What will you use for hunting this year?

This year for dear and elk hunting like each that has come before for a surety I will not know until I head out the door to go hunt. Oh sure I have decided several times since spring until now and each time for different reasons my mind has changed. I always seem to start out with the idea that it will be old B00 my Marlin 45-70 just out of familiarity and dependability but then things like acquiring a new rifle or new mold in something seemingly perfect seems to tweak my thought pattern to dwell in other day dreams.



This year has been no different starting out early on with the acquisition of an Husqvarna rolling block chambered in 8x58RD. This handsome well built rifle captured my full focus and attention for a couple months and in that time I developed a respectable amount of load data for several different weights of our cast bullets always with the secondary idea or intent of hunting with it. Just when I had decided this would surely be THE ONE this year shooting what I settled on as a favorite load shooting a 200gn bullet at 2000 fps and regulating perfectly to the sights at 100 yards.



That was it a done deal and decision made until a lovely little 1869 Trapdoor carbine in 50-70 came to stay with me for a time. This is not an original carbine but is a cut down rifle but none the less a handy size hunting rifle that is satisfyingly accurate. So then the process begins anew with load development accuracy testing and sight adjusting to ready this THE ONE for this years hunt. This handy little light weight fast handling carbine has shown me that it has a thing for a Rapine 450gn bullet at .515" diameter at a BHN-9 with our NASA lube and a duplexed load using KIK FFG powder.



So that was for sure going to be THE ONE until a friend showed up at my place this summer with a treasure chest with my name on it yes literally with my name on it as he had picked up these treasures some months earlier at a gun show with me in mind but it took the several months for us to connect. We had a nice visit as he unveiled the treasure trove. In it were 6 never used NEI molds in the original green and yellow boxes from the original location that Walt started the business in Elpaso Texas. These were all appealing to me not only because they were new unused molds from a company that I liked very much and have done much business and is now out of business but also the fact the each design was for something that would be a welcome addition to our bullet design inventory a boon to business for sure.



However none of these welcomed treasures had any effect on the decision I had earlier made that the 50-70 carbine would be the rifle put to use this year, none of them. Buuuuut there was still something in that chest that did have exactly that effect. It was a Tom Ballard adjustable weight for a smooth sided tapered cup base paper patch design dropping a bullet with a .366" base diameter. Now this to me was truly a treasure for more than one reason. One is that I have known Tom Ballard for nearly 40 years and already have several of his molds each being a treasure itself. Tom is a relative neighbor by Montana standards living in Clancy about 125 miles north of me. Tom is now well into his ninth decade and hearing from a friend that recently visited Tom he too is no longer making molds. This mold is intended to make paper patch bullets for 37 and 38 caliber rifles and is something that has been on my must acquire list for a long time. I have patched our 286gn 9.3mm grooved bullet up for use in my 375 Whelen and it works great but I still have for quite some time desired a bonified paper patch bullet design in that caliber and this was it.



Now I am sure you can guess where this is leading and you dear reader are absolutely correct. The acquisition of this gem of a mold once again set things into motion with the intent of this being the one as to the bullet I would use for this years hunting. With a decision change in caliber of necessity there must also be a change in decision of rifle so here we find ourselves once again in the decision making process as to what rifle will be employed. This situation now is compounded by the fact that we have available two different rifles chambered in 375 Whelen one a handy fast handling iron sighted carbine ( there's that again) and the other a long barreled scoped rifle. Oh what a quandary!



This has totally upset the cart again in deciding exactly what THE ONE will be this year but thankfully it happened early enough on that I had time to develop good load for this bullet in both rifles. This will simplify the decision making somewhat to perhaps being what the weather looks like when I am leaving to go hunt. As I said earlier I likely wont know for sure until I am heading out the door. One thing for sure though one of these two rifle for sure will be THE ONE this year, well unless ah I guess you can figure that out !