confidence in the rifle you hunt with.....
 

one of my hunting buddies, (AL) who has been rather successful had a 303 enfield jungle carbine for several decades.


He had used that carbine for many years to hunt deer very successfully, he bragged for years how his old 303 smacked the CRAP, out of our Florida deer, that rarely go more than 120lbs.
now keep in mind, the ranges where he hunts seldom exceed 40 yards and 50 yards is a rare long shot, most shots are taken at under 40 yards , in very thick brush.





hes killed dozens of deer with that 303,jungle carbine for several decades ,but he had never been to an actual rifle range, he had always set up a beer or coke can on a dirt embankment, backed off about 20-to-25 paces and tried a shot from about 35-40 yards and having hit the coke can, felt 100% sure the rifle was still correctly sighted in, like it had been for years, he had me load the ammo to match factory velocity's ,
http://www.speer-bullets.com/ballistics ... spx?id=107 with these 180 grain soft points,
over 45 grains of WW760,In my enfield it shot 2.5" 100 yard groups with iron sites off the bench,
but I totally ruined his confidence in that rifle when I made the bad mistake of taking him to a local range, for thirty years or more he had simply placed an old bottle or can on a hillside, backed off 30 or so long paces and fired at the target, with a high probability of a hit! occasionally he needed two shots to hit the beer can, but that was rare.....well I took him to the range and all his 50 yard targets had nice reasonably tight groups using the issue iron sights that measured about 3" in spread,the problem was most of the holes in the paper were key-holed, or profiles of the bullets ,it was obvious some, even most, bullets went thru at an angle or even side ways, he was very upset.....we pointed out that he had been very successful with the gun, even if it did tend to allow the bullets to tumble, end over end which the paper target clearly showed..
so far hes not been able to locate a replacement 303 British, caliber jungle carbine barrel for his carbine, and careful inspection shows the rifling is all but worn away, in fact it is so shallow, and the bores so eroded, its basically useless!
improper cleaning,improper storage,general abuse, improper solvents and corrosive primer ammo use by previous owners, long before he bought the rifle at a yard sale 30 plus years ago, sure didn,t help either.
so again Id say what you use on white tail deer is not as important as your ability to place shots consistently on the intended target, and having no confidence in the rifle hes used for decades is a huge problem

I agree having confidence is a big part of things, but at the same time, its SHOULD be every gun owners JOB to know there gun is in good condition, its rather basic 101 gun ownership
the bullets tumbling out of the barrel can also mean the chamber is way out of spec too, which can be a SAFETY issue
so a all the confidence in the world doesn't help if the gun isn;'t safe to be shooting!
since the barrel is obviously BAD<
why not take it off, and have a good gun smith MAKE him one, if he feels the need to keep using the rifle
a full sized barrel should be easy to find and can be trimmed down and made to match what he has rather easy I would think!
all that damage most likely came from someone using corrosive powder ammo, and NOT cleaning gun afterwards, and then rifling rusted away and modern rounds helped erode things farther!

but again, chamber spec's are most likely out, so safety here would be a issue/concern to me !

Consistency is the name of the game IMO, along with some shooting basics, like controlling your breathing and not jerking the trigger.
My old Garand is half shot out, but will still group just fine. I used to check my zero by cutting quarter inch thick sticks at fifty yards. Something about how this rifle fits and familiarity just makes it work for me.

Al finally replaced his jungle carbine , with a nearly new 7600 remington slide action in caliber 270 win, he got a great deal on at a local pawn shop ($430)
as he got invited to hunt out west by some relative of his!

we went to the local range yesterday at 8AM and to his (and MY) amazement he could regularly hit the black at 50 yards with his new rifle, so hes happy as hell !
( I can,t help grin at the idea, wait until he finds out that the ranges will EXCEED 50 yards out west)
he was forced to abandon the 303 carbine as he could not find a surplus replacement barrel, and having contacted a custom barrel maker he was quoted over $400 for a replacement barrel installed



two days ago, AL went back to the PAWN SHOP, where he bought the rifle, looking for a scope and found this used Leopold scope available for $400, it looks new but its used,
I thought he would choke but after looking up the new price he offered the guy $250 and bought the scope ,
we installed in and he went to the range this morning, and came back smiling, that load of 56 grains of imr 4831 under a 150grain speer bullets we hand loaded produced 1" hundred yard 3 shot groups for him

http://ads.midwayusa.com/product/325418 ... icle-matte
btw for the few guys who don,t hunt, its not at all uncommon to pay $200-$600 for a decent scope!
nikon and leopold are brands I trust
yes you tend to get what you pay for in optic quality,
and trust me a truly decent quality scope that costs less than about $200 is hard to find,
not nearly impossible but certainly at less than $200 theres a good deal of semi junk compared to at $200 and up
and a scope costing more than $600 is very common once you demand good quality optics

Id suggested this scope, but he was set on a Leopold
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/10...10x-42mm-matte

https://www.huntingnet.com/forum/whi...xperience.html

My old No4 Mk1 is my go-to, putting meat in the freezer, Deer Rifle. I put it together from a hodge podge of parts with hunting the cedar wetlands and dense hardwoods on our property in mind, cut the barrel back to 17" and added a Red Dot etc. Yes it is Bubba'd big time, and fugly for sure, but I have total confidence in it and wouldn't trade it for the world. When opening day comes, there is no question which rifle I'm pulling out of the safe.

yeah, AL sure regrets having to abandon his trusted 303 jungle carbine,deer hunting rifle
it worked flawlessly for decades, I know exactly how he feels
I had a 1917 end-field I should never have traded
,yeah, I had a 1917 endfield I felt the same way about, but foolishly sold it decades ago

1917 endfield

it was damn effective in the dense wooded thickets,
with the 220 grain round nose bullet I hand loaded
I generally now use my 375 H&H sako carbine for hunting dense timber, its never failed
most of the guys I hunt with kid me about my "CANNON" but no one doubts its well documented decades long, record of decisive kills

I love those two rifles of yours hardcastonly. Very nice!

Hardcastonly, How do you post all of those full pictures? When I try to post a pic, all I get is an "Attached Thumbnail".

Buffy, go to the technical help section. And view the thread on posting full size pictures.

there is a few different methods mentioned there.


-Jake's

Looks like a great pickup. Although the though of him taking deal with the old school rifle is pretty awesome too. Like others have said, all rifles are tools to do a job... means not the end.