It amazes me how many people call to order ammo days before they leave on a hunt they have planned for over a year in advance. How do you not have your rifle dialed in and zero'd perfectly, a month or two prior to leaving? How do you wait to order new ammo (ammo they've never shot in their rifle before) days before you leave on a big hunt you've spent thousands of dollars on already? The MOST critical part of a successful hunt is having your rifle dialed in with the load and bullet you are shooting to harvest your animal. And yet hunters still wait until the last possible second to order ammo, and they won't even have time to shoot it until after they leave. That is setting yourself up for disappointment. Amazes me! Rant off.

You ask good questions. But there probably won’t be any satisfactory answers from those folks.

As for me, I am wayyyy past ready. If I could think of anything left to do, I’d do it.

Wish I could say I was much better.

I normally wait until last minute to finish everything before I leave on a trip.

"most" of The people who go on these expensive hunts really aren't into shooting and planning like "we" are.

Like when people I know want me to clean their guns and go sight them in for them...really ??? this is most of the fun...

We did small time outfitting for almost 16 years, pretty well done with that now though. People never cease to amaze me, as Chad's example illustrates. We had a guy show up one year on an aoudad hunt and asked us if we'd make sure his rifle was zero'd before we went hunting. "No problem" was out response, then he proceeded to show us his scope in one hand, and rifle in the other...........


Chad's example is a good one as to why most outfitters will want to watch you shoot your rifle before you start hunting.

Wish I could say that it was better "back in the day" but it really wasn't. Back in the '70s I used to earn some pocket money working at a 100 yard indoor range. The week before the opening of the season was sheer madness; we seldom got out of there before 11:00 PM. So (with all summer to come see us and get their stuff together while shooting in the air conditioning), they'd wait 'til the last minute. And of course a significant percentage couldn't sight their own equipment in, so they'd pay us range rats to do it for 'em...they furnish the ammo, we'd sight 'em in. $5 for standard calibers, $7 for magnums. A day spent doing that can make you start to get twitchy, so I got to where I could put 'em close with three rounds. Bore sight at 25, then fire one round. Crank in the rough corrections while running the target downrange to 100. One more good squeeze at 100. "Final" correction, then confirm with the third shot. Hey, it wasn't gonna win Camp Perry for 'em. but it was WAY closer than they'd been able to manage!

The silliness didn't stop there, either. Picture this: nimrod burns up the ammo he'd brought getting himself into the general vicinity of the bull. Let's say he was shooting Remington .30-06, 150 grainers. On his way out of the shop, he'd buy a box of Winchester 180 grain stuff. I'm sure that ended well...

Sounds like the guys I worked with raised sons that are continuing the proud traditions!

Mark

It is like those that decide they want to start bow hunting the week season opens. Buy a compound bow and think they can just go shoot their deer.

Or go to a public range the day before season to watch the craziness

Why they do it I have no idea

When I was a kid being coached by the people I had available....it would take us a box of shells to sight in a gun.

Now it takes me about 3 as you stated in most cases


A quick zero is fairly easy to acquire if the gun likes the ammo

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When I was a kid being coached by the people I had available....it would take us a box of shells to sight in a gun.

Now it takes me about 3 as you stated in most cases


A quick zero is fairly easy to acquire if the gun likes the ammo
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Amen to this!

And as Chad suggests, some folks just don't seem to grasp the relationship between rifles, optics and ammo. You can't just dink with one leg or another of this triad and expect things to remain the same.

Another favorite story that came out of my time working at that range involved a fellow that had recently mounted a scope on his old trusty M94 "thutty-thutty". Of course the top ejection of the 94's action required the use of a side mount. When he called me over for assistance, he was positively baffled as he was having absolutely no luck getting the scope and the rifle to behave. I checked through the spotting scope and his target looked like it had been hit with a couple of rounds of 12 gauge 00 buck...

As I was checking the mount and rings to see if something was loose the problem jumped out at me: the scope had been mounted with the tube rotated 90 degrees to the left. When I asked about it, he told me that he was concerned about the rifle ejecting properly with that pesky windage knob sticking out there in the way so he'd just loosened the rings and turned it out of the way!

I ran him out a fresh target while explaining to him that the scope doesn't know "up & down" or "right & left", only "this way & that way". I got him sighted in (I left the scope right where it was!) but I always wondered if he remembered his "super-modified" scope adjustment instructions!

Mark

Chad, Chad, Chad, that you could so completely misunderstand what it is that makes a hunt successful probably is due to your bias that comes from years of experience precision loading ammunition to give peak performance for shooters (including hunters). After all, how many times has it been said on this very forum that hunting isn't about killing. It is about getting out into the woods and communing with nature, re-establishing contact with God and his majesty, and the experience of being with friends. Holy cow, I don't even know why people bother to take rifles or weapons hunting anymore. But, I guess you gotta take a gun along to call it hunting. Otherwise, it is just camping or hiking.

I hunt with a gentleman, occasionally, that worked as a gunsmith for 10 years after moving to Texas from Washington state where he guided hunts. He has recounted to me numerous stories about with people about which you are speaking. He had a guy show up for a bear hunt from out of state. The man brought 3 rounds of ammunition with him of some unique mongo load that you can't get at the local hardware store in backwoods Washington. Danged if he didn't drop his rifle on the first day of the hunt, knocking his scope akilter. No problem my buddy said, we will just get you rezeroed and you will be good to go, but the guy only brought 3 rounds. Why did he only bring 3 rounds? Because he wasn't going to need more than 3 to kill a bear. Why would he need to bring more ammo than what was needed for the task? That would be ridiculous, right? People really do have that sort of mentality and lack of foresight or consideration.

I had commented to my buddy about the craziness at the local range on the weekend just before deer season. I could not believe that I saw guys use paper plates as targets, put them at 50 yards, and if they could get 3 or 5 shots anywhere on the plate at that distance, they were good-to-go. I was amazed to see the guy next to me shooting ball ammo and getting a 7" group at 50 yards with a scoped rifle and proclaiming he was good to go for next weekend. So the guy was checking zero with ammo that he wasn't going to be hunting with and was satisfied with a 14 MOA group. I checked his plate after he left. He had 5 shots, vertically strung, mostly about 3" left of center. I have since been told that a paper plate is the same size as the kill zone on the deer, so why waist the money on getting a proper zero if you can hit a paper plate-sized target? I sincerely hope he was hunting over a feeding that was much closer than 50 yards.

As a gunsmith, my buddy replied how he would regularly mount scopes on rifles for customers and bore sight them. They had so much negative feedback from customers, they started handing out a sheet of instructions with the same information they went over with customers verbally about their bore sighted rifles. He would explain that the customer needed to go to the range and properly and fully zero the rifle with the ammunition he planned on hunting with, that the bore zero would probably get him on paper at 50 yards but that was about it. The customers would leave and then come back after the opening of deer season, proclaiming their new scope was defective or that my buddy had not zeroed the gun properly for them and that he had ruined their hunt as a result. It was always some sort of trophy buck, once in a lifetime sort of event that he apparently screwed up for the customer. He would ask the customer about the customer's experience at the range to zero the rifle and virtually every time, either the customer didn't go to the range to zero the rifle properly, or didn't attempt to zero it with the hunting ammo used (because that is too expensive to waste on zeroing). After all, ammo is ammo, right? If you zero for one, you zero for all.

Now there is nothing wrong with enjoying God's majesty, time with friends, and just getting out and about in the great outdoors. But if I have the opportunity to pull the trigger, by golly, I want the animal at which I am aiming to be dead and one of the best ways to help assure that happens is to have a properly zeroed rifle. I will pre-zero with cheap ammo and then refine my zero with the ammo I am going to be using for hunting. In the grand scheme, even if using expensive ammo, the cost of zeroing relative to the other expenses of hunting are fairly inconsequential, but some people are just too cheap, too lazy, or too determinately ignorant.

Sad to see nothing has changed in the last 40 years. My dad had a man bring in his rifle to get it cleaned as it would not shoot in cold weather and to get some custom ammunition loaded and sighted in. It had to be one of the dirtiest rifles I have ever cleaned, it looked like he used Vaseline to rust proof it and rolled it in dirt. Got it all together with a light lubricant and put the rifle in the deep freezer overnight at -20* and it fired and cycled perfectly.
When he returned from his Colorado hunt he was mad as heck saying the rifle wouldn't fire just like last year and wanted his money back on the ammo. Dad asked him if he lubricated the bolt and he said he poured an oil of some type into it. The primers just had slight indentions in them from a gummed up firing pin spring again we suspect.

Back when I was hosting business hunters on the 50,000 leased acres in south Texas, I think I saw it all. Had one guy show up with an Uzi or MAC10 (I forget which and have no idea where he got it). Guys had borrowed rifles or brand new rifles, or rifles Dad had left them, but that they had never shot. It was interesting. There were several of us driving the jeeps and hosting, so I tried to pick the guys most likely to know how to hunt. That would be middle aged or older guys with scuffed boots, worn jeans, and a well worn rifle. But...I did have one guy that looked like a hunter, so I took him on a cull hunt. He missed 11 times before I took his rifle and gave him mine. And then there was the super hot blonde that looked like anything but a deer hunter. I practically threw her into my jeep. And she did shoot a buck, using my rifle.

What were we talking about? I sorta wandered away from the topic. Oh well...

And No, I have no pictures, only memories I can’t download for you.

You know you got a winner when they show up for an Elk hunt in ski bibs!!!!!