling almost slick . That final group I ran through a chronograph and the velocity was 2400 FPS - SLOW.

So , yes , this rifle can shoot bugholes at slow velocities , but it defeats the purpose of the magnum case . Why load a 7mm Rem.Mag. down to less performance than a .30-30 ?

Accuracy does not always trump velocity .

 

[DSheetz]

DMP25-06 and that sir is how you made for your self a fine firearm that you feel comfortable with and can be proud of your accomplishment . For myself the accomplishment of improving things is what I enjoy the most and not having to spend a ton of money doing it .

 

[Reemty J]

WOW, now that was interesting!! Both you two........

 

[DSheetz]

Reemty , Thank You sir I really enjoyed DMP25-06 's discussion on making his rifle a shooter as did you . Have any of you guys been around working teams ? I'm not talking about sports teams lol .

 

[DMP25-06]

I grew-up in Fort Worth , Texas , in an area named Diamond Hill , which was just north of the Fort Worth Stock Yards , which was one of the 3 largest stock yards and slaughter/packing house centers in the USA , up into the mid 1970's , when the Swift Meat Packing plant burned-down . Armour Meats had a slaughter house/packing plant that was there until it burned in the 1960's .

We lived about 1.5 miles north of the packing houses , and from 1960 - 1963 , my brothers and best friends and I would walk from our homes down to the 28th St. overpass that ran east-west on the north edge of the cattle and stock pens , to hunt pigeons with our BB guns . The pigeons roosted in the steel structure under-belly of the overpass . The overpass spanned a railroad switching yard where trains were constantly bringing livestock into the stockyards and trains were departing with refrigerated boxcars with hanging and processed meats .
With the constant railroad traffic to and from the slaughter houses , and the 4 times per day passenger trains that came through at 60+ MPH , it was a dangerous area fo boys that ranged from 9 - 16 years of age , not to mention the Hobos who jumped onto freight trains to travel throughout the country back then . But we had our BB guns to protect ourselves .

We would shoot numerous pigeons , and many of them we would give to the men who lived there in the "Hobo Jungle" , a shanty-town of wooden moving crates where the transients resided . The men living there were grateful for the meat that they would add to their pots of "Hobo Stew" as they called it .
We always carried pigeons home with us , that we would clean and keep the breasts , that my Grandmother, Mammy , as she liked to be called , would cook for us .
We also brought pigeons to my best friends home , where Mrs. H would cook them for us .

One day as we were leaving the pigeon hunt at the bridge ( what we called the overpass ), Frankie H. and Mike H. , the 2 oldest members of our pigeon slayers decided that the walk home was too long , so the 2 of them decided to get on a slow-moving north-bound freight train with the intention of hopping off the boxcar when it was near their home .
Well their free-ride was moving much too fast to jump out-of when it passed their intended exit point , so they were in for a ride .
When their youngest brother James H. and I had walked back to Mrs.H's home , Frankie and Mike were not there . Nobody had any idea as to where they might be . All of us were scared as to what might have happened , but about 7:30 PM that evening , the Wise County Sheriff's Department telephoned to Mrs. H's landlord ( not all homes had telephones back then , there were only 2 homes that had telephones on our street ) . Frankie and Mike were "rescued" from that north-bound train some 40 miles north of where we lived by the Sheriffs Dept. vehicles stopping the train when someone reported seeing 2 boys screaming HELP while hanging out the open door of the boxcar .

Mr. and Mrs. H. , greatly relieved to know that their sons were safe , drove to Decatur , Texas , to the Sheriff's Department to retrieve their sons .
Neither of my 2 friends could sit down for 2 weeks .

A good ending to what could have been a tragic happening .

DMP25-06

 

[74honker]

Reemty , Thank You sir I really enjoyed DMP25-06 's discussion on making his rifle a shooter as did you . Have any of you guys been around working teams ? I'm not talking about sports teams lol .

My wife is very involved in the horse world in our state. I've seen as big as an 8 horse hitch in exhibition. Very impressive what a good team and handler can do. In the eastern part of IL is a large amish population. They have competitive pulls over there several times a year. Any horse that's good at what it does for a job is worth it's wieght in gold. And for what some of those sell for now a days you probably better own some gold to buy them lol.

 

[DMP25-06]

Reemty , Thank You sir I really enjoyed DMP25-06 's discussion on making his rifle a shooter as did you . Have any of you guys been around working teams ? I'm not talking about sports teams lol .

Dave ,

I presume that you are speaking about Military 2-man teams , spotter and shooter ?
No sir , I have not .

DMP25-06

 

[DSheetz]

The spotter shooter swap out often two hours on two hours off eye strain and complacency . But I was talking horse teams . My Grand parents told me about them and how you had something when you had a good team . They said if you were to make 20 miles a day you were up before day light curried and brushed them before harnessing and hitching them then you fed and watered them at noon , gave them at least an hour of rest . Then did the same before you took care of your self at night . Granddad said you had to work a horse or mule slowly into a full day of work or they would get sore and their mussels would lock up if you hadn't worked them in a while . They both took good care of their horses .

 

[DMP25-06]

Chapter 2 , in the story of " The Great Train Ride ".

About 4 weeks after my 2 friends , Frankie H. , age 14 , and his younger brother Mike H. , age 13 , had been rescued from their train ride into the next county north of home , their mother Mrs. H. finally removed their being "Grounded" restraints , and we all readied ourselves for the next pigeon hunting expedition .

As we loaded-up , Mrs. H. said " There will be NO hopping on trains this time , and Frankie , with you being the oldest , I expect that you will make certain that your younger brothers Mike and James (age 10) DO NOT try to ride the train . DO YOU UNDERSTAND ? "

So , away we walked down to the 28th St. overpass to hunt pigeons , for our allowed time .

When it was time to head back home , a very slow moving train was passing , headed north , in the direction of home .
Mike H. , who ALWAYS wanted to take the EASY way on everything , said " I'll see you guys later , I am not walking " , as he ran along side of the train , and grabbed the side ladder and stepped-up onto the foot stirrup.

Frankie shouted out " Mike , get off that train !!!"

Mike held onto the ladder with his left hand , and only his left foot in the stirrup , turned to face all of us , with his right arm fully extended , with BB gun in his right hand , and right leg extended away from the boxcar ladder , his body in the proverbial X position , shouts out to all of us ,
" SEE YOU LATER SUCKERS " !!!!!

Frankie's reply to Mike was " Momma told you NOT to get on a train " , as he took dead-aim , and touched-off the shot that hit his brother Mike dead-center between his eyebrows , with the BB burying into his brow .

Mike let out a scream and fell from the train , almost falling beneath the wheels and rail .
At that point in our lives , we often acted without thinking of consequences of what might happen .

GOD PROTECTS FOOLS AND CHILDREN .

That was our final pigeon hunting expedition to " The Bridge " , as Momma H. was VERY UPSET about having to dig a BB out of Mike's forehead , and she told all of us "Never Again ".

DMP25-06