I thought I had accidentally landed on one of the ever-increasing number of hook and bullet channels when I came across an ad for The Wild Within, hosted by Steven Rinella; not the Travel Channel. With the way Travel Channel programming has followed the New Yorker nepotism of the New York publishing world, it seemed as though you had to be either a New York whinning, potty-mouthed ex-junkie chef-turned writer, carrying a child-like fascination with Apocalypse Now; or a New York glutton with a penchant for traveling the country in search of restaurant-promoting food competitions, to get your own series. To see a Michigan-born-and-raised hunter and trapper hosting a show on that channel floored me.        

With great anticipation I waited for the first airing: finally a hunting show that went further than an inundation of boring kill-a-minute, 30-minute sponsor advertisements, pushed on the new overabundance of outdoor channels—how I miss the educational hunting shows broadcast during the 1980s and early 1990s. More importantly, here was a show that would, hopefully at least, reveal to its viewers how to dismantle a deer.        

Can you believe that the major outdoor channels actually don’t want any close ups of the processing of game? Many would think it’s because of the advertisers, but not the programming directors who pushed for this—because they’re afraid it’s too politically incorrect: Now you know why Cork’s Outdoors TV isn’t broadcast on satellite, though many requests from the different outdoor channels have come down the pike this year—they won’t allow me to show you how to even gut and skin a feral pig!        

Rinella learning to make fish arrows in Guyana

THE WILD WITHIN

The first episode of The Wild Within was set in a place I know well, and remains as my hunting and fishing heaven: Alaska! There are very few states left where you can truly live off the land as a hunter/gatherer, and Alaska is at the top the list. On Prince of Wales (POW) Island, where Rinella and his brother own a hunting cabin, there’s a plethora of sustenance.        

I must admit that I was hoping Rinella would’ve hunted near his home, in New York or New Jersey, for the first episode. Everyone flies to Alaska for an outdoors show, and yet there are so many poorly-represented, great hunting places right next to such a major center of anti-hunting: Ingrid Newkirk and Wayne Pacelles’ cash cows, PETA and Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) campaign from NYC. But, you can’t go wrong with Alaska, especially Southeast Alaska: bush planes, remote cabins, full crab and shrimp pots, and Sitka blacktails in good number…having lived and worked around the world, there’s a reason Alaska is the only place I ever truly get homesick for…        

From Alaska, The Wild Within continued to Montana the next week, and that’s where I think the shake-down cruise for the show hadn’t yet found its legs. As Rinella mentioned to me over the phone, this is their first season, and they were just getting their steam and there was a question as to what to focus on: historical, environment and conservation, or the adventure of hunting, fishing and gathering.        

This happens with all types of programming, whether scriptwriters on shows like Hawaii 5-0, or producers on TopShot. For most, it’s the first time the production team has met and are just learning each other’s quirks, along with not only clearly filling out the premise through field experience, but also editing and trying to coordinate programming with the broadcast company.        

It especially gets interesting when parts, or all of the production team have never even participated in the main activity of the show…As is often the case, producers take the job no matter their own lack of knowledge or experience—perhaps you’ve heard of actors in Hollywood getting hired for a film, saying they’ve been riding horses since they were knee-high to a grasshopper, or that they hearken from a long line of motorcycle riders, yet the most they’ve straddled was a bar or diner stool while searching the jobs section of a newspaper? Same thing.        

If you noticed that some episodes seemed to be off, like San Francisco (as one based in the City by the Bay, I know well the amazing opportunities for hunting, fishing, and gathering—I was aghast to see Rinella collect roadkill, totally illegal in California) which slapped me in the head with a big “Huh?”, or the Montana episode, that made me wonder whether this was a show best suited for the History Channel. When Rinella told me that The Wild Within was originally formulated for sale to the History Channel, it all made sense: the Molokai and Scotland definitely fit within the parameters of Travel Channel, while the Montana show appeared shot for either the History or Travel Channel.        

So, like any crew on a new boat, a new production has a variety of learning curves related to the first shake-down cruise, of which this new season definitely has its highs and lows. Part of the problem can be that programming doesn’t actually coordinate to shooting and editing. What may have been shot first, ends up as an episode broadcast much later in sequnce. I can’t tell you how annoyed I was with the POW Island episode, when I heard Rinella repeat that oft repeated saying given non-hunters: You’d be paying $30 or $50 a plate for this in a restaurant!        

Again, YOU CAN’T LEGALLY BUY TRUE WILD GAME IN THE US!        

Not until the Scotland episode did Rinella clarify that in Europe, where the laird of the land owns the land, game, livestock and those who work it (one of the main reasons my ancestor, David Graham, said to hell with Scottish and Irish landlords, and took his family of Calvinists to South Carolina in 1772—hitting home the final point to King George with a round ball at the Battle of Kings Mountain), true wild game is shipped to market in Paris and London, and sold much fresher in the butcher shops of little villages that neighbor these hunting estates.        

I was impressed that the introduction scene of the Scotland episode had Steven Gow, the Scots ghillie (hunting guide), working on meat that was to be shipped out that week. They really captured the hunting in Europe, and how much of a commodity it is. It also made me cringe, remembering how in the US we’re quickly following in their footsteps: $800 to $1,500 to shoot a wild boar in California?        

We already have enough problems with a majority of the population growing up in urban areas, having lost their hunting, fishing and gathering traditions by generations—traditions that would have helped keep a clear public eye on such fabricated science pushed by PETA and HSUS. Charging horrendous fees on game that legally belongs the citizens of a state, does nothing but create an elitist attitude about something that was so free and drew many from their nations of origin.        

In the Scotland episode, the hunter, angler, gatherer, theme of the show really came across, from field to table. And, this last weekend, the Guyana show carried it well again. This theme of field to table, and local bonds built, is the strength of the show, and even its honesty works, though it did make me recoil a few times, starting with the crippled blacktail that they finished off in the first episode in Alaska, and then a wounding arrow shot on a tapir.        

During the Central America War, tapir found a fond spot in my heart. I was at a secret Contra base along the Honduran border, and because of the ridiculously low rations afforded our Cold War allies by US Congress budget cuts, we had to augment beans and rice with whatever animal protein got from the jungle.        

Contra with three Sandinista rounds in his gut, leaving on my medevac in.

For the same reasons of the bigger bang for the buck Rinella mentioned on Sunday’s Guyana episode, the Miskito tribal members fighting in the Nicaraguan Defense Force (FDN) guerrilla unit I accompanied, targeted the tapir with dogs—much more meat than a hapless cuzuco (armadillo) or iguana. Imagine mountains, sides steep as cliffs, and during the rainy season, knee-deep mud, and thick brush and tall canopy—a shiver runs up my spine remembering firefights conducted under those conditions. We carried AK-47s to make the shot on the hungrily sought tapir table fare, but also to defend against surprise attacks by Cuban and Russian Spetsnaz-trained Sandinista Special Forces units.        

Those harried days of the 1980s came rushing back as Rinella narrated on the tapir, and Jim Jones (I worked the Loma Prieta Earthquake in San Francisco for NBC, along with longtime NBC cameraman and Jonestown survivor, Steve Sung—see enough bullet and fragment wounds and you recognize them easily, especially along the arms), but also the creepy crawlies and slithers that leave you not only very uncomfortable with a bite or sting, but even perhaps in the end, dead.        

The Guyana episode also struck home the difference between sport and subsistence. In Alaska, those of us who actually survived on our caught or shot food, had no problem shooting a caribou in the water—in contrast, those who flew in from out of state for a hunt, or lived in Anchorage, would never think of doing so for the flak they’d get from their hunting party.        

 And this is where I’ve started enjoying the show, when in the beginning I had my misgivings with its clarity of purpose. The Wild Within really gets its legs when it focuses not on the historical qualities of hunting, or an area, something that can easily be touched on at the beginning, in short review, as with reference to Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana; but instead focuses on the present-day locals, the conditions, and work a subsistence lifestyle requires: shooting, trapping, catching and gathering everything you need from the environment, doing it day in and day out, no chance of calling in a sick day, especially when you have to provide for your family.        

That’s Entertainment!

As Rinella mentions on the adjoining Cork’s Outdoors Radio episode, TV is definitely focused on entertainment (whether a travel show, or sadly of late, the news) first, and secondly, if you’re lucky, you educate as much as you can between those emotion-stirring moments, in the hopes that the viewer will pick up a book and go further in-depth. That’s where I laud the Travel Channel in even airing such a program—showing hunting and gathering for what it is: not necessarily pretty, sometimes amazingly gorgeous.  The upcoming Texas episode promises to be quite the saddle-burning ride…        

The Wild Within comes into its own as it remembers that premise by focusing on the local peoples, and their quest to keep sustained on what the wilds offer them. Most importantly, not as one of the other proliferations of survive in the wilds and get out alive shows, but instead looking forward to the trip outdoors, the resulting fine meals of game and fish, to that reconnection with oft-lost skills that kept us alive where we all originally came from—the wilds!        

Related Links:        

• Steven Rinella’s Website
• The Wild Within’s Page at Travel Channel
• Cork in Nicaragua

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy the interview of The Wild Within’s Steven Rinella on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

TOPICS: Steven Rinella, author and host of THE WILD WITHIN, speaks about his writing and adventures for the Travel Channel.

L-R: Ace, Billy Norbury, Jesse Hruby, Cork Graham, Chris Bartholf, Joey Coleman and Ziggy

Wildlife conservation has, sadly, not been immune to the “we only care if it has a cute and cuddly face” groundswell that has swamped the animal protection, and self-proclaimed environmental movements of late: everyone wants to hunt the “dastardly” wild hog that grows its population like rats. But, no one wants to take the “cute and cuddly” black bear or mountain lion in California.           

In California, there’s even a moratorium on the public hunting of the mountain lion, even though the mountain lion population in California is one of the largest, if not the largest, in the Western United States. This overextended population is eating the truly endangered desert bighorn in Southern California to extinction, and along with poor burning and logging practices, i.e. very infrequently, deer populations in California are also dropping.           

Because of this, I started singling out the other major California predator that we are legally allowed to hunt on a public tag draw system: even though the misguided, and often mislead, anti-hunting community repeatedly tries to prevent it. My suggestion to newbie hunters is—until California Fish and Game is finally allowed to fully implement well-researched management practices, well-used in other states on deer and mountain lion, free of political grandstanding and meddling—to give deer a break, and instead get a bear tag.          

Bear’s Better Than Venison? 

“But are bear edible?” is the oft-repeated response. They’re delicious and can easily be prepared using a number of beef, or pig recipes that require low and slow cooking…as most recipes designed to retain moisture, soften muscle tissue and kill diseases that used to be prevalent in even farm pigs, like brucelosis and trichinosis…think braising, stews, dried and fermented sausages, roasts cooked past pink.           

Average thought is that those who hunt bear only hunt bear for the hide and trophy. For those who actually do hunt bear and use as much of an animal as possible we feel that we get more out of bear than a deer: meat, organs (bear liver makes a phenomenal paté), hide (simply tanned make great rollup pillows for the couch and luxuriously soft linings for baby cribs, as done by Native tribes and pioneers, especially with a thick under layer of fur that comes with the cold of late fall) , claws (great for Native American artwork), tallow (great for rendering to cooking lard–a process definitely not recommended for much more gamey fat from deer), and if you’re knowledgeable in Asian homeopathic medicinal practices, medicine for ailments such as a bruising and arthritis. If you’ve ever had the chance to try a berry pie or pastry made with bear lard instead of Crisco or butter, you’ll remember the nutty flavor of bear lard that makes that pastry the best you’ve ever had!           

Into the Mountains

With this mother lode of useable products drawing me to the mountains of the Mendocino National Forest, I arrived the afternoon before Veterans Day and set up camp. The objective was to venture out from camp at the crack of dawn, and work deep down into the canyon formed by the Eel River. Bears, like elk and moose, love water—the more water the better. They drink it. They keep cool in it. And, they wallow in the mud pools along its shore.           

At least that was the intention before I realized, that I couldn’t get the firewood soaked by the previous day’s rain burning hot, and that the Snugpak sleeping bag I was evaluating on this trip, was a comfort rating off for the freeze that hit that night—disorientated and shivering, I woke every two hours.           

The next morning, I was so tired, not really wanting to go off the shelf and into the canyon after a bear that was surely going to square at 6-foot-plus and over 300lbs translating to two-day pack out of all that meat by a single hunter. Electing to first drive up to a lookout and check the activity across the river canyon with my binoculars and spotting scope, I loaded my Brittany, excited about his first hunt for bear, in my Ram and drove out of camp.           

Turn of the Track

Not more than a mile up the forest road, we came upon another pickup with dog boxes behind the cab. I recognized them as the group that arrived at the campground late the night before, anticipative of the four-day weekend. Exchanging greetings, I asked them what they were up to: “We’re bear hunting.”           

Mentioning I was doing the same, but spot-n-stalk instead of over hounds, the owner of the hound crew, Billy Norbury, countered, “Our hounds just got on a track…If they tree him, do you want to shoot it?”           

Enthused by the offer, I pulled over and we chatted for only a few minutes before we heard the howls. “Grab your rifle!” Jesse Hruby said.           

Running, while loading a magazine into my Model 700, I kept Ziggy alongside at heel as we sped for the treed bear. Up in the tree, the bear that had been safe from the hounds below suddenly became anxious.           

“You better shoot him,” one of the hunters yelled as he held a hound by the collar. “He’s gonna run!”           

Raising my rifle, I quickly had the crosshairs of my Nightforce NXS on the bear’s chest, just behind its shoulder—the boiler-room we like to call it. When the shot went off, the bear climbed down as if untouched.           

The bear was only 20 yards away when I shot…I couldn’t have missed!           

Just as the bear hit the ground running, Ziggy had already broke from my side as if he were fetching a pheasant, and was up there with the hounds, which were trying to bay the bear. An immediate round of shots, one of them another Deep Curl 180 gr. from my .300 Winchester Magnum, and it was down for good.           

Calling Ziggy back to heel, I was reminded of how much the excitement of hunting with hounds can be like the excitement of combat…sometimes almost as dangerous with all those bullets flying when a bear is on the ground.             

On October 10, 2010 (that’s right, 10/10/10), a pioneer crossed the summit between this world and the next. If you’re a firearms and reloading enthusiast, you probably knew his name. If you are a hunter, you should.

John Nosler, 97, was a hunter, engineer, innovator, and pioneer in the field of bullet-making—he was a self-made man. Like any self-made man who has been successful, he understood the importance of relationships—no one has ever become successful being a loner.

Nosler’s personal telephone book over the years included some of the other vanguards of the firearms industries, some of them very well-known because of their writing, like Elmer Keith, Jack O’Connor and Chub Eastman (he wrote the memoir’s foreword), some remembered through their own mark in the bullet and reloading industry: Fred Huntington, founder of RCBS; Hornady founder Joyce Hornady; and Speer Bullets founder Vernon Speer, to name a few.

This was a history not only of cartridge and rifle component making, but the story of America pulling itself out of dire economic straits and moving through what many might call the heyday of American might and wherewithal.

At the open of the book, the reader is introduced to John Nosler as a child in Southern California. It’s a wonderful vignette to how most of America was very much rural, and that surburban was a term to come about after the major industrial push into cities after World War II, with the resulting need for workers to not completely lose that connection to the wilds.

In the second chapter we learn about Nosler’s love of all things mechanical, often roadsters and rifles. This natural interest in machines led to his employment at the Ford Motor Company. Through Ford, John Nosler arrived in Reedsport, Oregon: not the place to try selling autos during the Great Depression, much less immediately after an influx of labor unions and a major layoff at the local lumber yard.

A job change and start of a trucking company quickly ensued. The center of Shakespeare Theater on the West Coast, an idyllic western town that drew my own grandmother to live with her aunt immediately after the loss of her parents in a murder-suicide in Chicago in 1914; Ashland, Oregon also, later drew the Nosler family and would become the initial headquarters of the Nosler Partition Bullet Company in 1948.

What were few opportunities in Southern California for deer hunting were replaced with a plethora of deer, elk and black bear in Oregon. A love for shooting was supported well at the Ashland Gun Club, an environment supportive of healthy understandings of firearms and shooting.

Nosler moved its headquarters to Bend in 1958, incorporating in 1960 into what we recognize with distinction as Nosler Bullets, Inc. Bend was very smart in offering incentive to Nosler, which would be a very beneficial venture for Nosler and the local populace.

The Bullet

To think that the famous Nosler Partition Jacket Bullet that has led to the improved kill ratios on big-game around the world came about as the result of John Nosler’s almost losing a moose on one of his earlier hunts in British Columbia, a time when a hunting trip up to Canada could be as challenging as a safari in Africa during its peak in the late 1920s and early 1930s, of which Ruark and Hemingway wrote.

Banking on his own intellectual resourcefulness that led him to a number of successes at Ford, and his own trucking company, in positions that most people now couldn’t apply for without a university degree, Nosler designed his Partition and created the company that has brought about so many innovations in bullet design over the last sixty-two years.

John Nosler: Going Ballistic – The Life and Adventures of John Nosler, a memoir that came about through many hours of Gary Lewis’s recorded interviews with John Nosler in 2003, goes into much more depth than could ever be captured of a man’s life in a magazine article, even the designing of the bullets that have become the crowning glories of the company, such as the Nosler Partition that started it all, the Zipedo, a bullet offering I didn’t even know about until I read the book, the Ballistic Tip, which I shot my first blacktail with near California’s Lake Almanor in the mid-1980s, and the bullet that has quickly become one of my favorites, if not my favorite, the Nosler Accubond, marrying the best qualities of Nosler’s offerings: the accuracy of the Ballistic Tip, and the penetration and energy delivery to the animal’s vitals of the Nosler Partition.

Nosler seems to have been part of many firsts of my life. Just last Saturday, I used the Accubond to shoot my first California mule deer in Modoc County. The shot wasn’t ideal  (only offered a view of the buck’s rear, with the deer looking back over its shoulder, ready to take off straight away from me at 200 yards), but with my Model 70 Super Grade solid on shooting sticks, I took the shot, confident that if I didn’t hit the spine with my ½ MOA rifle, by using the base of the tail as a target, the bullet would still do its job.

When we got to the buck that expired within 10 yards of where it had been hit, I was delighted at how the .270 caliber 130 gr. Accubond bullet had done what it was supposed to: deliver high shock and deep penetration. It was a tricky shot and one that could have really made a mess. As it was, by the time I butchered the buck after four days aging in my garage, I not only had a completely undamaged liver that I had collected the evening of the shot, but had lost only a little bit of meat on the right inside of the buck’s ham, an inch from the base of the tail, to bloodshot where the Accubond entered. NOTE: I’d never have attempted such a shot without confidence in my shooting ability based on years of practice, or using a bullet I wasn’t sure would so efficiently retain its weight, mushrooming in a timely manner to deliver such lethality so far into the chest.

I’ve been impressed and continue to be impressed by the offerings John Nosler envisioned and I’m sure we’ll continue to see more as the next generations carry the Nosler flag—a legacy I’m delighted and honored to have had a peek into through the well-written, entertaining and informative John Nosler: Going Ballistic – The Life and Adventures of John Nosler.

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Click the Play Button now, or Download and Enjoy Author Gary Lewis’s interview, along with snippets of Lewis’s interviews of John Nosler, on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

Only a few more weeks and a number of duck hunters will be heading out for the start of waterfowl season. At the outset of duck hunting, even the worst duck caller will get shooting. As the weeks go by and the ducks get wise, the numbers go down…

Good calling and understanding duck behavior is what separates mid and late season successful duck hunters from the rest of the pack. Often this is the result of always being on the lookout for good information and practicing calling as much as possible.

If you haven’t picked up your duck call since last season, you better start now to be ready for this season. Get a good CD or DVD and imitate the master on the screen or coming through the speakers to you.

More Repetitions are Best

Some might think the best place to practice is at home. In your car, as long as you can pay attention to your driving as well, is the best place. You’re alone; you don’t have to pay attention to volume and most importantly, especially if you commute to work, is you get regular practice.

Like many activities that require muscle memory, more repetitions and less time is better than less repetitions and more time: ten minutes a day, everyday is much better than one hour once a week.

Get Down

Too many hunters are want to build the biggest blinds on the refuge, especially the beginners. The smart guys, the ones who come back with stringers full of mallards and sprig are those who know how to take their profile down as low to the ground as possible.

For years I used to drag out a major coffin blind that used to be manufactured by the Outlaw Decoy company in in Spokane, WA. Sadly they went bankrupt and I could never get another from them.

Gianguinto has a better idea: get one of those cheap kids sleds you can find Walmart and Big 5, just about every sporting goods store that caters to skiers and snow enthusiasts has them. Paint the thing black or olive drab, and you can use it to pull your decoy bag out to the blind, and then you can lay down in it. Put on a camo facemask and you can call with impunity.

You’ll be able to look straight up at the ducks and keep your call directed at them (something Billy and I talk about in the Cork’s Outdoors Radio interview below) and then all you have to do is sit up and shoot—you’ll be amazed at how many more ducks you’ll take this season!

Check Your Dekes

If you get started now you might have time to get your decoys in shape this season. Many have thousands, especially if you hunt a private duck club and put out your own dekes.

Unlike many who’ve told me in the past that more females is better than males, master duck hunter and instructor Billy Gianquinto says it’s better to have more males in your decoy set. From how he describes it in our interview, I’d have to agree: much easier to see that silver-gray off a drake, than the brown camo of a hen’s feathers.

Check out Billy’s Duck Calling Techniques DVD where he and assistant show you proper breath control, how and why to do “changes ups” and variations, and how to best use volume and aggressive calling. http://www.billygducks.com/Products.html

Listen to Billy’s instruction below on a number things that will help improve your duck hunting this coming season: great calling sequences!

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Billy Gianquinto’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

Introduced to reloading by my father as a young teen in the late 1970s, wanting to best improve the accuracy of my first bolt-action biggame rifle, a 7mm Remington Magnum Model 700 BDL, I created my first hunting loads customized to that rifle. Aside from years overseas, I returned to reload again in the early 1990s. Then, in 1994, I became an outdoor writer, writing a weekly column for the pre-ANG buy out The Times of San Mateo County, and all my reloading experience basically went out the window.   

As you might imagine, when you become a gun writer or hunting writer, you get a lot of ammo to test, and I mean A LOT. It gets pretty crazy with all the bullet grains, powder charges…one who follows the belief that you pick a good load and bullet and really learn how to shoot it well, my shooting success plummeted…though on many more hunts than I’d ever gone as an average hunter, game was getting scarce in my freezer.   

Now it was definitely not from want of accuracy from the ammunition I was getting to shoot. For one who was trained and deployed as a sniper, it was just all the variations in cartridges within a week. One of the reasons snipers can seem almost magical in the types of shots that can be pulled off is because of a deep relationship you form with your rifle, understanding how your body acts and reacts to the process of shooting and the deep knowledge gained from shooting a certain load: over, over, and over again.   

With all the improvements in factory-loaded ammunition over the years, except for the very fine-tuning of taking a rifle from under 1MOA to half or quarter MOA, factory ammo was shooting nearly as well as my reloads. I just started making shorter shots, keeping them less than 350 yards. But, now that I’m writing more and more to show the efficacy of ethical long-range shooting as a tool of wildlife management and conservation, custom reloading is mandatory for long shots.   

You can get match ammo, such as that made for the military and law enforcement, but they come with bullet types inappropriate for anything other then puncturing a military/law enforcement target’s armor or exploding the back end of said target’s melon.   

If you want to get better than 1/2 MOA accuracy to ethically and confidently take long shots, or just be sure that you rifle is shooting the absolute best load for that specific rifle in your gun safe, and have a bullet designed for taking down game, reloading is the way to go!   

Forgotten Fears

Like getting on a bike after way too many years, all those parental warnings about reloading (rightfully taught so that you don’t get lazy and do something really stupid, like loading a double charge of powder) came rushing back. But, like all warnings, these are just to make sure that you pay attention when you’re reloading.   

That’s means no smoking or drinking. It means that when you’re reloading, no TV in the background or for some, not even any music that might put you into a too relaxed state of trance remembering you’re girlfriend or boyfriend that you were dating when you first heard the song—when you should be paying full attention to what you’re doing at the reloading bench…   

No Distractions!   

Do that, and read the latest reloading manual to refresh your memory, or get you started, and you’ll do all right…   

Nothing worse for fine powders than a greasy, unkempt platform...

Keep It Clean

Remember that your reloading success is based on non-variations within load groups. This means not only making sure you keep a consistency within a group of loads, bullets sizes, shapes and age of brass. It also means keeping your work area clean. Nothing throws off continuity and consistency than a dirty work place.   

This means keeping clutter down. When you setup your area, make sure everything is going to be in the same neat place. I have my workstation set up to work from right to left.   

Measuring devices and powder are on the left side of the surface area, in the middle are the cartridge trays and primers, and the bullets are on the right, near the reloading press.   

Most all make sure that all grease and particle-collecting material is removed from the equipment. For example, Robin Sharpless, Exec. VP at Redding-Reloading, advises to take some Hoppe’s to the metal inside area of the powder throw that will come in contact with your gunpowder. Wipe it down with a clean paper towel again.   

For the plastic tube run a dryer sheet, yes, the same one for your laundry, through it. This will keep the static down, and keep powder form sticking to the insides of the tube.   

Keep your whole working area, neat and clean.   

With all the dies available, it's time to bring out the old rifle you didn't think you could get ammo for!

Money Savings

Many become reloaders because they want to reduce costs. This is especially true now as litigation by anti-gun and anti-hunting organizations add to the pricing of ammunition, either through outright increased taxation and legal defense fees. Or, as in the Condor Range of California, by requiring non-lead ammunition, much more expensive to produce when production costs are kept down by product conformity: changing between copper jacketed projectiles and non-lead production, and even coming up with new non-lead alternatives is costly just in itself.   

It all comes down to money in this society, and it’s good when reloading can lead to savings. According to RCBS Product Line Manager Kent Sakamoto and Chris Hodgdon, Public Relations Manager at Hodgdon Powders, the savings can run up as much as 40 percent.   

As Sakamoto says, there are savings to be made, but what happens is that you end up spending the same amount, it’s just that you get much more for your money. Instead of 100 rounds, you get to shoot 140 rounds.   

Personally, I’m in it for the accuracy and it helps that the savings are definitely there!   

What About My Old Stuff?

My start began with a classic Lee Handloader, then we graduated to a mishmash of RCBS and Lyman presses and accessories. The greatest trepidation in getting back into reloading often is that much of the equipment would be so outdated that it won’t fit or work with any of the new releases.   

As long as you stay with the same manufacturer, this isn’t the case. You should be able to use the new accessories or major purchases with the older equipment. Not only that, but you might even be able to use equipment across brand lines.   

This hit home when I realized that I didn’t have a Redding shell holder, but the RCBS shell holder served the purpose in a heartbeat.   

Now many in the manufacturing business might think this is nuts—how are you going to make any money if some products are interchangeable with another? As one who has been furious with a number of printer manufacturers over the years, because they always want to corner the printer ink market (what are you going to do when you can find the specific ink cartridge for your specific printer is no longer available, as often has happened?)  I’m a loyal customer of companies who simply rely on turning out a great product and just leave it to the customer to respect a customer/provider relationship based on longevity nurtured by reliability.   

It’s an old relationship started with RCBS years ago, and now being nurtured through Redding-Reloading, whose great line of products of also speak for themselves. They build products that work efficiently and you can trust not to fall apart after only a few years of use. Most importantly, they understand and respect the idea of product compatibility….wouldn’t it be cool if every shotgun had the same thread and fit, so that canyou  focus on the best choke for your shotgun and duty, instead of what’s available to fit your specific brand of firearm?    

STARS AND STRIPE FOUNDATION SIDE NOTE: As you may recall from last week’s post, I was on my way to the Stars and Stripes Foundation Celebrity Shoot. The Chuck Mawhinney-signed sniper’s rifle kit is still being raffled HERE.   

Vietnam and Hollywood Veteran Steve Kanaly and CSM Mark Christianson checking out the Chuck Mawhinney-signed longrange tactical kit with matching serials numbers.

More Worthwhile Information

Below you’ll find two strings of interviews with representatives of RCBS and Hodgdon Powders. There is another great interview in part two of this article with Redding-Reloading. It’s worthwhile information for getting back into reloading after a long hiatus. And if you’re just thinking of getting into reloading, I’m sure you’ll gain a lot more from listening to these specialists.   

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy RCBS Kent Sakamoto and Hodgdon Powders Chris Hodgdon’s interviews on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

 Continue to Part Two to listen to Redding-Reloading’s Robin Sharpless, after listening to the informative interviews below on this page: view Part Two

You Don’t Have to Go Big

Getting started can be daunting. Often this is because you’ve probably read the same books and magazines as I have, with a photo of the author’s reloading bench. What’s frequently missing is the disclaimer at the bottom of the photo stating the writer had started building their grand reloading station over 30 years ago.   

Now, if you have the money and the space, like a quarter of your basement or garage, by all means! If you’re like me, where space is a high commodity, you can build a pretty effective reloading bench from something as simple as a mini-bookcase. A few little alterations and customizations and you might even be doing better than a large, immovable behemoth of a reloading bench.   

With some suggestions from RCBS’s Kent Sakamoto, I mounted an RCBS Accessory Base Plate on a 2×10 piece of lumber and then, because of cross-compatibility, mounted a Redding-Reloading Ultra-Mag Reloading Press on the base plate with bolts and washers provided, also screwing a Redding Master Powder Measure into the side of the plank.   

Repeating the same with an RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme mounted on the base plate on another plank, I now have the ability to adapt to a number of upcoming planned articles on reloading. If you’re ever heard the term “Two is one and one and none”, you’ll greatly appreciate this setup.   

All you have to do is untighten the C-clamp and trade one press system for another. Also, for an upcoming piece on field reloading, I can easily take the second press with proper dies and relaod ammuntion right at the site of hunting or shooting range…just like I used to do for troutfishing, bringing a flytying kit to the streamside.   

Most importantly, with an elegant white motif to the bookcase and compact size, I have an excellent setup for anyone living in an apartment, or anywhere that space is hard to find.   

NOTE: If you’d like to build a large tradtional reloading bench, as designed by the National Reloading Manufacturers Association, click here to DOWNLOAD 

Family Affair

Finally, in what better scenario, other than actually being out in the field, can you build a deeper relationship with your son, daughter, wife or husband in shooting? This is very serious stuff we’re talking about. Screw up the process and someone’s going to hurt, either at the reloading bench or at the range.   

If you and your children don’t really communicate, you will be by the time you’re done with your first round of reloading. You’ll be communicating well, checking to make sure that every cartridge is properly charged with the correct amount of powder. Brass resizing instructions will be made clear. Even making sure that right primers have been used will be second nature.   

Then, when you’re done, your loved ones will have something tangible in their ammo boxes, ready to find out what kind of load gives the best grouping at the range. You’ll also have read one of the many books on reloading to just be sure, such as those printed by Speer, Sierra, Nosler, Lee, and Hornady.   

Remember to get a Reloading Manual!

You’ll have taken the steps and following them to the letter, you’ll have a finished reloading collection of rounds to take to the range and check to find the best combination for your rifle. Then, you’ll reload a full box with your latest recipe.   

You and your loved ones will head out into the woods in search of that elusive bear, pig, deer or whatever is your local wildgame of choice, and you’ll make a perfect hit. The animal will suffer its least painless possible death because of speed and efficiency of kill. Then, you’ll begin the butchering process for your family table’s bounty.   

Rewarding is an understatement. I still remember the first buck I shot with a cartridge I reloaded myself, just as dearly as the first trout, steelhead and salmon caught on a fly I tied myself.   

Much More Information

Below you’ll find an interview with a representative of Redding-Reloading. It’s worthwhile information for getting back into reloading after a long hiatus. And if you’re just thinking of getting into reloading, I’m sure you’ll gain a lot more from listening to the specialists and in part one of this article.   

You may have noticed there are some advanced pieces of equipment stored in my bench photos, that go beyond normal entry into reloading. In futures articles I’ll be writing about how to best use them and get a level of accuracy out of your bullet that is impossible to get from mass produced ammunition…unless you spent many thousands of dollars on a case of custom ammo!   

Visit these fine manufacturers to review their latest quality offerings:   

• Hodgdon Powders
• Redding-Reloading
• RCBS
• Speer
• Nosler
• Hornady
• Lee Precision
• Lyman 

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Redding-Reloading Robin Sharpless’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

In 1972, I arrived in Singapore to attend the Singapore American School and soon after was introduced to a documentary film, called Future Shock, based on a book by Alvin Toffler and narrated by Orson Welles which was taking the US by storm. As a child, it totally freaked me out….perhaps one of the reasons I avoided computers until I could avoid them no longer. At that time there was also a large movement to get back to basics.

It revealed itself in the very large “Ecology” movement of the 1970s (remember the riff on the American flag, in green with the Greek letter ‘Theta’ where the stars and blue background would have been?), and publications like The Foxfire Books, a collection of stories detailing life in Southern Appalachia. I still have my father’s copies that he picked up on visits back to the States. It’s full of information on woodcraft and pre-supermarket self-reliance. They even showed how to properly scald a pig, which I used in this episode of Cork’s Outdoor TV on roasting a pig.

I’m reminded greatly of the back-to-basics movement of the 1970s, by these latest “slow food” and “green food” movements recorded by Michael Pollan and Paul Bertolli. What could be better than eating food that led to a slower and more relaxed society? But, so much information has been lost due to the increasing lack of family histories and traditions being handed down through live practice, i.e. on a farm or ranch. So many generations have moved off the land and into cities. Nowadays, most slow food information is that carried into the US by new immigrants from Asia and Latin America.

This is a pity as there was a lot of slow food information held in the family lines that came here from Northern Europe. In March of this year, I had the opportunity to complete a phone interview for Cork’s Outdoors Radio with one such food authority on her latest book on getting back to the basics (be sure to listen to the audio and watch the show below).

Darina Allen is noted as the “Julia Child of Ireland” and has been entertaining and educating on the subject of cooking in Ireland and the United Kingdom through her TV show and a collection of books. Her latest book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time Honored Ways are The Best – Over 700 Recipes Show You Why, is that treasure trove of not only Irish, British, and foods from other parts of the world, like Italian slow food recipes, but also articles and remedies for raising your own chickens for meat and eggs, how to properly butcher large farm animals like pigs, cattle and lambs.

It’s a gorgeous book, with photos that took all the seasons to create, evidenced by plants in bloom, and the foods in season. It’s all about being seasonal, Allen says, something clear in how she describes not only those foods that are collected on the farm, but also on a day’s walk in the woods gathering such morsels for the kitchen as nettles, mushrooms and a number of herbs, leafy greens, and berries.

Both land and water are covered, with foraging rewards, like limpets that are easily found in the Americas, and are cooked in a number of dishes that incorporate the bounty of the farm and field.

Though spending a lot of time reading through the scrumptious recipes that anyone would easily take a few years preparing all the scrumptious family meals using organic ingredients (either purchased or foraged): pies, breads, puddings, roasts and grilled fishes, I was keen on the game and fish sections.

Hare, venison, duck and goose are covered well, both as farm offerings and from the marsh, and of course the obligatory pheasant, but I’d done enough pheasant recipes lately, so I quickly focused on the basil cream rabbit recipe. It was the very cottontail taken with a .22 pellet rifle from Crosman. Who would have thought the hardest part for this recipe was to get the caul fat: Thank God for Dittmer’s in Mountain View, CA!

Watch the preparation and presentation on Cork’s Outdoors and return for the recipe below:

SADDLE OF RABBIT WITH CREAM, BASIL, AND CARAMELIZED SHALLOTS

 reprinted with permission from the publisher, KYLE BOOKS

SERVES 6

6 saddle of rabbit (use the legs for confit)

4oz pork caul fat

salt and freshly ground pepper

extra virgin olive oil

2⁄3 cup dry white wine

2⁄3 cup Chicken Stock

2⁄3 cup cream

2oz basil leaves

Caramelized Shallots (see below)

 Steps:

1. Trim the flap of each saddle, if necessary (use in stock or pâté).
2. Remove the membrane and sinews from the back of the saddles
3. with a small knife.
4. Wrap each saddle loosely in pork caul fat.
5. Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper.
6. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Place the rabbit pieces in a stainless steel or heavy roasting pan and roast for 8–12 minutes, depending on size.
7. Remove from the oven, cover, and allow to rest.
8. Degrease the pan if necessary, and put the wine to reduce in the roasting pan.
9. Reduce by half over medium heat, add the chicken stock, and continue to reduce.
10. Add the cream.
11. Bring to a boil, season with salt and freshly ground pepper, and add lots of snipped basil.
12. Serve the rabbit with the basil sauce, caramelized shallots, boiled new potatoes, and a good green salad.

CARAMELIZED SHALLOTS

1lb shallots, peeled

4 tablespoons butter

1⁄2 cup water

1–2 tablespoons sugar

salt and freshly ground pepper

 Steps:

1. Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan, and add the peeled shallots.
2. Cover and cook on a gentle heat for about 10–15 minutes or until the shallots are soft and juicy.
3. Remove the lid, increase the heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally.
4. Allow the juices to evaporate and caramelize. Be careful not to let them burn.

For more information on Darina Allen’s cooking school in Ireland, check out her school’s website: Ballymaloe Cookery School

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Darina Allen’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

(L-R) Gary Graham, Joe Penny, Melinda Clarke, Tim Abell, Joe Mantegna

As wars protract, especially counterinsurgency wars, it becomes much easier for a society to forget its warriors sent to fight that war—especially as other distractions come up, like corruption in the government, and an economy in dire straits. It’s happened many times in history, well-recorded in ancient Greece and Rome, and our own history.   

Who remembers why my father’s war is still called “The Forgotten War”? Pick up a copy of Breakout to know why those who fought there and that war should never be forgotten or lost to history. And who remembers, contrary to what many who later protested against the war say they didn’t, that there was very large support in the United States for getting into the war in Vietnam in 1963 to 1965? Then, there was my generation’s war, “The Secret War”, that if you weren’t paying attention, you totally missed…it never ceased to amaze me how focused everyone was on making the big bucks during the Yuppie successes of the second term of President Reagan, when that very President, and we down there fighting The Secret War, were wondering if the greatest capitalist democracy in the world would soon have Soviet tanks parked on its southern border, revving their engines to bust across and take back ‘Old Mexico’, in the first of what would be two final campaigns for total world domination by Communist States.   

Now, of course, times change and we’re in what’s called “The War on Terrorism”. This I consider a misnomer, as terrorism is just a tool of every force that doesn’t have majority support from the populace—and who in their right mind would support a front whose doctrines support stoning women for adultery and rape (it’s the woman’s fault, you know, according to these fanatic Islamic terrorists), forcing women to be subservient and cover themselves from head to toe while the man can walk around not only uncovered but checking out less clad non-Muslim women (any hints of mysogyny?), and much worse and actually most dangerous—a belief that everything they desire resides in the after life. At least when we were fighting the Soviets and Red Chinese, they were economically directed and didn’t want to destroy that which they could use once they won.   

What we’re in is another counterinsurgency  (CoIn) war, just that we’re in one against a political front whose fighters have no regard for the environment or the people who walk upon the Earth. They’re just focused on subjugation and religious dogma…I could go on and on about CoIn, something I understand well from years of personal experience, introduced to it with my earliest memories of my life: The Tet Offensive of 1968 happening in the skies above, and just on the other side of the wall of our home, in Saigon. But, like why I hunt and fish, subjects so much more important than can be explained in a quick soundbite or even a single magazine article, they’re best left to all the information being dispersed at our other online multimedia magazine: GCT Magazine.   

Let’s just say that I have many more life experiences than those that started with me becoming a traditional print outdoor magazine writer and newspaper columnist in 1994. And if I hear another antihunter say, “How would you feel if bears were armed and hunting you?” I’m gonna bonk them on the head in my frustration, because, YES–I do know what it’s like…and hunting and being hunted for a political cause, and hunting for food are like comparing apples and oranges!   

Cork Graham and his Sgt. waiting for an evening helicopter ride

Assisting Those in the Battle Coming Home

I especially know what it’s like to come back from a war, with the rest of the populace going on about their business as if there were no war: one week in a full on firefight, both sides receiving heavy losses; and the next week, taking a break from a morning’s surfing and flirting with bikini-clad coeds…a surreal awareness of reality…most of all, never even being allowed, or, in the end, wanting to talk about “It”.  Thankfully, I was pretty lucky and came back with only 10 years of major migraines, shot knee and a few superficial wounds…nothing like what veterans the Stars and Stripes Foundation help came back with…   

It’s knowing about what it’s like that makes me jump at every chance to help those warriors coming back from their call of duty. Men and women go to war for a number of reasons. The benefit of their service to us in a democracy is that when they go to fight in foreign countries, dealing with all the dangers and cultural conflicts, (even overcoming the setbacks of our own backstabbing budget-cutting politicians that sent them into the fire in the first place), to arrive at success, we as a result don’t have our sworn enemies slapping us silly on our own soil…is it too much to ask to just give a hand, when there’s a need?   

These are men and women who go off to fight, so that their families and friends don’t have to experience on the streets of the United States, Canada and the UK what those in Third World nations experience every week…even those in the US and Europe, who naively go about their business, badmouthing those who protect them—defending your country can sometimes truly be a thankless job!   

When these men and women comeback not completely whole, either psychologically, or physically, there’s definitely a responsibility of the people whom they defended to roger-up, to come to the call of their defense and well-being, after they’ve offered life and limb and so much more, for your continued life and lifestyle. Especially when these men and women who because of their strong character would prefer to just keep quiet and buckle up. It’s hard to come back from a traumatic experience and ask for help, even when it’s necessary.   

…I remember when I came back after surviving almost a year in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s political prison system, and the look on my grandmother’s face. Men and women who come back from the Dragon’s jaws, don’t need nor want your pity. They just need a helping hand when it’s warranted. Missing limbs, blindness, and debilitating subconscious reactions to daily peacetime events fit into that category—that’s what Start and Stripes Foundation does; it provides assistance by filling in the holes left by federal inattention or lack of funding.   

Hollywood’s Best

(L-R) Dan Reeves, Robert Duvall, Mark Christianson

When Hollywood stands up to help, it’s truly the cream of the crop! Sadly, Hollywood historically lost its way jumping into the back pockets of tyrants and murderers like Joseph Stalin, Daniel Ortega, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara, not respecting the difference between understanding free speech, romanticism, and being avant-garde; and just being a pawn toward a murderous tyrant’s aims…   

(L-R) CSM Mark Christianson, Nana, Dan Reeves, James Woods, Mern

Not everyone in Hollywood is that lost…One of my personal joys was receiving an endorsement from Charlton Heston for the title pages of my 2004 Amazon TopSeller Vietnam prison memoir, The Bamboo Chest. This was from a man who, even long after his passing, I still think of dearly when I think of all that is and was good in Hollywood: producing films that emulate Mankind’s higher aspirations, taking story-telling of heroes back to what Homer did around a campfire, sharing myths and tales about characters overcoming challenges to make a better society…not films about anti-heroes that have no beneficial emotional reward and only leave the audience running through the Yellow Pages in search of a good therapist.   

What seems to be a common thread through all of Hollywood that I respect is a stand for what’s right and honorable. It’s what in the past has stirred actors like Frank Stallone, James Woods and Robert Duvall to get involved with the Stars and Stripes Foundation, along with longtime supporters such as Michael Gregory, Leslie Easterbrook, Joe Mantegna, Joe Penny and Michael Dudikoff and my friends Patrick Kilpatrick, James Partee, Tim Abell and Steve Kanaly.   

(L-R) Joe Penny and Patrick Kilpatrick

Celebrity guests attending this year will be: Joe Penny; Leslie Easterbrook; Michael Dudikoff; Michael Gregory; Tim Abell; Joe Mantegna; Marty Kove; Michael Rooker; Steve Kanaly; Peter Sherayko; Lilly Sieu; DB Sweeney; wildlife artist James Partee; Frankie Anne; John Fasano; Richard Edlund, A.S.C.; and Patrick Kilpatrick, along with a few others like myself who haven’t been as yet listed on their website’s homepage.   

Special guests will include world-renowned action-thriller novelist and past commander and founder of US Navy SEAL Team 6, Commander Dick Marcinko, Medal of Honor recipient Jon R. Cavaiani, and legendary Vietnam Sniper Chuck Mawhinney, whose record tops legendary Gunny Carlos Hathcock’s by ten.   

The Stars and Stripes Foundation Celebrity Shoot

Founded and organized by shooting personality Dan Reeves, Command Sergeant Major (California, Nevada, Arizona) and retired Special Forces operator Mark Christianson and his wife Lisa, foundation treasurer and business affairs director, the Stars and Stripes Foundation has been building revenues for a number of organizations that provide direct assistance to wounded military veterans since 2006. The existence of the Stars and Stripes Foundation arose out memories of the shameful treatment homecoming United States and the Free World’s defender’s received from the late-1960s through to Desert Storm—those that forget the lesson of the past are doomed to repeat them…   

Every year the Stars and Stripes Foundation reviews the direct assistance organizations out there, and focuses the funds for that year on the chosen organization. This year, the monies collected through the celebrity shoot and raffle will go toward a group that provides therapy and assistance dogs to veterans. If you’ve read my article on my PTSR site, you know how important this is: Puppy Love   

The cost the Stars and Stripes Foundation will offset is $1,800 per animal this year—doing good by doing right!   

My therapy dog, Ziggy, no longer a pup, with my trout-fishin' birthday brother, and Rock Legend, Ronnie Montrose last week.

Looking Forward to Seeing You There

I’ll be arriving at a bit before the 8 a.m. start and will be bringing a box of The Bamboo Chest to personally sign for patrons that day, with all the proceeds going to the Stars and Stripes Foundation.   

The event is open to spectators to observe and cheer on the competitors in a supportive family-style event full of camaraderie. If you want to shoot trap and skeet you’ll be assigned a team. One celebrity will be assigned to one veteran, and these two will be assigned to a shooting team totaling five.   

There will be trap and skeet, rifle and pistol competitions with 9mm pistols provided by Ruger and Smith & Wesson, along with AR-15 forms of the present military issue M4 from Colt and Smith & Wesson with necessary ammunition. Though you’ll have to bring your own shotgun for the trap and skeet (I’ll be bringing my Browning over-n-under 20 gauge for the skeet and my Remington 11-87 for the trap), all the 20 and 12 gauge ammo will be provided by Fiocchi along with support from the National Rifle Association.   

There will also be free .22 caliber rifle events for children and young adults to participate in.  Very much a come out and enjoy a great sunny day at the Oaktree Gun Club in Newhall, CA on August 21^st, starting at 8 a.m.   

Visit the Stars and Stripes Foundation website, sign up and come on down to the Oaktree Gun Club in Newhall, CA to show your support—and have a great time doing so!   

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Star and Stripes Foundation founder CSM Mark Christianson’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

You may be asking what a review on a sniper instructional book is doing in an outdoors magazine dedicated to effective wildlife conservation practices and game and fish cooking. What you might be missing is how the path of hunter to sniper has returned to hunter in the last ten years. It’s evident in the camouflage and even the equipment being used in the hunting community.               

Hunter, Sniper, Hunter 

Major Plaster uses the phrase “Close to the Earth” to describe that quality about the best snipers from around the world. This refers to the fact that almost all the best snipers, certainly the most recognized, had younger years based in the country, with a solid hunting background. Whether Russian snipers who hunted wolves in Siberia, or Austrailians who shot kangaroos, or American snipers who were raised hunting elk, deer and squirrels, all the highly regarded snipers had a solid background learning woodcraft in their youth.              

How does this pertain to you, the hunter, just trying to do better in field? A lot!               

In the last twenty years, the hunting community has benefited greatly by the equipment that has been developed for the sniping community. Previously, it was the sniping community that benefited most from what the hunting community provided. There’s this cycle that seems to have come completely around, where techniques and equipment gained through hunting were brought to the sniper schools of past: and now, the equipment and knowledge that is used in sniping has come full circle back to hunting…and anything you can do to be that more efficient in taking your game, lessening the chances of crippling or loss, is a level of effectiveness to reach for–good wildlife management and conservation practices demand it.              

One of the easiest ties to recognize are the camouflage improvements to hunting clothing, advances in the military that were picked up and improved upon in the hunting community. There are also the improvements in rifles that make it almost a foregone conclusion that if you’re purchasing a new bolt-action rifle from a reputable manufacturer, you can pretty much expect it to shoot under 1 MOA.               

A review of writings by Jack O’Connor would quickly tell you that in the 1930s and before WWII a rifle that shot 1.5 MOA was pretty good. And we’re not even talking yet about shooting technique and optics, of which the improvements in binoculars and laser rangefinders has been amazing! Sometimes snipers can even make good optical equipment purchases  through the civilian hunting market because the advances have come so fast in this hunter focused market—driven by a market that wants the best and has the money to pay for it.               

And let’s not forget those skills taught snipers that every hunter can benefit from knowing and practicing: attention to detail, personal and environmental awareness; and  rifle, optics, and cartridge knowledge, and finally, but never least important–marksmanship.               

The Ultimate Sniper

Of all the books out there, that takes a reader from the most basic skills to the most advanced, the latest updated and expanded the 2006 release of The Ultimate Sniper rises to the top. A large book with 573 pages, everyone of them worthwhile. It was written and compiled by sniper instructor and lecturer Major John L. Plaster, USAR (ret.), whose prior experience with MACV SOG in Indochina and starting a number of highly regarded sniper schools, are well-known.               

Even though the sniper’s instructional tome is directed toward military and law enforcement snipers, there is so much information that applies to your hunting improvement. Here are just  few of what  The Ultimate Sniper covers.               

Basic and Advanced Marksmanship

If only these sections were taught to everyone who picks up a rifle. In the basic section, Plaster writes about sniper attitude, proper sight picture, shooting positions and breath control, and one shot sighting in. With the advent of the Caldwell Lead Sled, I’ve found this to be one of the easiest to perform.               

When Plaster gets to the advanced marksmanship techniques, there’s information in there that will improve your shooting skills immensely.               

Get Support

I’ve lost count of how many hunters I’ve seen miss because they just brought their rifles up and fired off-hand. How much more venison would have ended up in a hunter’s meatlocker had they used a better shooting rest?               

A sniper is always aware of the best shooting position, always on the lookout for the rifle rest. This can be as simple as shucking a backpack and dropping it down the ground to lay the rifle over (one of my favorites if the ground permits) or dropping to a sitting position—many drop to a knee, when a sitting position is much more stable…              

Bring shooting sticks with you. Plaster shows you how to make your own. You can make them long or short. I carry a foot-long tripod made with wooden dowels in my hunting pack, and also carry a set of Predator-styx slung across my shoulder with a thin bungee cord. At a moments notice, you’ll have a much better shooting rest than an offhand shot could ever be.               

That’s not to say I won’t take a quick shot at something close in the brush, or even running from an offhand position. But, it takes a lot of practice to do what is called “snap shooting.” Major Plaster co-produced and hosted an excellent video called The Ultimate Rifleman, which was directed specifically toward the hunter, and where he taught how best to prepare for a running shot on big-game. If you happen to find an old copy, snatch it up—you can find quite a bit of that type of information in the The Ultimate Sniper DVD that Major Plaster still produces.               

Excellent skills deteriorate rapidly…if you come away from these sections on marksmanship with only one thought, it should at least be: practice, practice, practice!               

Breath and Squeeze

The art of marksmanship is covered in great detail and every hunter will be well-served by rereading the sections dedicated to the integrated act of shooting. Using a chart and graph, Plaster reveals major components of excellent marksmanship: breathing, and trigger control, integrated with good body position and scope picture.               

Like in archery, shooting a rifle requires follow through. If we all had to hunt with flintlocks like our ancestors, the importance of follow-through would be that much more apparent to the average shooter. Keep your eye on the target, sights on the desired bullet impact point, and a solid stockweld.               

Know Your Round

One of the best things you can do toward improving your shooting skills is knowing what your bullet does in flight. I do this two ways, actually going to the range and shooting at 25 yard increments out to 600 yards with my hunting loads. Also, I use my ballistic software (I have copy of the Nightforce Ballistic Program that has a collection of factory rounds cataloged and the ability to type in values from a chronograph) to get a pretty good idea of travel of my bullets in their arch. I sight most of my rifles in at 1.5 inches high at 100 yards. If I run across a really close buck and want to shoot it in the neck, I aim a bit lower…little adjustments that can make a great difference when you know what your bullet’s doing in its travel.               

BLACKHAWK!®'s Pro Marksman Folding Ammo Pouch with two windows for checking your dope before your shot, along with the sliderule style Mildot Master.

Expanded Awareness 

Kim’s is a game that was first described in the story Kim, written by Rudyard Kipling. It’s a game that was taught to Kim when he was being trained to spy. It’s a game in a variety of forms that’s taught to spies and snipers and anyone involved in intelligence gathering. Its purpose is to improve memory skills. Attention to detail is also covered in it, which to a hunter is very useful.               

Plaster has included a sniper’s version of the Where’s Waldo visual puzzle. I suggest using the Where’s Ivan as an example and sketch a herd of deer with a small buck and medium-sized buck and monster buck scattered within the herd. Then, give time limits to you and your friends to pick out bucks, and then try remembering where exactly they are in relation to the rest of the deer in the group.               

Then, when you’re out in the field, scan for deer and remember what qualities there are in deer, or whatever your prey–what makes them stand out against the landscape? During archery season, and early rifle seasons, in the West, this is easy, as the red-brown and light brown hides of deer really stand out on green grass and foliage. Against the snows of winter, or the dry brown grass, a deer’s darker winter hide really stands out.               

Train your subconscious to pick out inconsistencies. One of the best sighting techniques I was taught as a teen was to look for horizontal lines. Aside from the horizon, Nature normally stretches out in vertical lines, tree trunks rising to the sun, and hillsides washing downhill. When you see horizontal lines on a hillside, like the back of a deer, cougar, pig, elk, bear, or cow, it’s very apparent when you’re looking for it!  And how many of us have looked at a group of rocks, suddenly seen one of them shapeshift into a wild boar on the hoof, before running off? Pay attention…and use your optics!             

Wind and Range

One of the most confusing for many hunters is estimating for wind and range. There are so many things in the environment that because of size, position, and distance can drastically effect a hunter’s ability to estimate distance: inclines, declines, objects much larger than your target. They’re all covered in this section of the The Ultimate Sniper.               

And you might be surprised how much wind can effect your bullet even at ranges under 400 yards…but I’ll leave that to the reading.               

Close to the Earth

One of the most important points to take is that about how the best snipers had a connection to the earth that went way back to their childhoods. From all parts of the world that has turned out some of the most impressive snipers (Australia, Scotland, Russia and the US) most of them had a hunting and woodcraft background that started in childhood. Close to the earth has relevance in a number ways. It’s the background of snipers, like Vasili Zaitsev (hunted wolves and wild boar in Siberia), Chuck Mawhinney (hunted elk and deer back in Oregon) and Carlos Hathcock (hunted squirrels and other game for the table), all well-grounded in a youth of hunting and learning wood craft. It’s the deep inner knowledge of how we are related to the earth, how we standout, and how we can blend in with this earth.               

It’s also the level of awareness that almost seems psychic in its ability to detect and enable a sniper to be two or three moves ahead of the target. It’s almost innate in someone who was introduced to firearms as a hunter, as compared to just a competition shooter. Remember that the German sniping instructor sent by Hitler to hunt down Zaitsev was better equipped, but Zaitsev relied on his “cunning” as the Germans liked to comment, and is carried in the Soviet sniper’s motto: “While invisible, I see and destroy.”               

Major Plaster puts forward a hypothesis that the reason there were hardly any well-trained snipers in the Iraqi Army during what would have been a great environment for snipers, the trench warfare during the Iraq-Iran War, goes out without a blip because an Arab society that historically had a reputation for longrange shots, was by modern times devoid of them because of an enmasse move of the hinterland population into urban areas–like in so many other parts of the world. They basically lost cultural skills instilled and developed through years of pre-service experience in the country.               

By improving your woodcraft as a hunter, you will increase the number of successes while hunting. Every hunter would be best aided by reading the chapter on stalking and movement. Addressing “The Wall of Green” as the author calls it, is most often hard for new and experienced hunters: much like a stream fisherman who fishes an ocean coast for the first time and doesn’t know how to read the coastline for fish. It’s overcoming this, using the scanning tactics described by Plaster, that has led me to shoot a number of deer and feral pigs in their beds. You can see an example of this, when I’m picking out a wild boar that is only 10 yards away from me in deep brush in this episode of Cork’s Outdoor TV.               

If you’ve ever had failures sneaking up on those open-land antelope in Wyoming and Arizona, the section on stalking will be very helpful.               

Get The Ultimate Sniper, read it, apply the techniques, read it again and see how you might improve or modify the information for your own environment…no matter your present level, I’d be surprised if your skills didn’t improve—and get out there and practice, practice, practice!               

Get your copy here: 

• Ultimate Sniper 
• Palladin Press

Tips and Techniques directly from the Master

Major John Plaster is well represented on two websites. As an advisor at Millet Sights, he has written a number of articles to help the shooter. He has his own http://ultimatesniper.com, where he offers his books and has a shipload of information, not the least of which are pdf scans of historical books going back to mid-1800 printings about sniping. In the following broadcast of Cork’s Outdoor Radio we talk about some of the tips. This one would be helpful to a lot of hunters by helping undersand what your bullet can and can’t do—even if you can shoot that far, depending on what cartridge you’re using, you might not want to based on the information in this brief: TERMINAL BALLISTICS               

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy MAJ John L.  Plaster’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

Few books really get me emotionally anymore, especially non-fiction. But, when I began reading Lierre Keith’s personal account of a strict vegan diet on her body over 20 years I was floored with one question: how in the world?

How in the world could people put themselves through such a lifestyle? How could we have arrived at such a point in our lives that those who profess a close relationship to the Earth, the morally anti-hunting/anti-animal protein driven vegan, are a great part of it’s destruction? How in the world as Western humanity gotten so far away its understanding of how the world works, how life and death are in separable?

Pain

Both Keith and I were born in the same year. That means when we were 16, she started on the vegan diet…and I was beginning to wonder why no matter the amount of high school PE and football and soccer, I couldn’t seem to get into excellent shape, even though both sides of my parental lines were in great shape from their childhood until their mid-30s. And no matter how much cereal I had for breakfast, I was hungry long before lunch, and I could never stay awake in class. The only difference between my parents and me was that my parents had an animal protein-based breakfast.

What Lierre Keith’s diet left her with after 20 years on the diet, was a degenerative bone disease, weak musculature, and nervous system of pain, that presently it can’t even support her for more than 15 minutes of standing. Not to mention all the other effects on a malnutritioned body during its most important growth years. And it was even worse ten years ago, BEFORE she began to see some slight improvements from finally getting the nutrients animal proteins provide all omnivores and carnivores.

The Book

The Vegetarian Myth is divided into three sections and in a very appropriate way. First is the moral philosophy of the vegetarian, then the political and finally the nutritional reasons spouted by the anti-hunting and anti-meat religion…and yes, I call it a religion: it what’s so dastard in how something that was a way of life has become a movement and personal identity…you should have seen the reaction I got from a guest to a party, who considered her book an insult to him personally—as if by her describing the effects of the vegetarian movement and diet actually doing what those who go on the diet are trying to stop: the destruction of the environment….I thought he was going to come at me swinging: and all I did was ask him if he had read her book!

It’s also one of the reasons that so many “dyed in the wool”, and even militant (more on that later) vegetarians will say how much Keith’s book is a fabrication twisting of lies. And how many of these same people say they’ve actually read the book when pushed: almost none!

Vegetarian Hunger Destroying Topsoil

In her thesis, Keith does bring up the fact of loss of topsoil. If you’ve studied the history of Iraq (old Mesopotamia), or other ancient nations bordering the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf, you’ll be keen to know why what were lush, tree-covered lands came to be the lands that we see on the news everyday—barren, rocky islands and sand. Their agricultural societies basically tilled the topsoil into the ocean.

Now, this is where it really gets depressing. We’ve been an agricultural society for easily 12,000 years. Our major cultural makeup and politics revolves around agriculture. Most especially, our money and way of doing business revolves around agriculture. The worst examples of it are mega-corporation animal factories with chickens and pigs sitting in cages unable to move, drugged up on antibiotics, cranking out eggs and piglets for market.

If anyone doesn’t think that effects you personally as a consumer, then you’ve never eaten meat from animals that have been properly raised, in a chicken yard, or large pig pen, even left out to graze on other food types other than grain. Previously, I thought grain-feeding livestock was the way to go: more bang for the buck. Yes, more cost effective cash wise, but health wise, I’m not sure. One of the examples I know of is eating meat raised in the US on these factory farms, contrasted to eating steak in places like Vietnam, Thailand and South Korea, where they refuse to raise livestock the way we do in the US, not specifically for the animal’s interest, but more for taste and sustenance—meat is a very precious commodity in those places.

On the bright side, if you’ve tasted free-range beef and chicken here in the US, you know what I’m talking about. If you hunt and tasted the power of venison, elk and bison, you definitely know what I’m talking about. Chickens are omnivores, needing that freedom to throw in a bug, worm, or lizard in with the occasional weekly toss of grain and grazing of wild seeds. Beef, sheep, and pigs are fortified by the calm relaxation of feeding beyond grain, filling up on grasses and whatever attracts their tastes in a pasture. If you don’t think pigs need free-roam, too, then you don’t know how the Spanish make the best prosciutto, called Serrano ham: they let their pigs free to graze on fresh-fallen acorns in September, just before the butchering season.

Keith’s answer to the loss of topsoil could be considered very extreme, basically removing ourselves from an agriculturally based society, and returning to hunter-gatherers. As one who lived in Alaska for a year as hunting-gathering subsistence hunter and angler, let me tell you it’s not easy work. It was a great way to get myself back on track with regards to understanding money, and culture and healthy ways of living. But, practically, if every human being on the planet suddenly became a hunter-gatherer, because the human population is SO massive now, every wild living thing with fins, wings and legs would be decimated within a year, two at the most. Our population has turned us into a major predator; our technology has turned us into THE mega-predator.

The question Keith brings up is whether the present agricultural economy is sustainable. At the present rate of growth of the human population across the planet, especially in places where there’s already a population supported only by imports, like India, Africa and China, it’s not—the wildlife in those places are barely hanging on! The question is whether our agricultural society suddenly implodes within 20 years, somehow struggles for another hundred at its same rate of production and the dramatic effects on the topsoil: and collapses…I’ll leave that part of the thesis to your own mental machinations.

Countering Past Inaccuracies

What I’m most keen about in the solid information provided in The Vegetarian Myth, is that Keith, unlike so many new and old vegetarians, did her homework. She even went past what we’ve been spoon-fed by the government for the last 60 years about food triangle (when you read the history of those studies and how lies can have such longevity, you’ll probably say the same I did—what in the world?): wide and heavy on bread and grains, thin on meats, cheese and fish…even that demonized, but so important cholesterol. Actually there’s a metaphor if you’ve got a weight problem or dealing with hypoglycemia. I know personally from my own prior experiences, as a past believer that nutrition pyramid, when I should have flipped it: more meat and fish, much less bread and grain…but I’ve jumped ahead to the last section of the book.

The Hypoglycemic and Diabetic's Food Pyramid

The first section on the moral attitudes of the vegetarian is priceless. For those who have studied any type of ancient religions, everything has life and life survives because of the death another living being. Somehow strict vegetarians believe that if it doesn’t have a face or mother it’s somehow not killing: remind of those who fish, but hate hunters? Oh, but fish and lobster have different nervous systems…they don’t feel pain—how in the world do you know?! I stopped flyfishing for entertainment, now when I fish it’s to catch one or two and put them in frying pan, leaving the rest to stay unmolested and healthy, get big, and possibly end up as an enjoyed meal for a bigger fish, after a good life of swimming and eating.

Scientific research has found that plant life also has societies and even reacts to attacks—do you know that the largest living organism on dry land is an aspen grove in Utah? My years apprenticing and training in the Native American healing communities taught me that it’s not whether we kill, we kill by simply stepping blade of grass. It’s whether we do that killing with respect for that which dies. The joke often shared in the community, especially when “the light eye” hippies, and “Wannabe Indians”, searching for meaning to their lives were appalled that the “shaman” actually the proper term “healer” (“shaman” is a Siberian native term), wasn’t a vegetarian—lesson one to the truth seeker: you live because something dies—respect that animal or plant’s death and enjoy your food…say a prayer of thanks, if you’d like!

Vegan Politics

In the second section the author takes on the political component of vegetarianism. This is where she describes how wars and battles for possession of land, and wealth are the results of an agricultural society. Yes, wars have always been fought for religion, food, money and land. She does acquiesce to the fact that hunter-gatherers did fight, also, and definitely for the same reasons of land, except for hunting grounds that provided food, as compared to land for planting that offered food. And there is definitely a much too idealistic view, even naïve attitude that comes across in her writing, and much evidenced in her surprise that militant vegetarians would throw pies at her during an anarchist book fair.

First, she was at an anarchist’s book fair when it happened after all. Secondly, every strict vegetarian, especially one whose personal identity is labeled “Vegetarian” has always had an angry quality about them: either aggressively so, as those who attacked and continue to attack her, and those passive aggressive who get in their little circles, complaining about how horrible the world is how the US Government is the leader in atrocities against the world. It’s all about how the world isn’t how they personally want it to be. Often, they’re also the same kinds of people who spike trees that will send a chainsaw’s broken chain into a logger’s head, a logger who’s just trying to keep his family fed and by doing so also open land for regrowth that enables, young saplings a chance, and an abundance food for deer and other ungulates…These are the same militant vegetarians who come yelling and screaming into hunting areas during hunting season, thinking they’re helping animals.

Did they purchase the hunting licenses and tags that fund all the wildlife areas for not only game species, but also non-game species?

Have they put any money and actual effort toward saving animals, instead of making it look like they’re helping animals?

Remember that the next time you hear the name Wayne Pacelle who also says he has been on a strict vegetarian diet for 20 years—considering all the other lies he spreads, do you think he’s really a strict vegan? When I think of strict vegetarians, I think of flim-flam artists like Pacelle, and most definitely Wiley Brooks (rhymes with Wiley Coyote) and his Breatharian Institute (as he used to say on his website before Keith’s book, about his $1,000,000 his “Immortality Workshop”, “no, that’s not a misprint”) Now he incorporates a diet Coke and McDonald’s quarter-pounder into his scheister sales letter after he was caught publicly enjoying them…there are people out there who actually believe this! No, I wasn’t surprised about the attacks on Lierre Keith by the political vegetarians, and most definitely those at the anarchist book fair.

Her writings on the way the US government, at the behest of major agricultural corporations, is well researched and developed in describing how third world nations are basically enslaved into a diet support almost completely by imports from the United States. And this is where I was lost, even though the research and collection of history is spot on!

The world works in treaties and negotiations, and all of them are based on business. Unlike in the days of old, these days that means corporate negotiations. If we’re lucky, the local populace benefits through democracy and lack of unrest. If we’re not, it means dictatorship and totalitarian rule, and the potential for a mega civil war: something we should recall well from stupid government actions by Nicaragua’s Somoza ruling line and El Salvador’s Juntas.

…It’s Keiths’ proposal that I found so impractical: there is no way humans, unless there’s a major catastrophe that basically takes out 80 percent of the human population, are going to say good bye to the plough and pick up the spear and bow and arrow—you wont have the commerce to support gunpowder production and the bullets.

Personally, I’d love to see every east-west highway raised ten feet above the ground, and every length of fencing in the Midwest be used to not keep in cattle and livestock, but used to surround homes and cities, keeping the wild animals out. In doing so, we’d create a causeway that would redistribute and open up the land so that bison, deer, and elk populations would have their traditional migration routes. I bet you, within 10 years, the herds would be so large you would have to wait a week for each one to pass, as Lewis and Clark observed when the made their way west. A dream. A fantasy. Can you imagine how much healthy, red meat there’d be for everyone? And all the topsoil that has been lost to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico would instead stay and get thicker, rejuvenated by the stomping of the bison’s hooves…never again would the US run the risk of something like the 1930s Great Dustbowl.

Enjoy That Steak

The section of the book that I most enjoyed was the one on nutritional reasons espoused by vegetarians. Not to mention her descriptions of how a strict vegan diet really effects the brain and brain chemistry in a horrifying manner…there’s a reason vegans lose it when they’re on such an unnatural diet (when humans get a number of extra stomachs and eat our food with side-to-side grinding jaw motions of cows and sheep, instead of the present stomachs and teeth closest to the very carnivorous dog we’ve had since the origins of mankind, I’ll become a vegan)—not the least of the reasons is the hypoglycemic reactions to the diet that turns most vegans into cookies and cakes addicts, to get that immediate, yet never sated, mental stimulation of a sugar rush.

After reading that section, I’m never drinking soymilk again…and even though I have a taste for tofu from being raised in Asia, I’ll definitely cut back on the tofu orders at dim-sum. Tofu increases memory loss. If you’ve ever seen how tofu is made you’ll understand partly why…and the part about soy’s phytoestrogens, that has historically made it attractive to sex abstinent, vegetarian monks, was the last straw!

Now, I could go on and on about what’s in the book, but unless I wrote a length of text that would fit into a book as long as The Vegetarian Myth, it wouldn’t do the subject justice. As Keith says there are no meat eating slogans like the vegetarian’s quaint but hollow, “Meat is Murder”. There’re only facts and research, and that time and pages to read, 276 to be exact.

If you know someone even thinking of going on a vegetarian diet, or especially if you know a mother who wants replace her child’s mother’s milk with soy milk, please save them from a lot of grief by getting them a copy of this book!

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Lierre Keith’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio: