quote:

Originally posted by 45-70 shooter:
Ever see a DG double rifle with anything but a tang safe ? Nuff sed !

Yes, I've seen plenty of DG Double Rifles with outside hammers and stalking safeties that either engage the tumbler or directly engage the hammer.
Very safe, very effective and easy to work.

Colin

[QUOTE]Originally posted

:
Whether one carries hot or uses the silly-assed method of loading the rifle after the animal has leapt from it's bed right under your feet and is rapidly dissappearing in the brush, please refer to 45-70's post. Safe rifle handling.
QUOTE]


It is perfectly practical to hunt with an empty chamber, depending on one's hunting skills, style, and location.

If one prefers to hunt in a manner which enables him to spot and shoot his animal before it spots him, then a chamber which is empty until he has spotted and identified his game is quite feasible. Often he can shoot his game in its bed, depending on the time of day.

If, on the other hand, his primary method is to noisely beat the brush or walk so fast that the animal spots him before he spots it, naturally, he will have to hunt with a loaded chamber. Even then, he may have game escape because if he has a safety on, he will have to move it to the "off" setting, and he will have to positively identify his game before he pulls the trigger.

I believe safe gun handling is imperative with either a loaded gun, or perhaps even more important, with one which he believes to be unloaded.

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
[QUOTE]Originally posted



If, on the other hand, his primary method is to noisely beat the brush or walk so fast that the animal spots him before he spots it, naturally, he will have to hunt with a loaded chamber.
.

don't know too much about still hunting, eh?

Probably still hunted at least as many years as anyone else here has. Still hunting by myself is my primary method. Have shot buck deer (Pacific blacktails, Alberta whitetails, and mule deer), 6x6 bull elk, and my biggest bull moose sleeping in their beds by hunting that way, too. How about you?

Your posts contridite one another. If you have in fact killed those various animals in their beds, you sure as hell didn't come onto them by walking fast and beating the brush. You need to decide what it's gonna be, AC.

I think my posts are consistent. You must have mistaken what I said.

I definitely was not beating the brush or walking fast. I said I hunt with an empty chamber BUT that a person who beats the brush or walks fast will probably have to use a loaded chamber because he will be seen BY the game before HE sees the game.

If you re-read my posts in this thread I think you'll find that's what I said.

If he doesn't disturb the game and is a good still hunter who goes dead slow and knows how to look for game (and knows its typical habits), he can locate his game when it is asleep or otherwise undisturbed, slip a round into the chamber, and kill his game before it ever wakes up or becomes alarmed. I know that is practical because I have done it on numerous occasions.

Whatever.
as I posted, I think it's a dumb-assed idea. I much prefer to hunt hot and use safe rifle handling

I have carried my rifle for 40 years with the chamber empty. Hunting across the lower 48, Alaska, Canada and Africa. Sure I have jumped some game I hadn't seen and didn't get a shot. I don't believe the extra second or so gained by having a round chambered would have made a difference. Taught my kids and wife the same way. The three guys I normally hunt with do the same.

I will admit that I have hunted dangerous game.

If someone prefers to carry loaded that is their choice. Just as it is mine to carry chamber empty.

I've never hunted dangerous game except when I'd go downtown on saturday night but the question begs to be asked: Whilst you were hunting dangerous game with an empty chamber, how was your PH/guide armed? And at what distances was the game when spotted?
From everything I've read a few seconds can make the difference between life and death. How does Phil Shoemaker do it? No less an authority than Finn Aagard would find the practice funny. Simply stated, an unloaded gun is but a club. At best.

Anyone hunting in the deep woods where I hunt after Bear, Deer, and Elk would never get a shot off if carrying an empty chamber.

We used to train our kids to carry an unloaded rifle just to get used to handeling the firearm safely, but after that they were loaded with one in the chamber.

Carrying an unloaded firearm is unprepared.

quote:

Originally posted by DWright:
Anyone hunting in the deep woods where I hunt after Bear, Deer, and Elk would never get a shot off if carrying an empty chamber.


Carrying an unloaded firearm is unprepared.

An interesting conjecture, but I have shot black-tailed deer drowsing in their beds on three different occasions, just 35 miles west of where you are located, i.e., in the Coast Range just north of Walton, Oregon.

It is true that a person with an empty chamber won't get a lot of deer that are jumped in the Coastal Oregon woods, but the object of still hunting is to NOT jump the deer, but to spot it before it is jumped and to kill it before it spots or is alarmed by the hunter. Not always possible, but that is what I think makes it great sport, rather than just harvesting meat.

I used to turn out my beef and milk cows into that same Siuslaw National Forest land which bordered my own half-section of timber, and there were plump black bears around too, so emergency red meat was always available, together with the Salmon, Steelhead, Cuttthroat and Rainbows which used to be in Wildcat Creek before Lane County screwed up the spawning beds by dumping all the gravel pit overburden into it when they paved Route F. I managed to put enough meat in the freezer that my wife and I and our two kids didn't starve.

I am not a great believer in 'safeties'. I carry my rifle with an empty chamber until I get into the 'hunting zone' then chamber a round but keep the bolt open (unlocked). I don't like the use of a safety to prevent a loaded and cocked rifle from firing.

Another vote for the three position safety.

I have always hunted with a loaded chamber, safety on.
As soon as I hit my hunting area, the first round is chambered, as do my buddies when hunting moose in a team.

Red deer and roe are stalked or hunted from high seats, always with round in chamber and safety on.
In the dead still of the woods in a high seat, chambering a round whatever how silent I try, would most likely spoke them into the next county as shooting range is often less than 50 meters.

I have had roe deer and fallow popping up right under my high seat, and trying to chamber a round would have set their afterburners on fire in the blink of a second.

So far after more than 50 years of hunting this methode has worked very well for me.
And yes, having had both Rugers, Kimbers, Remington, Savage and Winchesters, I like the Winchester/Kimber safety best.

quote:

Originally posted by df06:
In my view, building a better safety is the least of Rugers problems.

Could use some improvement on the trigger of their M77 MK II's, the only it can be adjusted is with stones, honing the engagement of the parts, or by cutting the springs down. But I like the 3 position Winchester style safety.

quote:

Originally posted by Arild Iversen:
I have always hunted with a loaded chamber, safety on.
As soon as I hit my hunting area, the first round is chambered, as do my buddies when hunting moose in a team.

Red deer and roe are stalked or hunted from high seats, always with round in chamber and safety on.
In the dead still of the woods in a high seat, chambering a round whatever how silent I try, would most likely spoke them into the next county as shooting range is often less than 50 meters.

I have had roe deer and fallow popping up right under my high seat, and trying to chamber a round would have set their afterburners on fire in the blink of a second.

So far after more than 50 years of hunting this methode has worked very well for me.
And yes, having had both Rugers, Kimbers, Remington, Savage and Winchesters, I like the Winchester/Kimber safety best.

Yup. That's the hunting zone and a chambered round is in order. I haven't thought of sitting in wait. That would be a good use for the safety. Having the bolt hand up and closing it would be pretty quite too. Quieter than most safeties. Not so much a Lee Enfield.

I have still hunted lots of deer and some of them I have stalked as close as 6-8 meters before making the shot.

Chambering a round at that distance would not go so well

I have lots of different rifles, but I clearly prefer the safety I have on my 2 Winchester rifles and on my Ruger.

quote:

Originally posted by 45-70 shooter:
All Ruger would have to do is to copy Savage and have a THREE position tang safety. Tang safeties are always easier to use are quieter and are protected from being knocked off.

Ever see a DG double rifle with anything but a tang safe ? Nuff sed !

Ya, my standard action 458 Win Mag built on a stainless Ruger action.
If a person doesn't understand how to use a Ruger 77mkII safety then it's impossible for me to explain it.
There is a tang safety on my Savage and I find NO advantage to it. A safety should make the rifle SAFE the Ruger does that better than any other that I know of.

Because they don't have to... the people that are Ruger devotees buy whatever they put out, regardless of quality, and almost none of the disgruntled folks ever feed back to Ruger the reason for their disappointment.