Life is short! Make it Count this Christmas like I do! Purchase a Leupold!

The VX- R shown above: https://www.leupold.com/hunting-shooting/scopes/vx-r-riflescopes/vx-r-3-9x50mm/

 Of all the attributes of a rifle scope and a pair of binoculars the most important part is Reliability in all weather conditions like rain and snow from fogging and operation of the dials and its world class ability to transmit the best and brightest images to the hunter.

Yes, you are going to spend more but you will get a lot more life-long bang for your buck by making the investment now.

I have lesser optics in my home from over the years trying to save a buck, and have had failures mostly of loss of the dry filling such as Nitrogen in scopes and binoculars. It drove me bananas last year when I could not see through a lesser brand scope (begins with N) in cold deer weather. Leupold uses Nitrogen too but all of my Gold Ring Leupold scopes are state of the art Argon/Krypton filled with Xtended Twilight Lens System™ and Diamond Coat 2 ™ lenses

Quote from Leupold: “Its advantages are two fold according to Leupold: it nearly eliminates the effects of thermal shock, and the Argon/Krypton molecules are significantly larger than nitrogen molecules, reducing the diffusion of gases sealed inside your scope even more than our proven nitrogen technology already does.”

As a lifelong owner of USA manufactured Leupold Rifle Scopes such as the VX-2

, VX-3 below

and now below the VX-6 3-18 44mm  that does it all from near to way far! Leupold says: “Our VX-6 takes all the advantages of our Quantum Optical System and multiplies it times six. You get virtually every feature you can imagine—legendary ruggedness, stunning optics, and a huge 6x zoom ratio that shortens the distance to your next trophy. With a VX-6 atop your favorite rifle, the advantage is all yours.” 

https://www.leupold.com/hunting-shooting/scopes/vx-6-riflescopes/vx-6-3-18x44mm-side-focus-cds-zl/

these scopes were field tested by your truly here in New Hampshire, in South Africa and on southern hunts and never, ever had one fail. NEVER!  

I am a fan of bigger calibers some might say, shooting my favorite big bore, a .375 Ruger Cartridge as a hand loader.

If you want to jolt a scope to test its internal twin bias erector springs, mount it on a Ruger M77 African in .375 Ruger with 260 grain Nosler AB’s exiting the barrel at 2600 fps!! No it wasn’t a typo not 160 grains, but a whopping 260 grain bullet. At Nashua, NH 600 yard range I tested a VX-3 and shot 3 1/4 inch groups with the 260 Noslers at 600 yards. Search this site and you can read the article on it. Leupold helped make it all seem so easy!

I hunted Africa for plains game with a cost effective Leupold VX-2 on a Ruger M77 in .338 Winchester Magnum and it served me well and I even smashed it during recoil into metal re-rod while taking a world record Cape Kudu with my son Jason.

. We had to pry metal from the dial but it worked just fine. Leupold fixed it, no charge!

Below is a VX-2 and VX-3 on a pair of my Ruger’s.

All Leupold scopes are designed, machined and assembled in America. Each comes with a Golden Ring Lifetime Guarantee, which means if for any reason it fails to do what it’s supposed to do, we’ll either fix it or replace it to make it right. Guaranteed.

So what are you waiting for! Get a Leupold today!

© 2015

From the field to freezer and then to the stew-pot. Venison stew is perhaps one of the most warming of comfort foods in Winter. My wife and I have been using traditional Pressure Cookers to make our Venison stew for years but we have fallen for the newer Electronic Pressure Cookers because they are very easy to clean and make timing and cooking a breeze with auto shut off, browning, simmering and saute as key features besides the pressure cooking. Retails for 100 dollars on Amazon and ships free right now. We love our Cuisinart! It is a terrific Christmas gift to you and your hunting family!

It is all in one.

Yesterday it was cold and raining so I felt like making a Venison stew. Electronic defrost on my microwave does a nice job in just 12 minutes. I just pop in the frozen vacuum sealed container of venison, set the defrost and hit start.

I like to cook the meat first and cook vegetables later with the meat. There are many Electric Pressure Cookers on the market. We have the Cuisinart below and like it very much

Ingredients:

1 lb cubed Venison

3 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tbsp Butter

4 tbsp flour

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Using the Coated Pot with lid off

Place oil and butter in pot with meat coated with flour

Set the Menu to Brown and hit start.

Stir and sear meat to brown and carmelize as you like.

To pressure cook stop the browning: Add 1 cup of dry red wine and 3/4 cup of beef stock.

Place Lid and high pressure cook for 8 minutes following the manual instructions.After the timer goes off I will let the steam out by turning the steam weight. When there is no steam coming out the seal indicator will show there is no pressure and you can open the lid.

It takes time to reach the correct pressure thus allowing you to cut and prepare vegetables. I use 4 Potatoes cut into 1/8 chunks, Two cups of carrot cut into chunks. Three medium onions quartered. Two cups Celery cut to 1 1/2 inch pieces. Add what ever else you want such as turnip too.

Add vegetables to the pot along with 2 bay leaves, 2 cloves minced or pressed garlic. You can add other herbs as you like. I put in a pinch of dried oregano, basil and thyme.

Put the lid on and Pressure cook for 7 minutes. Bleed the steam off as I said earlier and open the lid. I added more beef stock, a butter/flour rue to thicken if needed. Salt and Pepper to taste and add 2 tablespoons of dry parsley or fresh chopped parsley. 

If you like mushrooms in your stew, I would saute some ahead of time and add them at the end.

Serve hot with your favorite beverage (a dry red wine goes well)  with  a hot sliced French Baguette with real butter. Ok, I’m getting Hungry!

Serves 4.

© 2015

There are many small Sporting Shops in New Hampshire and often they have expertise that some of the larger stores do not have. That said; Shop them all for Christmas. Large and Small. Put a smile on your hunters face this Christmas!

Stocking Stuffer Ideas

Gift cards to Outdoor Stores

Hunting Topo Map software for USA

A space blanket

Matches or a lighter for lighting outdoor fires

Water purification devices or tablets

A backpack saw or hatchet

A new Hunting Knife

Sharpening knife kit

A new First Aid Kit

Camo face mask

Trigger Pull gage.

Gun cleaning kit.

Slip on Pachmayr Recoil Reduction Pad – Decelerator

Gun cleaning products

Paper Targets, clay pigeons.

Laser Rangefinders

Ammo

Clothes wash products for Hunt Clothes

Deer and Turkey Hunt calls and decoys

Duck Hunt calls and decoys

2 way radios

Under the Tree Santa Ideas

New Gun?

Gun cases?

Gun safes?

Leupold Scopes, Binoculars, Spotting scopes, Night scopes

Reloading Press and Kit

Reloading Manuals and videos for reloading

Hunting Boots, Hats, Clothes

Camo kits for guns.

Camo Back Pack

Caldwell Bench Rest and Lead Sled’s

My wife and I sponsored wreaths to honor our fallen hero’s. Many of my hunting friends like me are former military. At a cost of $15 per wreath it is a great way to show your support for our fallen. http://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/

God Bless our Troops!

You bet! Go to http://www.ruger.com/micros/crkt/index.html?r=y

See the new knife selection! Wow!

Wishing you great hunting success!

Good Hunting!

Kudo’s to all our Veterans and their wives and husbands for protecting and serving the greatest nation on Earth. God  Bless!!! Please say a prayer today for a Veteran!!

Reflections: As a Veteran of the Vietnam Era in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s I served in the US Naval Nuclear Submarine service aboard the USS James K. Polk SSBN 645 . First as a Seaman, later as a Sonar Technician with Ocean listening and electronics skills. Though I had no rifle per se, I was aboard a submarine that could place a  bullet pointed missile in the enemies left or right pocket from very very far away.

I was at the age of 20 years old, qualified to load Nuclear Torpedo’s on the Polk. I turned 21 under the Atlantic Ocean on submerged patrols that lasted 2 months or more. My Sub was 425 feet long, a football field and a half long.  Yes we experienced and done things that would turn most folks hair white as a matter of course.

We were part of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and carried 16 missiles with 10 nuclear warheads on each one. Do the math! Periodically we had drills to fire missiles, I was stationed in the Missile Compartment as a phone talker near an officer with one of the keys. We were still in a Cold War mode against the Soviet Union at the time and before the Ronald Reagan/ Mikhail Gorbachev Star Wars era and before the Berlin Wall came down.

My wife was an equal part of my team that kept me going at home. We had just had our first son, Christopher.

To occupy my mind after I Qualified Submarines and received my Dolphins, in my off watch time, I would often read books and visualize hunting places and the game I  might encounter. I was unwittingly creating future adventures as a reality. I also imagined flight in gliders such as the Libelle and to use cloud updrafts on cumulus clouds to fly cross country in my mind using Cloud Streets and later made flying a reality achieving my Private Pilots License. And here I am today having achieved some of those adventures like my African Safari with one of my sons. Being a part of our Military was an honor and am proud to have served our nation. Run Silent Run Deep has a special place for me.

God Bless our Veterans who keep us safe!!!

Yes back-straps are easy to cut out of the back muscle but chops have visual appeal. My wife has lamb chops dancing in her head when she sees these delectable morsels of Venison.

Trimming the length of the chop is done with a meat saw or in my case, a saws-all. With a sharp knife you can cut the chop to the bone as in the ribs above and then use a meat cleaver and rubber or wooden mallet to cut the bone where the spinal cord runs(seen above).

We vacuum seal all of our meat, and freezing does a great job of aging meat and improving flavor.

Cooking venison should be done with lots of heat to sear in the juices for a very short time so that meat browns but the inside is medium rare but never well done unless you like shoe leather. If your meat is gamy soak it in milk overnight. Butermilk will also tenderize.

Rear legs such as the one at right will make steaks, stew and ground venison or sausage. Afterwards boil the bones still laden with meat fragments and make a hearty soup.

Bon Appétit!

The Savage 11/111 Long Range Rifle was sighted in for Max Point Blank Range MPBR for 292 yards with Nosler 140 grain solid gilding copper E-Tips for this 7 mm Remington Magnum.

The rifle performs best when it has a long range scope such as the VX-6 3 x18 with a 44mm objective lens. I just love this scope for the zoom capability that can count points on a buck at very long ranges and in very low light. Further, that if I needed to light up the cross hairs I had infinite adjustments.

Hunting rifles are at their best when tested at the range with bullets and powders. The Savage 11/111 Long range hunter has a synthetic stock, with a free floating, button rifled barrel with an accu-trigger set at around 2.5 pounds. I find that the muzzle brake, for my skill level is not necessary but nice to know if another shooter needs it. The recoil pad that is on the rifle is excellent.

In the field from my tree stand the rifle looked like this as rain fell. I used a little camo on the rifle barrel and forward bell of the scope but as it turned out was not necessary.

Wind was blowing toward me so that wind drift was not an issue. The spike buck was crossing a field that was 320 yards long, measured by my laser rangefinder. It was raining lightly but I was satisfied that I installed a monopod rest that I could shoot steady from. The buck was literally running and bounding and would stop occasionally for 10 seconds or so to be sure it was safe to do so. Based on my early laser rangefinder estimates the buck was out at approximately 310 yards and on the second foray of bounding the buck stopped again. The VX-6 main post rested on the deer’s vitals like they were tattoo’d in place.

I held the crosshair high on the withers expecting the bullet to drop 6 inches and squeezed the shot off crisply with the Savage AccuTrigger. The rifle bucked and the mighty Nosler bullet struck exactly where I was aiming. A large puff of  water mist occurred at the withers and the buck fell over. The buck disappeared at the shot. I spined him, or so I thought. The buck appeared standing again in just seconds but did not move.  I cranked another round in the chamber and lowered the crosshairs just behind the front shoulder and squeezed again. The bullet struck with such force that a hollow “thwock” echoed back. Amazingly, it looked as if the bullet knocked him over like a silhouette target hit by a cannon. The buck was knocked over so forcefully as to flip him on his back ready to be dressed out. Now that is what I call power. The Nosler Copper Bullets exited the muzzle at 2945 fps and arrived at 300 yards at a speed of 2384 fps and delivered 1767 foot-pounds; an elks worth of punch. The Nosler fully penetrated and exited as I have already demonstrated in other articles by expanding to twice their size and maintaining virtually all of its weight.

The first bullet struck non-vital tissue above the spine.  The second bullet exited forward of the shoulder, seen in the image below.

Rifles are best when coupled with a scope and bullet that is up to the rifles capability. The Leupold VX-6 certainly fills that bill perfectly. The Nosler E-Tip will make a believer out of you too. Nosler’s AccuBond would have been another great choice but today we tested the E-Tip.

This test is a wrap as a great rifle, scope and bullet combination and easily proved itself at 300 yards. Now I have some tasty venison for my family and a rifle and scope and bullet that are proven performers.

Good Hunting! © 2015