I think PA still bans semi autos for big game hunting and was wondering if any other states banned them and how about up there in Canada

While on the subject, I was able to handle and shoot a Benelli R1 semi auto rifle a couple weeks ago.

Please allow me to say that is one butt ugly, innaccurate piece of overpriced trash. And "Winchesters" new Super X rifle doesn't look much better.

Yes PA is still in the stone age. Too many people thing all guys with semi's are AK totin lead sprayers. I would love to be able to take one of my M1 Garands deer hunting even if I had to limit to two rounds. Same with my AR15 for groundhogs.

I have an M1 and will take it on my next black bear hunt. Nothing wrong with a semi-auto for hunting.

-Ron

There is nothing wrong with a semiauto for hunting but there really are plenty of guys out there who would "spray and pray."

I to would like to take my M1 out hunting but the single shot I use isn't really a handicap.

Very few states prohibit semis for hunting, but some do limit magazine capacity to something like five.

I have used an AR-15 clone to take a doe, but only so I could say I had done so. It would be among my last picks for serious hunting.

The only semi-auto that I've ever seen that is accurate and dependable enough for serious hunting is a Browning BAR (and maybe a Winchester 100, but some of them were temperamental).

I can't feature using anything other than a bolt for serious big game hunting, but I do like to carry my BAR when there might be a chance of running across a mob of hogs (in which case "spray and pray" is a legitimate hunting tactic ).

i hunted a few years ago in Canada(New Brunswick) with a .308 Remi semi. I think of them in a hunting context as "self loading" rather than "automatic". It"s a faster follow up shot, but when do you really need another shot on deer sized animals if you shoot sensibly?
i would still use as a bolt action out of choice, even if i did"nt live in the UK.
i can understand anyone who owns a semi for target/fun/general purpose, using it with expanding ammo for hunting.
good shooting

Had a Rem 742 in .308 years ago. Was getting free military ammo in my job. I was young, and although trained in making the first shot count, did occasionally spray and pray. Sold the rifle and bought a Ruger #1. Surprised myself by bringing home more game!
If a person is willing to make the effort to carefully place shots, I have no problem with semi-autos. Have found that ranchers here in CO are asking if you use an AR-15 etc., before granting permission to shoot prairie dogs. Too many spray and pray types.

Stonecreek,
You must not have ever seen or shot any semi's that shoot as well as mine if you don't think they are accurate or dependable enough. With my scoped AR15 I can hit our groundhog shaped gong at 300 yards almost every shot. Actually if I take my time and actually was sighted in for 300 yards I probably can hit it every shot. Right now I am more interested in learning to use the mil dot feature of the scope and making fast follow up shots. When I go to plate shoots being practiced at fast follow up shots helps me knock down more than my buddies do so I like to practice it. As for my M1 Garand I have no doubt I can take a deer cleanly at 200 yards with it as I can hit an 8 inch square gong every shot as fast as I can get back on target. Fact is I am makeing new smaller round targets because the square is to easy to hit. At 200 yards I can empty my whole 20 round mag from my AR into the 2.5 inch head of the little metal man target I made. If that is not accurate enough for serious hunting I don't know what is. I see quite a few guys with bolt guns that can't do that well.

I love takeing guys from work to the range that don't understand why I like my battle rifles. But they leave with a new idea after I let them shoot. I took a guy that said he can't even imagine hitting the 300 yard groundhog target with his deer rifle and I had him hitting it with my AR in just a couple shots. Another guy who never shot anything bigger than a .22 hit the 8 inch gong 24 out of 24 times at 150 yards with my M1. He said he would never have believed he could hit it with a scoped rifle let alone open sights!

As far as spray and pray I have seen plenty of guys with lever guns and pump guns put some lead in the air. A non disiplened hunter will do that no matter what rifle he is useing.

Jacobite:

Before you get too hard on your great State, think that maybe some legislators who got the law passed banning semi-autos were thinking like "prof42" is saying. The mind set of knowing that the first shot must count can encourage careful shooting. In PA woods (like NY woods I knew) if you are snap shooting on that first shot -what exactly is the chance of getting off that second shot anyway? {assuming the first shot doesn't stagger him and that he even is in sight for a second shot? The south end of a white tail going north always looked to me like a yo-yo going up and down} Just my thoughts.

Gerry,
I understand many would mis use the semi but those same people already mis use the pump or lever gun. Guys that take snap shots or poke and hope shots will always be around. My arguement is why can West Virginia use a semi but not PA? The terrain is the same in many areas and the game is the same. The fact you don't need it don't cut it. You don't need a semi auto shotgun to hunt squirrels either but you can use one. If we use the arguement of what you actually need we could take a whole ot of stuff out of the hunters hands.

Again I doubt I would use mine much as I am truely in love with my custom .300 Win. mag for deer hunting. I would take the M1 out so I could kill one deer with it just for the novelty. The AR on the other hand I would use all the time for my varmint gun as I don't have a bolt gun in a varmint caliber and it would save me from getting one.

The only reasons simi autos are not legal is way back when. Some body in fish and game had big ideas that thye are unsporting.

Other then that there is nothing wrong with them.

But saying that I have never shot a head of big game with one. I could use them if I wanted with unlimted mag cap ect.

I have shot tons of varmints and small game with them just a blast.

When it comes to big game rifles most of mine are bolts, a few single shots and some levers.

Jacobite I always looking for a reason to buy another rifle not a reason not to buy.

Auto in PA ? They're apparently going to legalize the spear and atlatl for big game !! ..A single shot is all you need !

The only thing that pisses me off about semis are the cave men who unload a 5, 10, even more shot clip in half as many seconds.

Makes me want to put 3/4" hardened steel plate inside my blind!

friar

I'm sure there are responsible big game hunters that use semi-autos, but I've yet to meet one in person. Not that every hunter with a bolt, SS, lever, or pump is an angel, but the semi-auto hunting crowd seems (in my experience) to be especially heavily populated by yo-bos...

I love it when other hunters are using selfloaders. There is a fellow who hunts a mile or so to the northwest of our deer woods who empties his SKS a couple times during the season...ping...ping...ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping! No idea how many whitetails he's taken but he sure sends plenty of venison our way.

So guys is PA the only state that doesn't allow semi-autos for big game ?

So does this make a double rifle a 2-shot semi?

nordrseta:

A few years after WW2, there were a number of guys carrying M1 carbines into deer hunting woods in my state of NY. ( 30.cal, 110 gr. bullet - a cartridge so worthless that Marines and GIs in the Pacific theater were desperate to trade them off for the 45 ACP, 1911A1) Even then NY had rules about minimum foot lbs of energy for shooting deer but, of course, the gamewardens (as we called them then) were always merciful (and rightfully so) with vets. I personally shot one buck who had fled from a hail of fire from an M1 carbine. Your comment brought back old memories!

Gerry where did you read the minimum foot pound restriction for deer hunting in NY As far as i can tell all you need in NY is any centerfire

Tanoose:

Your comment got me to thinking. I always have assumed that any cartridge developing less than 1000 foot lbs of energy at the muzzle was illegal for deer in NY. I do know I have had this idea as far back as I can remember. I recall distinctly that when I was a teenager in the 1940s (and after WW 2) there was a discussion often carried over to the gun mags that my chuck cartridge, the 220 Swift (factory load of 48 grs) would kill deer. I always understood that it was illegal to use on deer in NY then. So I guess (in my longwinded fashion) I have to say that I just simply thought that was the law in NY for deer hunting.

quote:

I'm sure there are responsible big game hunters that use semi-autos, but I've yet to meet one in person.

When TN first allowed the use of center fire rifles for deer back in the 70's (prior to that it was all shotgun here in West TN) I purchased a BAR in .243, figureing the gas opperation would help with recoil, had a wife who hunted and son coming up. My Dad grey muled it from me in '79, and has been shooting it ever since. It has taken over 200 deer, never more than one shot per. It is accurate, and soft shooting.

I've seen idiots with every kind of gun you can imagine out in the woods, slinging hot lead down range at animals.

I've used a Rem. 742 .308 on several Mule and whitetail deer. Never fired more than one shot each.

One of my hunting buddies uses a 742 .30-06 and has killed several elk and deer, plus a Black bear. I think maybe twice, he's had to fire a second shot. (Of course, we all know that hunters using bolt action rifles NEVER have to fire a second round... or third.)

Another uses a BAR .270 W. Same thing. He shoots very well!

My uncle in Arkansas uses a Rem. 742 in .30-06. I don't even know how many deer he's killed over these many years... and I doubt he's fired more than once per animal for almost all that game. He's a crack shot.

Here in Idaho, it's not unusual to see responsible hunters using semi-auto rifles.

I've seen certain hunters empty a bolt action as fast as they can at deer and elk ... and missed every round.

I know an Idaho guy who shot at an elk with his bolt action .243, 23 times!!! and finally hit it once to put it on the ground. The hunter was outta ammo, so his partner who had killed an elk the previous day and was carrying a .357 revolver, put the elk out of its misery.

Ever see a lever action user spray and pray?? I have.

It's all in the responsibility realm, folks, not in the type action on the rifle.

L.W.

quote:

Leanwolff

Well put Leanwolff

quote:

It's all in the responsibility realm, folks, not in the type action on the rifle.

Dead On!

quote:

Originally posted by Leanwolff:
Ever see a lever action user spray and pray?? I have.

I have acopy of Charles Askins book "Rifles & Rifle Shooting" copyright 1912 in it he said.
" It seems a forgone conclusion that the rifle of the future must be automatic in its reloading."
I live in Ohio where we can't even use breech loading rifles. You can use a auto shotgun but pumps and autos have to have a plug limiting them to 3 shots.

Gerry i remember when i was 16 i was told that the 243 was minimum by a store clerk at leslie edelmans on long island but it was never in writing . I double checked and the law states ANY centerfire rifle and pistol. This doesn't make sence to me as the law is written you can hunt 600 pound black bears with a 38 special or less I myself have always used 30 caliber but i do know quite a few people who live upstate that swear by the 223 and 22-250 but most of these guys hunt in the open near there porch if you know what i mean.Just recently i bought a 25/06 to use on coyotes and have heard from alot of people online that this cartridge is a great deer cartridge. Old school i guess when i started hunting in the adirondacks back in the early 70's you had a 30/06 bolt action or a 30/30 lever.

Tanoose,
I am a big .30 cal fan myself but the 25-06 is a great deer caliber. Don't be afraid to try it with a good 120 grain bullet.

Jacobite, thanks i have a friend who has a small field on his property he built a shooting shack and the deer cross this field . he said all the shooting is done at exactly 110 yards. I think this may be the perfect spot to give the 25/06 a try. Later Tanoose

quote:

It's all in the responsibility realm, folks, not in the type action on the rifle.

I'm sure we can all agree the tool is not at fault, but in my experience a member of the "If you can't shoot well, shoot often" crowd is usually packing a quick firing repeater. Cause or effect? Does a man choose a selfloader to compensate for his marksmanship, or does the selfloader discourage precision by making fire discipline less important? You tell me; I don't own one. The ear cannot tell whether the "One shot, one deer" man is using a Ruger No.1 or a Remington 74xx, so perhaps there are more responsible users out there than we can know. But in the northwoods where I hunted as a young man the fellas firing five rounds in under five seconds were almost always using a Remington 742, Winchester 100, or a Browning BAR (though some of the snappy operators made due with the Remington 760 or Winchester 88).

Well where I live autoloaders are not permitted for hunting. However you hear some blasting you would swear were comming from one. I will guarantee you I can shoot better at 200 yards with my open sighted M1 Garand than many of the hunters takeing to the woods can at 100 with their scoped bolt actions.

Tanoose:

Your last comments to me stirred a lot of memories. I do indeed know about shooting "from the porch"! I was blessed as a boy and as a young man to live in just such an area of NY. (There was a steep hill about 250 yards across the valley and I often tried out calibers on the resident chucks on that hillside. -who got shot with everything from a WW2 Mauser to a 30-40 Krag Jorgensen. The deer would come out of the woods on the ridge line at dusk and but for a stern father I would have tried my luck!) Your mention of Edelman's brought back not so pleasant memories. I moved to Long Island about 25 years ago and, of course, soon discovered Edelman's. The service was lousy and most of the clerks were simply ignorant about rifles and shotguns. (To a man,however, they all carried pistols on their hips. As one who received a "CW" permit at 18 {legal in my youth}I was not impressed) You were smart to check the info given you. And, yes, in my youth, the 30-06 and the 30-30 (and occasionally the 35 Rem) were our deer cartridges. According to the "wisdom" of the day, a HV cartridge ( 3000 fps or better at the muzzle) had no business in the Eastern deer woods. And now a 25-06? Actually thinking about it, the powder capacity in an 06 casing might really drive that bullet - and for some reason I never fathomed, guys using various 25 calibers always assured me they were killers -and I respected these guys as experienced hunters - so good luck.

The use of semis is legal out here in the west in fact I used my M1 Garand to drop a mule deer in CO.I want to use it pig hunting with my handloads.

you can hunt with semis in canada but there is magazine restrictions (5)and some rifles are
deemed as restricted and can't be used for hunting ar's ak's and a lot of others

Well i'm trying semi-auto because i just love the looks of the new remington 750 and it comes in 35 Whelen which has caught my eye this year. I also like the idea of not having to give away my position by opening the bolt or cocking the lever if i screw up the first shot.