A Sportsman's Working Battery

Guns and Gunning, Captain Paul A. Curtis. Penn Publishing Co. 1934.

The notion of a personal working battery for a sportsman is a favorite topic of  unending debate among gun cranks.  There is a lot of classic literature on both hunting rifles and on shotguns. On balance, the rifle literature tends to be American and much of the shotgun literature, though not all, is British.  Classics authors writing about hunting rifles include (in alphabetical order)  Carmichael, O'Connor, Keith, Taylor, and Whelen.  There is a largely separate literature on shotguns by Boothroyd, Brister, Burrard, O'Connor, Keith, and others.   Bodio's Good Guns Again straddles the classification by discussing both.

I first recall reading a specification for a personal battery in Curtis' book Guns and Gunning.  This book is a favorite of mine though it is not often mentioned today - prices for used copies do not indicate it holds much collector value.  Like reading Datus Proper's recommendation that a man should spend a months salary on his shotgun (I have not), Curtis's recommendations for an all-round battery gave me a kind of permission to think in a way I'd not have dared to before reading it.

Considering a battery (and not a collection) is a holistic view that remains surprisingly infrequently discussed in writing.  The question answered by the consideration of the battery is just this: "What collection of firearms does a modern hunter need to participate in the various forms of hunting throughout the season?" Obviously the answer depends on what you hunt, where you live, if you travel to hunt and of course on personal tastes.

For the North American game hunter not planning to travel to Alaska or Africa, Curtis recommends the following minimal battery:

• Rifles:  a small game rifle [.22 LR],  .a varmint rifle [.22 Hornet], a general service rifle [.30-06]
• Shotguns: an upland gun [20 GA double], for all round use [12 GA double], a duck gun [Magnum 12 bore or 10 bore]
• Sidearms: A .22 revolver or automatic and a large frame revolver [.45 Colt or .44-40]

If you are also a target shooter, Curtis provides the following additional recommendations:

• a heavy barreled .22 target rifle with telescopic sight
• a Springfield National Match rifle [.30-06]
• a trap gun [12 GA pump]
• a target pistol [.22 single shot heavy frame with adjustable sights]

At the end of the chapter Curtis apologizes for the small size of the battery he's selected!

"Remember, I said in the beginning that my ideal battery must be limited to a few guns to meet satisfactorily many needs. When one's battery assumes the proportions of a collection, he perforce becomes a slave to its care and it ceases to be ideal."

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There's an old saying: "Beware the man with one gun."  What is left unsaid is that he certainly knows how to shoot it well.  An alternate approach to the question of a personal battery is based on a minimalist philosophy: a shotgun a rifle and perhaps a sidearm.  After a lifetime of gun trading, Steve Bodio may have reached a kind of perfection in his (current) minimalist battery.

Steve with his small working battery.

Steve has settled on his choices and, thankfully, brought them with him on his recent visit to show off to friends here in Laramie and surrounding environs.

Steve has a British sidelock 12 GA shotgun, a Mannlicher Schoenauer 1903 rifle and a Smith and Wesson model 629 in .44 Magnum.  Not shown in the photos is a Smith and Wesson model 34 kit gun which is chambered for a .22LR.  He of course has other firearms, but these are the ones he brought, and they form a kind of elegant minimalist working battery.

F. C. Scott sidelock, 1903 Mannlicher Schoenauer and S&W .44 Mag. 

The Mannlicher is a model 1903 takedown chambered in 6.5x54 MS.  It has the most elegant factory pop-up peep sight I have ever seen.  The peep is articulated so that when the bolt is pulled back, it lowers into the tang of the stock and as the bolt is pushed back forward it pops back up.  In photos (and I am kicking myself for not taking more of them) the mechanism looks like it might be flimsy, in person it is not - it is astoundingly robust.  The rifle handles like a shotgun - notice the Prince of Wales grip.  I was disappointed we did not get a chance to shoot while he was here.

The 6.5x54 is a very interesting cartridge.  In fact, Curtis himself recommended the 6.5x54 specifically (with the Savage 250-3000 as an alternate) for the hunter who wanted to combine his varmint rifle with a rifle for medium sized game shooting.  The 6.5 shoots heavy for caliber bullets at lower velocity.  This translates to bullets with very high sectional density and thus exceptional penetration.  The 6.5 Mannlicher was famously used (with 160 gr solids) by W. D. M. Bell to kill elephants.  It is an outstanding deer and hog rifle and is not to be sneezed at for elk in the timber when shooting a 140 or 160 grain bullet.  It is interesting that both Jack O'Connor and Elmer Keith agreed that it is an exceptional cartridge. John Taylor was less complimentary.

Steve took the Mannlicher (and the Scott) to show to the rifle maker Nathan Heineke here in Laramie. The rifle has been previously drilled for a side mounted scope and Steve is planning to have Nate put a Griffin and Howe side mount on the rifle.  Nate worked as a gunsmith at Griffin & Howe in NJ for about 8 years and may well be the most qualified person in the country to do the work.  The great thing about a G&H side mount is that the scope is guaranteed to return to zero and, it does not mess up the engraving on the front ring of the action.  With a classic rifle I consider this to be an important feature.  If the rifle had not previously been drilled and tapped for a side-mount it would be a shame to add it but, since it has, adding a side-mount it is more akin to a restoration.

Steve's choice of a shotgun is an Birmingham made F. C. Scott sidelock in 12 GA with original  2 3/4" chambers. It was probably made in 1910.  For British made guns of the period, 2 1/2" chambers were standard.   Fredrick Scott was known for his pigeon guns and this may explain the non-standard chamber size. A description of the gun by Steve from an email:

He (Frederick, called "Frank") was in business from 1904 to 1918 (some say 19). I think he made fewer than a thousand guns. The wood is really nice which doesn't show well-- may eventually refinish. LOP 14 1/2 or a little less to checkered butt; barrels 70 cm (continental--??), chokes 1/4 & F. balance on hinge pin. Slightly more pitch up than BL and slightly shorter, and weighs 6 1/2 instead of 6 1/4 so it took a little practice to mount as well but I find if I hold it on the barrel ahead of the forearm it points very well. I will probably disable the ejectors (remove springs?) because they are no use to me. I think it was all tightened up when re-proofed (for pigeon level loads -- 1 1/4 oz-- which I will NOT shoot).  I think I will never get closer to a London gun. People who loved the AyA can see how superior it is even if they know nothing about guns (and it weighs exactly the same). 

The Scott is a perfect upland game gun (good for NM quail) and will serve for the occasional duck.

F. C. Scott ad from 1910.

For handguns, Steve's S&W revolver in .44 Mag has the lightest single action trigger I've ever pulled. A pound? Steve assured us that  it is a joy to shoot.  He's outfitted both the .44 and the S&W model 34 kit gun with Hogue grips so, disregarding the heft, they have a similar feel in the hand.

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At this point my personal battery is closer to Curtis's recommended selection than to Bodio's.  I think I'd like to fix that, which of course means, more buying and selling which is half the fun.  

Meditations on Deer Hunting

2012 Wyoming deer regulations - summary map.

    Deer seasons in the areas I hunt in SE Wyoming have all been cut by half, from two weeks to a single week; and now only  bucks are legal game. In some areas bucks must have at least three points on one side to be considered legal.  Mule deer populations have been crashing in SE Wyoming and Northern CO for a number of years. The changes to this years season dates and regulations are the first major ones since I've lived here. The changes are obviously an attempt by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to relieve hunting pressure on the deer populations.  Some people complain that these changes came too late - I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

    For the first ten years after moving to WY I hunted and killed a deer every year.  Never a doe, always a buck but sometimes a spike.  The last mule deer I killed was in 2008.  In 2009 I had a nice shot at a good 3x3 mule deer but I passed.  I was mainly focused on elk at the time.  I had real failures in the 2010 and 2011 seasons. I hunted hard for deer both years and did not kill one.  This year I had a very nice (and unique) 3x3 in my sights for more than 15 minutes and did not pull the trigger.  Still pondering the reasons why.  It turns out that not killing can be complicated.

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Monday October 1, 2012 -  Even with work piling up I managed to get out for a morning hunt.  I hunted the upper reaches of a small stream that flows west into the North Platte river.  The stream bed cuts quickly into the landscape forming a narrow canyon not far from its source. The north side of the canyon is heavily timbered and the south side is mostly open sage country with aspens  filling the draws that drop to the canyon floor. Shots from the north side of the canyon to the south side are, depending on exactly where, somewhere between 150 and 350 yards. It makes for a somewhat long shot - but in the mid-ranges is very doable with a 270 Winchester shooting 140 gr Barnes boat tail bullets.  I'd watched a mature buck feed up the open south slope one morning last year while hunting elk (after the deer season was over.)  On this day I walked a long way after getting a somewhat late start and only ever saw does.

Saturday October 6, 2012 - Hunted the same spot in the early morning with no luck.  Headed to the Platte river valley for the afternoon hunt.  Around three in the afternoon I walked into the wilderness area about a quarter mile from my truck to the rim of an aspen filled draw.  This is big open sage country and was not far from where I killed my best mule deer. As I slowly moved along just below the rim, I spotted a hunter coming down toward the draw through the open sage way up on the the far side. I decided to sit down and in the shade of a low rocky outcrop on the rim to see if he pushed any deer out.  I sat down an set up my shooting sticks to wait. Any deer moving down the draw would have to pass through an opening in the aspens giving me an excellent downhill shot at about 100 years.  The other hunter has seen me and he diverted his path but I still sat and waited.  It was 120 yards to the far side of the draw where the aspens ended and the sage opened up.  Glassing the thick aspen cover with binoculars I hear a branch snap somewhere below me, and then a few minutes later I spotted the rump of a deer.  Ten minutes later a deer stepped out of the sage and then there was a second behind it.  Amazingly, both were bucks, the first was a spike horn and the second a good three by three.  The larger of the two was a fine animal with long willowy antlers of a beautiful orange color.  The smaller buck was half the size.  I sat on the rim and watched them browse their way uphill on the far side of draw - alternating between the view through my scope and through the  binoculars.  Finally, they wandered into the  timber on the far rim and they were lost to sight.  I continued to hunt until dark though I did not see another deer.

Sunday October 7, 2012 - On Sunday I hunted mule deer and elk hard all day in a different area - closer to home where I could shoot a bull elk or a mule deer buck in overlapping seasons.  I did get onto some fresh elk tracks early but never saw the animal.  Other than a mature four-by-four lying dead in the back of another hunters pickup I passed on a remote forest service road - I did not see a deer.

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    So on Saturday, after a textbook perfect hunt, I had what I was hunting for in my sights.  It was an easy shot at close range with no wind off a secure rest - and yet I did not pull the trigger. Why? I'm still thinking about it. There are a number or reasons I can think of  but none provides a really satisfactory explanation.  My first suggestion is that, in the back of my mind, I carry the thought that my wife and I prefer elk meat to deer meat.  Elk populations are up so I, perhaps unrealistically, expect to kill an elk this year.  A second reason is that, although I do not really consider myself a trophy hunter, I have killed a number of deer that were "better" than this one.  Irrationally, I had it in my mind that I would find a fully mature four-by-four buck within the following twenty-six hours before the season ended.  Another reason is that, with deer populations so low, killing a not quite mature deer seemed unnecessary. And also, I was just plain tired. Hunting big game alone is hard work: field dressing and packing out an animal is even more work.  I was dog tired after a long day of hunting on foot in steep country.

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José Ortega y Gasset

  Not pulling the trigger raises the issue of killing or not killing while hunting.  In his book Meditations on Hunting (originally published in 1944) Ortega y Gasset famously wrote: "one does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted".  It is true that even though I did not kill that mule deer I know that I surely would have pulled the trigger on a more mature buck - so I would claim I hunted - I think.  My interpretation of Ortega y Gasset's remark is that he was getting at something  else.  Every kill is different and each one builds into a store of experience that cumulatively makes the hunter who (s)he is.  Much of that knowledge is technical knowledge that can not be gained in any other way except by killing.  How well (or not) did the bullet perform?  What was the extent of the wound it caused? How far did the animal go with the wound it sustained and how quickly did it die?  How much blood was lost - was there a blood trail? These are aspects of the hunt that we perhaps prefer not to discuss.  Even hunters ready to discuss the finer points of butchering and cooking game meat rarely discuss these points.  And yet, these technical aspects of actually killing are part of the hunt that can not be experienced without  pulling the trigger. That body of experience is what makes books like John Taylor's African Rifles and Cartridges  or Elmer Keith's Big Game Rifles and Cartridges truly substantial works.  I think this experience is required for a hunter to have hunted.

     In his excellent book The Why of Hunting (which will hopefully be published very soon) Gerard Cox argues that Ortega y Gasset's aphorism applies only to sport hunters in the European tradition from the middle of the last century. These were Ortega y Gasset's audience for his essay on hunting.  It may be unfair to Gerry to publicly argue with is book before publication - but based on not killing this year,  I think Ortega y Gasset's remarks hold more true than Gerry admits.  

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Although I did not kill a deer this year  - and so missed the rich aspects of the hunt that come after the kill - thankfully, the story remains.  And also, there are still two weeks left in the elk season.

Lyman Peep -- Dummy Slide

Up until the point where telescopic sights (scopes) became reliable enough, metalic sights were the standard.  Among metalic sights, the aperture or peep sights provided the best accuracy.   The Lyman company first started manufacturing aperture sights in the 1880's. For lever action rifles, they were typically mounted to the stock behind the action.   After WWI,  bolt action rifles started being used widely for hunting and for these rifles, peep sights were mounted on the receiver itself.  There are a number of advantages to a peep sight.  Since they are mounted so far from the front sight, they are inherently more accurate -- this is a matter of geometry.

Consider a line with points marked A, B and C where the distance AC is twice the distance AB. Now mark points B' and C' by measuring distance x perpendicular to line AC at points B and C. Now, if the angle C'AC is θ, the angle B'AB is twice as much, it is 2θ.  An equal displacement at the greater distance has a smaller effect allowing for finer sight control.

The other advantage of the peep sight over open metallic sights is that the human eye naturally centers the front sight in the center of the circular opening of the aperture.  This makes for quickness and accuracy in the aiming process.  The physiological effect is so strikingly effective that Elmer Keith recommended unscrewing and discarding the small target aperture as soon as the sight is mounted.  The open hole the target aperture screws into is larger and so quicker to sight with.

I have a Lyman 48 peep on my elk rifle.  If the snow is blowing I can remove the scope and attach the peep slide or, to use the scope, I can remove the peep and attach the scope.  The drawback is that when the scope is attached, the open slide is ugly and it leaves the small indicator liable to damage.

To resolve this issue, I decided to make a dummy slide to fill the gap when the peep is not installed.  I filed some mild steel into the required dovetail shape.

After  sanding it smooth and cutting it to length and I blued it using Brownell's Oxpho-Blue cold bluing liquid.

The finished slide fits snugly and gives the rifle a finished look when the scope is mounted.

The scope mount is a Griffin & Howe side mount which allows the scope to be easily removed and when remounted, it goes back to zero.