What got me thinking about this thread was a phone conversation with my buddy Mark Dobrenski from my home-town and here at AR as well as the recent "climate" on this BB.

Mark and I have a lot of good phone conversation's about everything under the sun. Mark's a good, honest guy and keen observer with a ton of experience "in the field." He has more game experience than me to and I take his idea's very seriously... usually we agree much more than we disagree!

Anyway, we got to talking about intellectual honesty in idea's surrounding game calibers, etc., the other night. It sort of prodded me to thinking about a lot of different issues for a thread.

Like...

How many guy's on these boards make dogmatic statement's about caliber selection based on the taking of ONE game animal, a FEW game animal's or none at all (reading articles...)? I actually think a person would have to spend a life-time with perhps TWO cartridge's and one bullet weight (each cartridge) used in conjunction with one game animal-type to make any really difinitive (dogmatic) statement's about much of anything. Granted, there is a sort of "collective wisdom" that comes down through the generation's and is often reliable... but little nuances like new bullet design can change all the ideas's of the past.

How about common decency? I often get the feeling that most of what we do on these boards is "talk over" eachother... that's a shame. If I read something good, I usually try to compliment, credit or reference that person's remark's... women don't seem to require "schooling" to be "inclusive" in this sort of setting... we men seem to be all about "hearng ourselves talk"... pity!

Well, anyone have anything to add or am I the only "odd ball" who has these sort of thought's...?

BA

[ 08-02-2002, 10:21: Message edited by: Brad ]

Brad,

I do quite a bit of "eyeball rolling" on both those topics on this forum. But we tend to forget eyeball rolling is supposed to be a substitute for opening one's mouth. If one then jumps in with provocative remarks and belligerence he simply wasted a good eyeball roll.

The experience thing is a non-issue if I'm not paying someone for a service that is dependent on their experience. The .270/06 debate is a huge eyeball roll. Even the velocity/shock vs. frontal area/meplat get a roll for non-DG. I cull most of the fluff topics with a little common sense.

(While bullet performance is important, we spend far too much time talking about terminal ballistics around here. I don't need help on making the shot , I need help making the opportunity. Judging on content this is a shooting, not hunting, forum)

We all base actions daily on little or no experience. I've bought premium bullets other than Partitions when I've never had a Partition fail. Why would I do that?

If someone is using a product different from my preference I don't tell them mine is better unless I believe they are risking losing animals or causing them to needlessly suffer.

As far as manners and class? They're always optional for adults, and unfortunately too many opt out. Blame the rude children of failed mothers.

Nothing to do about that except not to spread it.

IMHO you must never forget where you are...
An internet forum board.Take what ever you get
here for what it's worth.
Additionally I find with a little attention you
can separate the been there done that guys from the bs boys.
As far as one kill authorities,I can usually gleen
something even from them.I don't believe you need
to kill 50 elk to be able to give insight on hunting elk.After all someone having hunted elk
once does have more experience than someone who
has never gone.And sometimes on his first hunt he
may have experienced something that the expert has
not ran into yet.You have to separate the wheat
from the chaff so to speak.
Jeff