Jack:

Thanks for the common sense/real facts about “practicing in the off season for deer hunting.” With all of the hyped-up long range shooting, from popular media, particularly movies about wartime snipers, it was refreshing to hear what many of us intuitively know but had come to doubt in ourselves. With all of the hype, it had made me doubt my beliefs, thinking that I need to take a long-range rifle class to be worth a damn. Even with my USMC rifle expert awards, I had forgotten what really matters, as too many years have gone bye. Your excellent points on hunting practice motivates me, and others, to get out there and shoot our rifles, zeroing at a 100, and then practicing various positions. I just want to remind you of the good work you do and say thanks again. Wisdom lives here, at The Survival Podcast.

-Vic
Newport, WA

Glad to hear you are still talking about teaching kids basic skills. A guy I work with and I are teaching a basic women’s pistol course this spring and summer. In addition, I have thrown out the idea to the participants to have a basic survival course for kids, i.e. fire making, knot tying, basic marksmanship, knife skills, etc. I can’t believe the interest. Definitely like to see it take off as an alternative to scouting, since it isn’t near what it used to be. I plan on using my own kids as mentors, since they have been doing this since they were able to do so.

Vote!
[ ] None of the above (Brewster’s Millions – Richard Pryor version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOwesWn3vU4

Yeah, I only got into shooting about a year ago with the Appleseed match. So my question was kind of an I don’t know enough to know where to start problem. I can find quite a few discussions and videos online about how to move from the basics of gun handling to long-range precision shooting but very little on the basics of gun handling to rifle hunting.

How does target scaling affect the understanding of range and hold over was largely the biggest single question on which gun to use. We allow some low impact farming in wildlife management areas here in Oklahoma. So the primary areas I plan on hunting in the WMA closest to me will have a mix of open field and neighboring forest edge with at max 300-yard open line of fire. Most are as you said in the 100 yard or so range.

The recoil isn’t really a problem with the Axis. Mine actually has less recoil than most of my friend’s AR-15s do. I think the Limb-Saver pad might have something to do with that. My needing an extra 3/4″ in length of pull is useful sometimes.

With regards to target design, I was thinking about putting a swivel on my target holder so I could mount it at an angle with 2 sheets of paper about 4 to 6 inches apart. The front would be a side view of the deer with no internals or other markings on it and the inner piece has a target with the vitals on it. Mount the bottom of the target holder in the range mounts and I can probably get about 60 degrees of angle on the target without having to worry about hitting the target holder.

Hey Jack, in my time working as a mechanic, we had a number of 6.0L Fords come into the shop, both to be rebuilt after failing and just normal maintenance.

Of all the trucks needing to be rebuilt, one was chipped, two were used to haul livestock trailers commercially, one was a flatbed delivery truck for a lumber company, and one was used by a construction company and had a fully loaded utility bed with a generator and air compressor mounted in it.

Of the other trucks that we didn’t have to do rebuilds on, both of them had never had issues, but were used more like normal pick up trucks, and not like heavier use commercial vehicles.

With the exception of the difficulty in changing the belts, the 6.0 is a good engine, it just seems to have issues when pushed to it’s limits, something that the 7.3 didn’t have because of how overbuilt it was.

I think the 6.0 is looked down on because of its older brother the 7.3.

Just my thoughts and limited experience.