I stated skiing at Skyline Ski Area (Pebble Creek) in the late 1950s when Cubco bindings were popular.The bindings would release my skis from my boots in a hard turn, as well as in any kind of fall. The skis were connected to the boot by a cord so that…
If you could only pick one rifle and cartridge to hunt everything you like to hunt in North America, what cartridge would you choose?
Every few years this question is asked of some of the best-known American hunters, as well as some who are not so well known but spend a lot of time hunting big game.
I have always enjoyed reading the responses to this question by the hunting guides, professional hunters and gun writers that are asked to participate in the survey and studying their reasons for the cartridge they would choose.
You might think that there would be a consensus among people who do a lot of hunting in North America as to which caliber they would choose if they were limited to only one rifle and caliber for everything from deer and antelope to elk, moose and the largest bears in North America.
Well, yes and no. There does seem to be consensus among those who hunt professionally, those who guide hunts, those who hunt and write for various publications, those who hunt the lower United States and those who hunt Alaska.
Another factor that determines their choices is what they generally hunt and the range they generally have to shoot at. There are also some who don’t readily fit into the general leanings of the group of which you would think they are most representative.
Let’s examine a few of the many hunters we could choose to study, and see if you can understand their thinking based on their particular circumstances.
Hosea Sarber, a game warden and hunting guide out of Petersburg, Alaska, loved the Winchester .270 and carried it or a .30-06 Springfield when on patrol. However, he often carried a .375 H&H if he was guiding a hunt.
Jack O’Conner, a professional hunter and writer who lived in Lewiston, was an avid sheep hunter in Idaho and Alaska. Jack, through his writings, made the public aware of the virtues of the .270 Winchester and usually hunted sheep with it. However, he would carry a .30-06 if he was hunting the larger bears of Alaska, unless he was being paid to carry something else and write about it.
Colonel Charles Askins was for a time the Senior Field Editor of American Hunter/American Rifleman and one of the most interesting characters I have ever read about. Charles spent a great deal of time hunting Kenai moose and the large bears of Alaska.
Being a lot smarter than the average preservationist, he chose the .340 Weatherby Magnum with a 250-grain bullet as the one caliber he would want if limited to one rifle. And no, 43 foot-pounds of recoil didn’t bother him in the least. You were wondering, right?
Craig Boddinton, editor of Petersen’s Hunting Magazine, like most respondents didn’t like being limited to one rifle caliber only. But he was a good sport and chose the .338 Winchester Magnum as the one rifle caliber he would want. Craig felt the caliber was permissible on deer, elk and moose, although a bit more than required, but was just the right medicine for big bears.
Rick Jamison, who was the rifle editor for Shooting Times Magazine, preferred the .300 Weatherby Magnum, for hunting all species of North American big game because it is flat, fast and accurate, and it gave good expansion on long distance shots.
Bert Klineburger, world class hunting guide and booking agent, chose the 7mm Remington Magnum. He hunted and killed polar, Alaskan brown and grizzly bears with the caliber. He also took a 7mm to Texas and hunted deer, javelina, feral hogs and coyotes.
Bob Milek, who loved hunting pronghorn in Wyoming, wrote several articles extolling the .25-06 as a great cartridge for medium-sized game, but chose the old .30-06 as the caliber he would choose if limited to just one rifle. He felt that the .30-06 would be a better all-around cartridge when hunting elk, moose and bears.
So the guys that spend most of their time hunting elk, moose, sheep and bears, with a few exceptions, seem to prefer 7mm, .30 Magnums, .338 Winchester and .340 Weatherby Magnums. The .375 H&H Magnum is preferred by some, particularly guides.
Those who hunt deer and pronghorn, but nothing bigger, tend to shoot non-magnum calibers for the most part.
Nobody likes to be limited to just one so-called all-around caliber for everything. There really is no such caliber, just a lot of calibers that will do if you will do your part.
One other interesting note is that even those who hunt a lot enjoy non-magnum calibers when the extra power and range isn’t necessary.
Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.
When I started hunting in the 1950s, many of the people we hunted with were my dad’s age or friends of my uncles. Since they were born back in the 1920s or earlier, they often hunted with rifles and calibers that most of today’s hunters younger than 55 years old may never have heard of or seen.
The reasons they aren’t used much anymore are because ammunition-makers stopped making ammunition for them, they were considered obsolete as newer calibers were developed, they were never converted from black powder to smokeless powder cartridges, or their ballistic characteristics were similar to more popular cartridges, and newer, more powerful cartridges along with rifles to fire them were developed.
Still, I see some of these old timers from time to time lurking in someone’s gun case, or at the range, hanging on a wall for show, or in Cabela’s stores where collectors can purchase them.
The last time I checked, Olin Corporation was making limited numbers of several lever action rifles such as the Model 76, and calibers that were originally developed in 1876 or a little after for collectors.
Once the Winchester Model 94 was developed it became the platform for many early calibers that were popular with American hunters.
I thought it might be fun to do a little research and write about several rifles and calibers that I am somewhat familiar with, but never owned with the exception of one.
The .25-35 WCF was introduced by Winchester in 1895 in the model 94, and was probably the first cartridge we would call a “small bore,” to be loaded with smokeless powder in the United States. It was originally a smokeless powder round, as was the .30-30 in spite of the black powder connotations of the hyphenated names.
Both Savage and Marlin used the .25-35 WCF in lever action rifles along with Winchester. Since the 1940s the .25-35 WCF has been missing from the list of factory chamberings in this country. I don’t believe I have seen one in the field since I was in my twenties. However, reloaders can still load for it.
The standard factory load for the .25-35 WCF was a 117 grain jacketed bullet pushed along at 2230 feet per second (fps). That gives it less than 1000 foot pounds(ft. lbs.) of energy at 100 yards.
The .30-40 Krag is one of the more significant cartridges in United States history, and was given to me by my grandfather on my mother’s side when I was about 12 years old. It was the first smokeless powder “small bore” cartridge to be adopted by the U.S. Army when it replaced the .45-70 Government in 1892. It was originally developed for the Krag- Jorgensen bolt action rifle and was carried by U.S. Troops at the battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba.
Thousands of Krags were sold to the public and used to hunt deer, elk, moose and bear. It’s ballistics were roughly similar to a .308 Winchester, but it was loaded with a 220 grain jacketed bullet that provided reasonably deep penetration on most large game.
Unfortunately, I sold mine because I thought it was too long and heavy to carry around the mountains. Now I wish I still had it.
I have written before about the British Lee Enfield .303 which was adopted in 1888 and is still not only popular with many American hunters, but is the current issue rifle of the Arctic Rangers, an Inuit unit that patrols Canada’s vast Artic region and who have an extraordinary ability to detect threats on snow, ice and in bad weather. Most of the members of the Arctic Rangers are decedents of previous Members of the unit and the Lee Enfield .303 rifles have been handed down from father to son.
The Lee Enfield .303 was a bolt action, black powder cartridge converted to cordite in 1892. It has seen duty all over the world in places like Africa, India, Australia, and Canada.
Oddly, The Lee Enfield gained favor in Africa as a big game hunting rifle, even for the largest and most dangerous game.
Today, a 215 grain bullet is pushed out the muzzle of the Lee Enfield .303 using smokeless powder, at 2180 feet per second. Only a 180 grain soft nose is loaded commercially in this country and it is listed at 2460 feet per second.
The .32 Winchester Special, a black powder cartridge which was introduced in 1903 and is exactly as powerful as the .30-30 WCF, no more so and no less so. The .32 Winchester Special will do whatever the .30-30 will do in the same rifles and at the same distances. A 170 grain bullet exits a Model 94 barrel at 2230 feet per second. The .30-30 drives the same bullet out of the model 94 barrel at 2200 feet per second.
The reason the .32 Winchester Special was developed was supposedly because many felt that smokeless powder would never replace black powder in modern firearms. Of all the strange, cockamamie reasons for a caliber’s existence, the 32 Winchester Special has to be the strangest.
The oldest cartridge on this short list is the 38-55 WCF which was developed in 1884 as a black powder cartridge and was one of the original chamberings of the Model 94 lever action. I’m assuming it was changed to a smokeless powder round when it was chambered in the 1894 lever action rifle. It was a little better deer rifle than the .30-30, at least with hand loads. It was originally developed as a Ballard target cartridge and was used in many of the fine match grade single shot rifles of the day.
The 38-55 used a 255 grain bullet that had a muzzle velocity of 1285 feet per second. Various higher velocity factory loadings were offered at different times, one with the same bullet at 1550 feet per second.
The factory loading was dropped in 1970 and resumed in 1983.
The 38-55 WCF was a very accurate cartridge that was popular for quite a long time.
Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.
This past September, when I spent time at the shooting range making sure that my rifles were sighted in, I saw a lot of parents instructing young children around 10 to 12 years of age in the basics of marksmanship. I may not be correct in all cases, bu…
I have a grandson who has a pretty good job in Williston, North Dakota. He is currently in training to become the manager of a store his company is opening in a town not too far from Williston and his parents.
My grandson loves the Rocky Mountain Northwest, and from time to time, just has to come back to Idaho to visit for a week or so.
The last time he visited us, I invited him to accompany me to the shooting range while I sighted in my .30-06 and .300 Weatherby magnum. I also offered to take an AR-15, which he enjoys shooting. So after he decided what handguns and rifles he wanted to shoot, we loaded them in the truck and headed for the shooting range off of 2 1/2 Mile Road just east of Chubbuck.
We took over two shooting stations next to each other on the 350-yard range and spent about a half hour shooting before I had several groups with the .30-06 and .300 Weatherby that I felt pretty good about.
My grandson was just finishing up shooting the AR-15, so I asked him if he would like to shoot the .30-06 and the .300 Weatherby now that I had them sighted in. He shot the .30-06, but refused to go anywhere near the Weatherby. He said it was too loud, even though he had ear protection, and it kicked too hard.
I wasn’t too surprised at his answer. He went shooting with me a lot when he was growing up in Pocatello and always refused my efforts to teach him how to shoot the .300 Weatherby without having the recoil hurt him.
The basics of shooting a rifle properly are pretty much the same regardless of the caliber. The problem lies in the fact that up to a certain point, one can stray from the basics a little without suffering sore shoulders and cheek bones because of recoil.
Most American shooters become a little uncomfortable with the recoil of more than 18 to 20 foot-pounds of energy coming back at them and lifting the barrel up and forcing the comb of the stock into their faces. The .30-06 has recoil energy of 18 to 20 foot-pounds.The .300 Weatherby Magnum has close to 37 to 38 foot-pounds of recoil energy, almost twice that of the .30-06.
I was 16 years old the first time I fired a .300 Weatherby and it was a real jolt, mostly to my cheekbone. However, like a true cowboy who was used to taking hard hits, I simply said, “Wow, I gotta get me one of these.” My father responded, “Not until you can buy it yourself and we review the basics of proper shooting form.”
I’m still not sure which part of the basics of proper shooting form I forgot that day, but I had a sore shoulder, a bruised face and a headache after the shot. Because of what hurt, I now have a pretty good idea what I did wrong and I have reviewed the proper shooting form. The next time I fired a .300 Weatherby Magnum, there was no hard hit to the shoulder and my face was just fine.
If you are going to shoot the .300 Winchester Magnum, the .300 Weatherby Magnum, the .338 Winchester Magnum, the .340 Weatherby Magnum or the .375 H&H Magnum, you really need to stick to the proper form. Place the butt of the rifle firm against your shoulder so the butt is anchored and has nowhere to go during firing. Keep your head high as you look at the sights or through the telescopic sight, so that the upward and backward recoil doesn’t catch your cheekbone, and use the sling on your supporting arm to minimize the upward rise of the barrel and comb of the stock.
If you are going to shoot rifles in the .375 Weatherby to .460 Weatherby class, which includes old African favorites like the Nitro Express calibers and the Rigby calibers, and the Jefferys, the same basic shooting form should be used, but prepare yourself to take a hit or at least a really hard shove, even with perfect shooting form. These calibers produce 70 to over 120 foot-pounds of recoil energy.
There really isn’t a good reason to shoot most of the popular African calibers while hunting in North America, the .375 H&H Magnum being a notable exception. Most of them are designed as dangerous big-game stoppers at 100 yards or less, have poor ballistic performance at the distances deer and elk are often encountered and they are unnecessarily wicked recoiling rifles.
Still, if you are like me, you just have to try one out if the opportunity presents itself. Besides, you don’t have to do it again if you feel like you were just in a head-on collision and decide once is enough.
Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.
“In hunting, the finding and killing of the game is after all a part of the whole. The free self reliant adventurous life, with its rugged and stalwart democracy; the wild surroundings, the grand beauty of the scenery, the chance to study the ways and habits of the wood-land creatures — all these unite to give to the career of the wilderness hunter its particular charm. The chase is the best of all national pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness for the lack of which in a nation as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities can possibly atone.”
-President Theodore Roosevelt
The hunter is as free as it is possible to be in this technocratic world in which we live. The hunter is able to project himself out and beyond himself, to be fully absorbed in a quieter, deeper and older world.
President Theodore Roosevelt was an avid hunter and hunted not only in this country, but in other countries as well. He was particularly fond of hunting in Africa, and the Rocky Mountains of the United states.
I often read his writing concerning hunting as well as those of other hunters who have written about their hunting adventures. Most of these men and women had a very deep reverence for all animals they hunted. I can’t think of one of these hunters who didn’t believe that the meat from game animals should be processed and used for their own use or who gave the meat to others such as friends or a “Hunting for the Hungry” type organization.
The idea of killing an animal and just taking the head, antlers, horns or racks as a trophy and then wasting the meat runs counter to the hunter’s ethic. I believe it violates the principles of wildlife conservation that I was taught from an early age, even before I was given a rifle and taught to hunt.
It is true that I have hunted jackrabbits to preserve the crops of farmers from being destroyed between Blackfoot and Arco, while others have participated in jackrabbit drives. I have used a rifle and shotgun to protect my family’s horses from predators, but I think I can justify those activities according to the hunter’s ethic.
When it comes to eating what we hunt, it seems hunters have known all along what others are just beginning to realize. Wild game meat is healthier than domestically raised cattle, pork and chicken.
Wild meat is free of chemicals and pesticides. Game animals roam as they please and eat healthier feed.
Bruce Watkins at Purdue University found that wild elk, deer and antelope from the Rocky Mountain region have greater amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids and a lower and therefore healthier ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 in muscle meats compared to grain-fed beef. This fatty acid ratio is also consistent with the recent American Heart Association recommendation to increase the consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids in order to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
So, it would seem that hunters had it right all along. It just took awhile for science to catch up to what hunters were already were doing.
Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.
Back in June of 2014, I wrote a column titled, “The mountains keep getting steeper,” after having a discussion with a friend of mine about why he had given up hunting and given most of his rifles to his children and grandchildren.
Almost a year later, I wrote a column titled, “Revisiting the mountains that keep getting steeper,” because my grandchildren were starting to ask me who was going to get my rifles and pistols when I died.
All the sudden I realized that I too was actually older than I felt. I started trying to analyze why I didn’t feel like an old guy and why the mountains and hunting didn’t seem to be slowing me down enough that it was much of an issue.
This past hunting season, a friend of mine who is quite a bit younger than I am went hunting with me for the first time. About midday he asked me how old I was. He knew roughly how old I was and was surprised that I didn’t seem to have any trouble keeping up.
Other than telling him my age, I’m not sure how I explained to him the way I stay in condition for hunting. I probably just told him that I hiked and mountain biked in the spring and summer and skied in the winter, and I have a physical regimen that I do three times a week at home, which was all responsible for me being able to handle the physical requirements of hunting each year.
However, diet plus sleep habits also play an important role in staying in good condition.
The first athletic diet that I’m aware of was the ancient Olympic diet that Olympic competitors were fed. It consisted of legumes and meat, which was switched to wine and dried fruit just before competition.
Many decades of nutritional research have contributed to sports nutritional supplements and diets for athletes that are promoted today. One of today’s early products was Gatorade, developed by Dr. Robert Cade at the University of Florida and named after the school’s mascot.
Fast forward to 2017, and we have for many years realized that we need more than just supplements to safely boost physical performance. We need wholesome meals that meet the requirements of people who are involved in strenuous activity.
We have also realized that many of us participate in strenuous activities even though we are not athletes in the normal sense of the term. We also need nutritious meals that will support our active lifestyle, and our nutritional requirements aren’t really much different than the athletes we admire.
Hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts are athletes in their own right, and the nutrition market is recognizing this. Several sports nutrition companies in the USA, specifically Wilderness Athlete and Isagenix, are offering scientifically valid and field-proven products for hunters, backpackers, mountain bikers, skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts.
Wilderness Athlete offers several supplements and drinks that improve human performance in the outdoor environment, while Isagenix always has provided products that are meal replacements for one or two meals a day, with one 600-calorie normal meal a day. They also have now added products that are one to two meal replacements a day for those engaged in athletics or strenuous outdoor activities, with one-600 calorie meal a day.
Both companies can design a nutritional program that will meet the individual needs of those they serve that is effective and affordable. Just remember that you are using these products in lieu of what you would normally eat or drink. I personally have one meal replacement and one to two normal meals on most days.
Getting sufficient sleep is also an important part of staying in good condition. I’m sure most of us have heard, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” I’m not sure about the wealthy part, but the rest of it is true. Besides, if you are healthy, you probably have a type of wealth that many people wish they had.
Being raised on a horse ranch, I learned early to get my homework and chores done so I could be in bed by 10 p.m. because I had to be up again at 6 a.m. to feed and water horses and still get to school by 8 a.m. I usually returned home from school about 3:30 p.m., trained horses and then fed and watered them until dinner time and then did my homework. If my father got home from his hospital rounds by 9 p.m., we usually went out to the barn and talked about the horses I was training.
Even today I feel like I’ve committed a sin if I stay up past 10 p.m., and I still wake up just before 6 a.m. most mornings. So I guess my father instilled at least one good habit in me, but it drives my wife nuts.
However, I believe my exercise regimen, my eating habits that exclude soda pop, junk food, etc., and my habit of shutting down about 10 p.m. and getting up about 6 a.m. have a lot to do with the mountains being about the same as they have always been as far as I can tell.
Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.
The type of shelter you take with you into the backcountry is one of the most important items you must pack, and one of the heaviest.To save weight on your shelter, you must minimize. Minimize the size of the shelter and what you pack in. If possible, …
Trekking poles have been standard equipment for hikers and backpackers for many years. However, hunters have been slower to take advantage of their benefits.
I’m not sure why hunters didn’t start using trekking poles when hikers, backpackers and campers started using them years ago. Maybe we thought they were just for the elderly or those with disabilities.
I think the reason I was slow to realize the benefits of trekking poles was my early training that the weight of my backpack should rest on my hips, with the heaviest items toward the bottom of the pack so my legs could bare the weight instead of my back. That is still the best way to pack your backpack. But research in exercise technology favors the use of trekking poles for stability and weight distribution when hiking or hunting while wearing a backpack.
Several years ago when my wife was nursing a strained knee joint, we bought her a pair of trekking poles to explore the trails in Yellowstone National Park. After that, I bought a pair of Black Diamond trekking poles that were adjustable to one’s personal needs. I slowly started using them for hunting as I realized they were beneficial to hunters in several ways.
The obvious advantage of trekking poles is safety through better stability as one walks over varied terrain in the mountains. With trekking poles, one has four points of contact with the ground, which improves balance and stability when side hilling, crossing boulder fields or walking over uneven ground.
Another advantage of trekking poles is that weight can be distributed across the entire body instead of just the hips and legs. Muscles and joints are less fatigued after a day of walking around the mountains using trekking poles. That translates into fewer injuries because of falls or physical stress on the body.
Trekking poles, with their wrist straps, can also be hooked together and used as a rest for binoculars, or for eliminating arm fatigue and making a solid platform for glassing the area for game while scouting or hunting. I also use mine as a bipod in order to steady my rifle for a shot, if I can’t see the target in prone position or the shot must be taken at a considerable distance and I want to lay my rifle on a steady rest.
Trekking poles can also be used to stabilize a tent if one of the tent poles is broken or if some additional tent support is needed because of inclement weather.
Trekking poles also can be used to move debris and thick vegetation out of the way while hiking or hunting.
When I am not using my trekking poles, I can shorten them a great deal and attach them to my backpack. I can then detach them and pull them out to the desired length, lock them and have four points of contact when I need more stability.
If you haven’t tried trekking poles, do yourself a favor the next time you go into the backcountry, and borrow or buy a pair of trekking poles and see if you don’t feel less fatigued and better balanced. I’m betting you will feel safer and more stable with four contact points with the ground.
Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.
I just returned after visiting my daughter and her family in Montgomery, Texas, for a few days. My son-in-law is an avid hunter, and hunts deer and elk in Wyoming whenever he can sneak away from his family road and bridge building and repair business.I…