There are tons of books and articles on how to pack a survival kit. Take a peek at Adventure Medical Kit’s website. They have an item for every possible disaster that you could encounter in the backcountry, and yet for our trucks we just take off without giving a thought as to what lies in wait for them.

So my point is that everyone has a survival kit, but do you have a survival kit for your truck? If not, you should. Nowadays nearly everyone has a four-wheel-drive vehicle, which means you can get back deeper in the woods. If you break down, you’re really in trouble.

When you think about it, our trucks are our legs and feet. You lose them and you’re sunk, so I think it’d behoove you to sit down and give it a thought. This is fresh on my mind right now. I’m up in the mountains helping a buddy build a cabin, and my truck wouldn’t start. Luckily a neighbor pulled up about that time and helped me get started. I then parked it on a hill so I can jump start it when I head home in a few days.

Oh, one more recent problem. Just a few weeks ago, we were running over to Oregon fishing. I had a blowout. I normally carry two spares but I had my jon boat in back of the truck and only had one.

When I took it in to get fixed guess what had caused the problem? A rock. Want to know how that I knew this? A 3 ½-inch rock had punctured the tire and was still inside. The worst I’ve ever had was years ago on a moose hunt north of Pocatello. I woke up three mornings in a row with flats. I had to go to town at lunch every day and either purchase a tire or have a flat fixed. Now I carry two spares. You can pick up a tire/rim semi cheap at the junkyard.

If you’re like me, you’re probably not much of a mechanic and even if you were, you couldn’t carry a shop full of tools, but there are a few tools and tools/items we should carry to get out of the obvious disasters.

I don’t always carry them, but in the winter, you should: tire chains. In snow and ice they give you get traction. And as with a lot of situations in life, put them on before you get in trouble.

You see a lot of trees fallen over in the woods, right? What if one falls behind you on a backcounty road? You’ll be stuck, so carry an ax and chain saw. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more than it does.

No matter what the season, I always carry a shovel. In the winter they’re good to shovel snow, dig snow out from under your truck if you high center. Last spring I was out whistle pig hunting and bottomed out in a badger hole. I had a shovel so I jacked up my truck, filled in the hole and off I went.

And for sure, do not trust the rinky-dink jack that came with your truck. Throw in a Handy Man jacks. I’ve been stuck a million times and had to jack up my vehicle and lay rocks or sticks under the tires to get unstuck (Curse of all curses).

Carry two sets of keys. If you lose your keys, that’d be a bad deal. Leave the extra set in your truck. You can break a window if necessary. Plus, you need to leave a set with your buddy. We were bow hunting over in Nebraska and a blizzard blew in. My buddy made it back to the rig before me but was half froze because he couldn’t get in.

When you replace your old fan belts and hoses, carry them for backup. I’ve heard you can use a pair of panty hose as a fan belt, but I don’t wear panty hose.

I’ve noticed that 90 percent of the time my truck starts sounding a little weird before it whacks. I’ve had this happen three or four times only a couple of days before I headed out on a hunt. Get it checked. It won’t get any easier to fix in the woods.

A few other items to carry flashlights, jumper cables, chain and a plug-in the cigarette lighter tire pump. Hopefully we’ve listed a few common problems that you can be prepared for.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

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.

It should come as no surprise that we talked a lot about hunting in the Rocky Mountain Northwest and what calibers are best for certain game and conditions.

My son-in-law likes to have his rifles built for him by a gunsmith in the Houston area. As we were talking, he showed me the most recent rifle that he had ordered from his gunsmith: the .280 Ackley Improved.

This is the rifle he plans to hunt deer, pronghorn and elk in Wyoming. He put a lot of thought into what caliber to have his gunsmith chamber his custom firearm.

Other than being a little heavier than I like to carry, I think he made a good decision. Besides, he is a lot taller and younger than I am, and probably won’t have any trouble carrying a 9 1/2 pound rifle all day.

P.O. Ackley, who designed the .280 Ackley Improved, was well-known for improving standard factory cartridges by simply opening up a typical SAAMI spec chamber to have less body taper and a much steeper shoulder. This created a larger, more efficient propellant chamber.

Interestingly, he was able to do this in a manner that allowed the parent cartridge to be safely used in the improved chamber. The key element was that Ackley’s chamber maintained the original dimension from the head of the cartridge to the juncture of the neck and shoulder so that the parent cartridge would headspace properly.

Although the .280 Ackley Improved started out as a wildcat cartridge, owners could still buy the .280 Remington cartridge at their local gun store and it worked fine and gave good accuracy when used in the improved chamber. Now, Nosler is providing factory cartridges for the .280 Ackley Improved, so it is no longer a wildcat cartridge.

The .280 Ackley Improved should appeal to hand-loaders who will have a variety of bullets and powders to choose from. Just a few bullets and loads I found on the internet are 3,177 feet-per-second muzzle velocity with a Rem. case, Rem. 9 1/2, Primer, 63 grains of Reloader 22 pushing a 140-grain AccuTip bullet, or 3,046 feet-per-second muzzle velocity, with a Fed. case, Fed. 210 primer, 60 grains of Reloader 19 pushing a 150-grain Scirroco ll.

If you prefer heavier bullets, 3,038 feet-per-second muzzle velocity can be obtained with a Rem. case, Fed. 210 primer, 160-grain AccuBond bullet being pushed along by 60 grains of IMR-7828, and 3,061 feet-per-second, with a Nosler case, Fed.210GM, 59 grains of reloader 19, pushing a 150 grain TTSX bullet.

This is probably the place for a disclaimer. Although the above loads seem consistent with the reloading manuals I have, never hand-load ammunition that you read about in articles or my columns. Always work up your loads carefully referring to reloading manuals.

A lot of top ballistics experts have contributed their expertise and research into the published reloading manuals available. Get two or three of those manuals and use them when hand loading ammunition. You will save yourself and your rifles a lot of wear and tear.

The .280 Ackley Improved looks like a winner as a deer, pronghorn, elk and moose hunting cartridge. Nosler, Dakota Arms and most custom rifle makers are making rifles for the cartridge. It rivals the ballistics of a 7mm Magnum with less muzzle blast, less recoil and more rounds in the box magazine. It is also highly accurate, mild-mannered and deadly in the field.

It will be interesting to watch and see how popular the .280 Ackley becomes as more people start using it. It already has an excellent reputation for taking down deer, pronghorn, elk and moose by those who have been using it for their big game hunting trips.

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.

By the time you are reading this article, we’ll already be a few days into the general deer season and just coming out of the general archery season. I didn’t kill a buck with my bow, so I’ll be rifle hunting during the month of October.

I think my favorite season of the year is archery elk hunting. How can you not love it? The elk are bugling, the weather is generally OK and you’ll be in the coolest country that God ever made.

But there’s something special and exciting about deer hunting, too. It’s the No. 1 big game species in America. I had a buddy from Pennsylvania tell me that they shut down the plant for opening day. From coast to coast, us hunters love deer hunting.

So if you’re new to Idaho, or maybe just new to hunting, one question comes up — what kind of rifle should you buy?

First, let’s decide what caliber. There are a million calibers to choose from, but I’d recommend anything from a .25-06 on up. I know, there’s a group of you .243ers out there that are crying foul.

But in the case of most hard-working dads, moms and kids, you might only be able to afford one big-game rifle so you ought to choose one that you can also use to hunt elk and bear.

I’m old school and still like the old .30-06. It has to be the most versatile caliber on the market. You can buy 55-grain accelerators on up to 220 grains and buy .30-06 ammo in every outdoor store, so I don’t think that you can go wrong with the trusty old .30-06. I’ve always heard that the 165-grain is the best size, but as a kid I always shot 180-grain because that’s what dad did. Now, if I had a kid shooting one, I’d have him shoot a 150-grain.

To contradict myself, I think if you’re buying a new rifle, I’d recommend a .300 Winchester Magnum. I have a .338 Winchester Magnum that I’ve shot deer, elk, black bear and brown bear with it, and it has worked fine for me. I got a good deal on the .338 — otherwise I would have bought a .300.

What brand should you buy? There are a lot of choices out there. If you get good ammo and optics, I think you’ll be surprised by some of the groups you can obtain out of some of the more economical rifles. Don’t think that you have to buy a custom-made rifle to be able to punch a tag. I get good groups with my Mossberg Patriot and my Savage 112.

Optics: Why buy a rifle that can reach out there and not get a decent scope so you can see your game? I put a 4.5-14 Leupold on mine. If you buy a cheap scope, you’ll be cussing it every time it fogs up and you miss.

Ammo: There are a few good ammo companies out there. Unfortunately, you’ll have to experiment with a few to see which one shoots best in your rifle. But don’t buy the cheapest ammo on the shelf or it just probably won’t perform. You want to buy high-performance ammo so it will shoot accurately.

Binoculars: With optics, you get what you pay for. Don’t leave any pennies in your pocket on this purchase and I don’t think that you’ll ever regret it. I got some Leupold BX-3 Mojave Pro Guide HD 10x42s.

I’m not saying that it is exciting, but the more time you spend glassing and the more you learn about how to properly glass, the more tags you’ll be punching. I’ve tested optics for numerous companies and teach glassing seminars at a lot of the big shows like the Safari Club Convention in Vegas, Dallas Safari Club Convention and Expo in Dallas. And yet I am amazed every year at how much game I see when I slow down and glass. It really works. Oh yeah, just like I say in my seminars, huh?

Like all game, deer are more active at daylight and dusk, so roll out of bed early. The early bird gets the worm, or in this case, the deer.

Well, we are out of space and I feel like I barely got started. Get out there and have fun.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.