Sunday 30 June 2013

On Sighting In

Gerry sighting-in for elk season 9/29/10
Here's a really nice account of the procedure for mounting a scope and sighting in a rifle from friend Gerry.
Ask 3 people what you need to mount a scope and you'll get at least 3 answers.  This is my take on it; others may disagree.
Dunk the scope in hot water and see if any bubbles come up.  If not, it's waterproof.  Sigh with relief.
If you buy a decent quality gun and decent quality mounts, they probably will be aligned, so you won't need a lapping rod.  Alignment rods are sort of fun, but align them both ways, point to point and butt to butt.  A torque wrench is nice (I bought a Weaver one on sale), but if you just turn the scope screws tight with no more than thumb and finger, you don't really need one.  If you do decide you can't live w/o one, do find out what torque the manufacturer of that mount recommends.
I don't own a collimator, as most of my rifles are bolt actions (and I'm cheap).  My procedure is to center the reticule (very imp if a used scope; new Leupolds are typically centered*).  If you cut V notches in a cardboard carton, place the rifle in them, and remove the bolt, you can boresight the target.  Adjust the elevation and windage until the crosshairs are on target.  Test fire.  Holding the rifle steady and aiming at the bullseye again, move crosshairs until they are on the bullet hole.  Test fire again.  You should be close to point of aim.  Tweak until you're happy.  This will work with a No. 1:  just be sure to have the rifle high enough that you can drop the lever to see through the bore.  I often start at 50 yards to get on paper, then move to 100.
*Centering:  Turn a knob all the way until it stops.  Now turn it back all the way, counting the number of clicks.  Take half that number and turn it back; it's centered.  Now do the same for the other knob.
As you're hunting, not trying for a benchrest record, there's no particular reason to try various brands of ammo.  Sight in the Federals and use them.  If you can get a 1.5" group at 100 yards, you should be fine. Start with a clean dry barrel.  Some barrels throw the first shot from a clean barrel, then group nicely; if you have one of those, hunt with a fouled barrel.  Keep a journal each time you test or shoot for practice:  temp., wind, ammo, group sizes, etc.
And remember, this is supposed to be fun.

Gerry and I are off to fish the N. Platte and the Bighorn for a week.

Wednesday 5 June 2013

A Sportsman's Library


Steve Bodio's newest book is out, and it's great.  It is an erudite, idiosyncratic, personal catalog of one hundred sporting titles. At 256 + xvi pages, each title gets, on average, an 2.56 page description.  And what descriptions they are, one chapter for each of the hundred books.  Each description contains information on the author, a gloss of the content of the book and and Steve's reasons for including the book among among the hundred. He knows many of the living authors and that comes through in personal anecdotes about them.
Steve manages to pull together so many cultural and literary threads it's hard to imagine how he keeps them all in his head.

I was lucky enough to have been sent a preprint back in November - but I just got my bound copy today.  Aside from the pleasure of having a properly bound copy to hold in my hand, what I had not seen, was Malcolm Brooks' blurb on the back which is truly excellent.
"Nobody who loves traditional blood sport wants it's long literary line totally obfuscated by faux-gonzo, Wang-dang Nugents and gear-hawking carny barkers of cartoonish hunting shows.   Steve Bodio brings his formidable powers as both reader and writer to the cause, gifting us with a guide to the greats as varied, as magical, and yes, as essential as the works he champions."     -- Malcolm Brooks, author of Painted Horses 
When a pre-print arrived in my inbox I printed a copy and could not put it down.  I quickly ordered a couple of the rarest titles that I did not already own, figuring prices for some of these out of print books are going to go sky high. In an unscientific survey I just checked to verify my theory and it seems to me that prices on some titles are definitely up. I claim it's because Steve's book is now out.  In a shrewd moment I thought of cornering the market on Plummer's Tales of a Rat Hunting Man, which wouldn't have been all that hard at the time - now it is impossible. One copy is now listed at $673.76.  Prices on a few of the titles in the hundred have been out of sight for a long time -- I'm thinking of Jack O'Connor's  Hunting in the Southwest which I looked for again after reading Steve's description.

Steve's book won't help the price situation, though it may actually get some classics back in print.  I notice that one of the hundred, Saxton Pope's 1923 book  Hunting with the Bow and Arrow, a longtime favorite of mine, is recently back in print. I traded my own copy, an early printing, to a fanatic bow hunter in Virginia for a hind quarter of a whitetail he killed with his bow.  That meat was the beginning of my own long relationship with game meat; killing, butchering, cooking and feasting. I cooked and shared a memorable meal with friends, one of whom popped the cork on a 1974 Chateau Latour for the occasion.  But I always regretted not having my copy of Pope's book which I bought for five dollars in a used book and magazine store in Norfolk Virginia.

In our broader culture, the trend to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator, to reach the largest possible audience, seems inexorable.   Steve refuses to participate in that trend.  A selection of books like this reveals as much about the selector as it does about the books themselves.  Taken as a whole, it represents a lifetime of scholarship. This book, and the books he recommends, provide a view into the mind of perhaps the deepest thinker about blood sport we have today.  Thank you Steve.

Buy Steve's book now!