I want to do a Bison hunt ,since i dont live in the U.S ,i dont want to go to the trouble of bringing my own rifle for the hunt, to avoid all the usual hassles .Ideally a Hunt where the Outfitter can provide a Rifle i can use ,that is a Sharps rifle [Shiloh etc]in 50 cal .Without trying to wade through all the ads trying to find the right one ,Can anyone refer me to a reputable person, who can provide a good hunt with said rifle ? thankyou for any recommendations

Ted Turner is probably the biggest seller of bison hunts throughout the USA. He owns several large ranches where they hunt bison. You might try contacting Arnaud Outfitting for more details, as I believe he's still the outfitter that runs these hunts for Turner.
www.arnaudoutfitters.com I believe is their website address.

quote:

Originally posted by tankhunter:
I want to do a Bison hunt ,since i dont live in the U.S ,i dont want to go to the trouble of bringing my own rifle for the hunt, to avoid all the usual hassles .Ideally a Hunt where the Outfitter can provide a Rifle i can use ,that is a Sharps rifle [Shiloh etc]in 50 cal .Without trying to wade through all the ads trying to find the right one ,Can anyone refer me to a reputable person, who can provide a good hunt with said rifle ? thankyou for any recommendations

Those rifles are made in Big Timber,Montana http://www.shilohrifle.com turn no the sound & listen to quigley down under theme

Finding the bison hunt isn't too difficult. Lots of different places offer them at various costs. It probably wouldn't be difficult to find one that will provide a rifle for you to use. But, expecting the rifle to be period correct, like a Sharps, may be somewhat problematic. Borrowing a good bolt gun would be easy.

I'd suggest doing a google search for bison hunts and then contacting every one of them to see who can accomodate you. Most the bison my family has shot have all been yearling cows for meat and we usually take them off the Twin Pines Ranch out of Wheatland, Wy. We usually take a bison every other year for the meat and every one of them has fallen to my 450 Marlin. I bought that rifle specifically for bison and it has tipped over about a dozen of them so far, each with 1 round. It isn't a Sharps, but it is effective.

Don't know if he is still in business, and can't remember his name right off hand, but there is or maybe was a guy somewhere in New Mexico that did offer a hunt using Shiloh Sharps rifles and I believe they were also horseback hunts.

I think he hunted on several thousand acres and you rode out of his camp horseback and he tried to make it an 1870's/1880's style hunt as much as possible.

If I can run across any info and see if he is still in business I will post the info.

The hunt Crazyhorse is referring to was included in the Dakota Arms Magazine (rip) and was written by Kim Rieman - I believe. She is now the American Sales Exec for African Sporting Gazette magazine. Her e-mail is rieman@hughes.net

I believe the "Old West" buffalo hunt referred to in the upper 2 posts is here

7 years ago I hunted at Ted Turner's Sandhills Ranch near Gordon, Nebraska. Killed a nice cow buffalo with one shot from my C. Sharps Arms .45-70. It was fun and the price was right ($750 at the time.) My guide, the ranch manager, carried a .50 caliber Shiloh. He said he's let several clients take their buffalo with his Shaprps.

http://www.arnaudoutfitting.com/about/about.html

I'm a bit ashamed to say I "hunted" buffalo on Turner's ranch outside of Bozeman, The Flying D Ranch. Long story short: three bulls were busting down fences, ranch boss calls my boss with a decent deal. We drove up the next morning, I bravely turned up the heat in the cab of Rob's truck to stay warm as we drove the three minutes to the pasture, then bravely walked all alone to the front grill of the truck and shot my double rifle drilling twice into the bull's side as it was munching on some hay from a bale they set out that morning. A dude ran up and tried to take the ear tag off of the bull before I got there. I was not allowed to keep the yellow ear tag.

I wasn't disappointed as I was told that this is what would happen; no hunting, just harvesting.

My point: Rob is an awesome guy who runs a great operation and they can set up a memorable trophy bull hunt in the middle of the ranch, but make SURE that's what you set up if you're coming all this way. The management bull hunt can sometimes be a pasture shoot vs. a hunt.

I'm assuming if you ask Rob he may be able to set you up with a Sharps for the hunt.

The Flying D is a beautiful place to put down a nice bull buffalo and most of the local taxidermists have done several bulls and will do a nice job with a mount, though a European mount of a buffalo is pretty nice, cheap and simple.

The meat is out of this world. Too bad you'll have to charter a boat to bring all of it back to Australia with you!

Mt Al, I like your style. Thanks for the giggles!

I have seen the info on the hunt listed above, but the hunt I am talking about was being done by a guy in eastern or north eastern New Mexico.

I saw the outfitter a couple of times at the Texas Trophy Hunters Extravaganza show in Fort Worth, used to know a guy that went on it, lost touch with him.

If I remember right the cost of the Trophy Bull hunt was like $3500.00.

I will keep looking and see if I can scare up the info.

quote:

Mt Al, I like your style. Thanks for the giggles!

That is the way most Bison hunts are.

Bison have evolved over the centuries to where they are not really impressed with human superiority, so going out shoot one is usually that with very little of what many would consider as hunting, actually involved. JMO.

Tankhunter:

If you were to post a note like this on the Shiloh Rifles board "Shooter to Shooter" as found here I wouldn't be surprised to find several folks with Sharps rifles who would be glad to help.

Another possibility would be to contact Lee Hawes by email from here and see what he has to say. I've taken a bison with Lee a couple of times (and am going back in October) and you will definitely have a good time there.

If he doesn't have an appropriate rifle to lend let me know and I'm sure I can come up with something built before 1880, BP only, of course.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

That is the way most Bison hunts are.

Bison have evolved over the centuries to where they are not really impressed with human superiority...

Bison hunting actually can be done "right" in unfenced areas and the animals are actually quite impressed with human superiority to the point where a lot of people go home empty every year from places like the Henry Mountains in Utah or the House Rock area of Arizona. There are also the Canadian options or places like the Crow reservation in Montana. These are much "better" options from a "hunt" perspective but...bring your checkbook.

JMHO

quote:

Originally posted by Kamo Gari:
Mt Al, I like your style. Thanks for the giggles!

Thank you Kamo! I wanted the world to know about my bravery (NOT!).

The buffalo meat was so good that I might get brave again on a cow buffalo this winter if, as usual, I don't get an elk.

If you're looking for a real 'hunt' you'd better get a tag for the House Rock area in Arizona, or the Henry Mountains in Utah. Good luck on either of those, though. Pretty much all other bison 'hunts' are more of a shoot. The management bull I shot on the Flying D was just a shoot, but the fellow who took my son and I out, JT Thompson, made it an interesting day and we spent about 1/2 a day looking at buffalo before finally going over to where 'the' buffalo was hanging out. There were two bulls on a more remote area of the ranch, and while it wasn't difficult, JT did make an effort to turn it into something of a hunt. If you don't care about that, it can really be just a shoot. The outcome was never in doubt, but at least it had some flavor of hunting associated with it.

A couple quick stories. We were driving along one of the ranch roads and we came to a gate. Now, this wasn't your typical barbed wire gate, but rather a nice welded steep gate. As I opened the door to get out and open the gate, JT said to stay in the truck. He then flipped down the visor and pushed the button on a garage door opener. The gate raised and we drove on. I told JT that I'd never seen a solar powered electric gate like that before. He just looked at me and said "Ted doesn't like to get out to open gates."

While we were there, Ted Turner was hunting pheasants on anther area of his ranch. They'd released some raised birds for him to hunt, the evening prior. He was on the radio a couple times, as he couldn't find the pheasants and kept asking the ranch hands where they'd released them. JT finally told him he was in the wrong creek drainage. He then looked over at me and smiled, saying "We released the pheasants in one creek bottom and told Mr. Turner they were in another. Makes it a bit more of a hunt, you know. At least this way he has to get out and hunt a bit." I guess that's kinda like their buffalo hunts.

I have no idea about the agent linked to below....but there are only a very few outfitters who hunt bison in BC. You might do some searches and find them to try to work yourself a deal on a real hunt. Even $6500 is a pretty darned good bargain for free roaming bison these days.

http://cgi.ebay.com/BISON-BUFF..._trksid=p3286.c0.m14

crazyhorse are you thinking of this outfit? http://www.folsomoutfitters.com/bison-hunting.htm

Jeremy Gugelmeyer
www.sagebrushhunts.com

Has anyone hunted with folsom outfitters? I'd be interested if they have good references. They seem reasonable and close (I'm in Colorado Springs)

Chuck

What is the gun in this picture from Folsom's website?

Also lots of dangerous charging Buff's in the background

Don't think I can call it a hunt, but it looks like fun and lots of low fat Red Meat to eat!



Chuck

quote:

Originally posted by TrackersNZ:
What is the gun in this picture from Folsom's website?

Looks like a Sharps mod 1863 percussion cap rifle.

Without a good view of the breech, its hard for me to tell.

John

Noooo Sir. That is the Model of 1874 Quigley Model by Shiloh Sharps, who built the rifles for the movie in Big Timber, Montana. Contact them.

If that fails, send me a PM with the planned date, and maybe we can work something out to use on of my Sharps. Could you live with using a puny 45-90 that has killed two with one shot apiece?

Rich

i've got a buffalo hunt in northern new mexico
that might interest you.
the herd is on top of a 4000 acre cedar covered mesa.
this is not your typical buff hunt as you have to go into the cedars after them,they are not feed or pampered in any way.
i killed 5 in dec of 09 and will kill 3 more this month,if i can find them.
if sucessful finding the last 3 bulls i will have none left until dec of 2010.
that said i'm buying grandpa bulls 15+ yrs old to replace them in febuary and they will be
wild as can be and available in dec.
the cover is tight to dense and you HAVE to hunt these buff
the shots on the last 5 were 30-50 yds and i'm packing a 375 for backup as there are 50+ animals in the mix and they get alittle
jacked up when you are trying to get in on the desired one.
thou i don't own a sharps there are friends of mine that would loan me one for the hunt.
PM me if this sounds like something you may have some interest in.

Apply for a Wyoming bison tag, nonresident, pretty pricey, if you draw, I will gladly go along and I have a spare rifle or two. If you don't draw, do a ranch hunt.

The Crow Reservation in Montana has hunts to, last time I talked to one of the organizers, they did the TeePee tent and all.

Hi Ravenr, PM me with details. I plan to take my 500 Jeffery with me as it's the only high powered rifle I own these days. My boys took all the rest lol ... I can shoot it pretty well, not quite as well as the 270 I hunted with for 30 years, but getting there ...



Chuck

I outfit for Buffalo in South Dakota and I have rifles you can use. Not sure I want to but maybe we could even arrange you using my original Sharps Model 1874 45 - 70. Let me know if you are interested.

I don’t know who made it (Shiloh, Pedersoli, Uberti, etc.) it’s hard to tell from that picture but Idaho Sharpshooter is right, it is a 1874 "Quigley/Down Under" Model. In the movie I don’t recall a patchbox on Quigley’s rifle. I guess I need to watch it again.

quote:

Originally posted by MickinColo:
I don’t know who made it (Shiloh, Pedersoli, Uberti, etc.) it’s hard to tell from that picture but Idaho Sharpshooter is right, it is a 1874 "Quigley/Down Under" Model. In the movie I don’t recall a patchbox on Quigley’s rifle. I guess I need to watch it again.

Patchbox is an option on any sharps rifle.

John

A patchbox may well be an option but I was wondering why the makers advertise their Quigley models with one when I don’t remember one on the rifle used in the movie. I still need to watch that movie again, maybe I just missed it.

quote:

Originally posted by TrackersNZ:
Also lots of dangerous charging Buff's in the background

LOL, They may be content chewing on the hay in the background but trying going over there and driving them out of the picture on foot. You may be successful or you may wake up and find yourself on a medivac helicopter in real serious pain.