Naw, There Ain't No Pictures.

What happened? What finally got me off my quest to hunt and harvest an animal with every high-powered rifle I own in the safe when I am close to doing so?


The French MAS has a wonderful, ugly appearance. It shoots a serviceable, 30 caliber cartridge that is on par with our own well-used and oft written about .308 Winchester cartridge. And it has what for many years I would have considered great, open sights. The aperture sight it is equipped with serves extremely well on the range, but I've yet to shoot a wild animal on the rifle range in broad daylight.


But that's not how it was when I came to be sitting in a covering corner of pines along the side of a wide, wheat field at the fish farm--it had been a dark and stormy day, and knowing, that with open sights, my hunt would be over well before legal shooting hours, I went and carried the 1950's weapon anyway hoping to fulfill my quest and freezer. After all, gainfully employed these days, I only get to hunt during the week if it rains, rain being the only thing that can stop a modern framing crew dead in its tracks.


To the non hunter, a quick word about "The Rut". It's the one time of year that deer get to pass around their genetic material. And, brother, pass it around they do--have you noticed how many deer there are around here? The bad news, for the bucks, is that it takes alot* of begging and damned chasing to convince a hottie that you're worthy.


So, as I sat down in this natural blind on the edge of this field, eager to take an animal with this 1950's rifle, The Rut was in full "swing". And sure enough, close to Remington Hour, a doe trots out of the woods a couple of hundred yards away and doesn't quite make it to the other side before two young, four-pointer bucks come out of the same spot and proceed to cross the field after her, chasing her.


So far during this season's rut, this has been a familiar theme: How to shoot a big meaty doe when she's being harassed and chased by eager bucks. And so, once again, I saw my opportunity to harvest scared away by, what clicked in my mind that late afternoon, two bullies. I was chapped, I mean, I have a daughter, and the thought of her in college being chased by dumb freshman bucks with their noses to the ground just behind her might have been too much.


I remember being glad I saw deer, my pick of a spot had been a good choice, but I remember being disappointed too. And when one of the two bucks, all puffed up and ready to rut, stepped back out of the woods less than 60 yards away, it was all too much.


In an instant, the rush, the call to arm came over me. This four pointer looked for his quarry, and I at him. That instant, for some reason, some little boy urge, some quick and cocky impulse to kill had me. I can't really explain it. It was that thrill of seeing game, and seeing it as a target, an immobile target/living thing that I could take quickly and cleanly. Or so I thought.


I couldn't stop me, so pure and awful was this urge. At the fish farm, the decree by the land-owner is "Don't stop shooting the deer until I tell you to stop, and I ain't likely to tell you to stop," but the gentleman's agreement with his son and my buddy J.B. is "Let's let 'em get bigger." Shamefully, now, I followed the former.


The buck was quartering towards me, that is to say, he wasn't presenting the classic broadside shot which, at least in my mind, I'm usually famous for waiting for. No, he was walking from right to left angled towards me. No problem for me, I'll aim low, a little on the right "brisket" and it'll pop out after tearing through the off-side lung. I'll just put the front post I painted white about ten years ago on his chest and...


The rear aperture and the front sight completely hid the animal in the overcast afternoon lighting. I'm sure I could have picked out the "sweet spot" if the sun had been straight up in the sky on a cloudless day. But this day I had to raise my cheek off the gun to find the deer over the top of the rifle, then scrunch down into battery to try and find him in the sights over and over again. The head bobbing should have sounded a bell, should have snapped me out of my haste, but it didn't.


When I thought I had him. I squeezed.


The shot sets him down on his haunches, and he raises the on-side leg in a tuck, right where I had wanted the bullet to hit it looks to me. Just after the shot, I'd racked the bolt and reloaded--something we all do after a shot--and watched this buck over my rifle as he painfully pulled himself back up to all fours! Yes, I'd reloaded, but then had to do something I rarely ever had to do before. I had to shoot him again.


Now he's a moving target though, and I'm still saddled by the "combat" sights of a war rifle. I do the best I can and shoot for center mass of course. Bang! and a MISS! Now I'm starting to get sick inside...now I get it, I shouldn't have even shot him. Bang! And he drops this time. And I reload. It's over.


Out of anger at myself I lean the gun against the nearest tree and rip my poncho off, and my coat; I'm so hot and physically sick that I need to cool off. Of course, I'm also shaking now. I'm just relieved it's over and happy I can get him before dark and that I don't have to track him...I'm embarrassed that I missed and wonder what someone would have thought miles away hearing me shoot and shoot and shoot...


Then the buck raises his head.


He looked at me as I was wadding my poncho up and stuffing it into, well, the stuff sack. He sees me, and I know he knows. It's just at that moment the tiny amount of relief I was feeling washes away; he knows I did it. I sit down and hide behind the tree from his eyes. I can't see him see me, and I don't want him to try and run off from my presence, I want him to bleed, to die.


I've shot him enough, I don't want to anymore. I probably should have, but I just sit there. I sit and peek, waiting for his head to go back down, and it does a time or two, but it always pops back up. I draw a bead on him more than once, but I just can't pull the trigger on him. Until he rises again.


He get's back up and heads for the woods, and since it's even darker now, I fumble through the sights worse than before trying to lock in on this deer before he disappears into the woods. He presents that classic broadside and when I shoot, again, the bullet rolls him over, and the hooves kick, and it really is over. I heard the muffled cough and I stand up, and without looking back, a carry my crap back to the truck.


I have no excuse. I wanted to shoot a deer with this rifle, and I did. Angry at the bucks for chasing off a good shootable doe, did I want to punish him? A little boy with a gun?


It seemed fitting that the night sky opened up again on me as I hoisted him up on the truck mounted gambrel system I made. The pouring rain a punishment for my hubris as I skinned and quartered this deer by the light of a head lamp. Each ham placed in an open cooler. With the skin pulled back, I could see the "job" I had done. The first shot would have indeed been lethal, in a few days perhaps. The second shot, a poorly placed "gut shot" that certainly would have been lethal that night, and the third connecting shot, had it been the first shot...well, there'd be pictures here and words of me slapping myself on the back on a job well done.


The cooler didn't have a drain plug, and when I was done, I had to tip it to drain the rain water, and in doing so, as if to add one more insult to the buck, I accidentally let the meat slide out onto the wet grass. Impossible to hold almost, I scooped it up, covered with grass and grit and loaded it up.


And so, this challenge, this goal to use every rifle in my arsenal to take at least one game animal each might have slipped away. I would say, in no way was my performance the rifle's fault, I just should have stuck with the plan I had had last year which was limit those hunts to morning hunts when the sun climbs higher and higher, always brighter and brighter. The MAS was made to be carried by young men, young foot soldiers with crisp, clear vision and not 45 year old dumbass carpenters.


It'd be hard to put into words what the whole "point to hunting" is to me, but suffice it say, I only want quick, clean, "humane" kills and nothing like the above train wreck I had. It's not fair to the deer, and it's not good for my soul. The only thing I can say is that at the very least, I knuckled down and did what I had to do, and I didn't lose that buck.


I ain't ready to quit hunting, but that shook me pretty good. Shook me up so that the next time afield I carried a rock steady standby that is scoped with some of the best glass money can buy. That is my Custom Casey M700 in 6.5X55mm topped with a Vari-X III Leupold in 2.5x-8x. That's the rifle that I shot the coyote at 167 yards with before sunrise that morning...and even that exposed an internal conflict, but that's another story.


p.s. Backstory on the MAS

And Part two about the French MAS

Opening Day!

I made it all the way around the sun for another opening day here in Guilford County. Sure, I was there for another opening day way over in Vance County, and I spent another opening day for muzzleloader season here in Guilford County, but yesterday was opening day for rifle season. It's the day I get to choose and use one of the rifles I've been fondling, cleaning, shooting, and writing about all summer long and take it afield.


This year, I carried the old warhorse M1 Garand for the morning hunt because my eyes don't really like open sights for those evening hunts. So for the morning hunt, as the day gets brighter and brighter, an old rifle like that does just fine. The only "problem" I faced was finding a shootable target where I was hunting.


Right off the bat, stuck in the burgeoning brightness of a growing dawn, I was beat to my stand by that irascible three pointer I'd seen last week hunting with a camera! I had had the sense to stop just in the edge of the clearing the stand sits alongside, and had thrown the binoculars up to check the field before crossing. Of course, the first thing I'd seen there was this same big-bodied, future-bruiser deer staring back at me from about thirty yards away.

This guy! That missing tine is in someone's belly right now I bet.

I was still somewhat concealed, and I know he couldn't "see me" see me, so we both just stood still and stared. I was stuck. I knew he wasn't a shooter, too young, and I didn't want him flying off the handle and scare any other deer off when he did "see me" see me, so we both just stared. He didn't like it, but he broke the gaze first, and I got to see him do the classic deer moves to get a predator to give up a stalk. He did the stamp! He did the "blow". He took a step towards me--what?


Well, his wheezing blow noises would have alerted anyone else for 100 yards that something was amiss, so, still trying to get rid of this guy gently, I tried a "snort" to get him to move along. The good news? I pulled it off sounding just like a store bought call and/or a rival buck. The bad news? I pissed this horny bastard off and he started trotting right towards me!


He's a three pointer, I realized then, not because he's a genetic weakling, but because he's a fighter and he probably broke an antler off in some dummy's gut in a fight over some chick. And now he's coming to kick my ass...or worse, he thinks I'm some hot doe and he's gonna break me down like a shotgun and have his way. Either way, I was a tad nervous to see him trot up to about ten yards away from me. We still had scrub and trees between us, but he could close that yardage very quickly, more quickly than I could raise a rifle and defend myself and my honour.


I had forsaken the bayonet for the Garand, but wished I hadn't just then. I had to do something, so I just took one step to my right and, thankfully, he stopped short and turned right and trotted on up the edge of the clearing. He knew something was up, and decided he was out of there, albeit slowly. I'm glad he didn't bolt, raising his ass-flag the whole time, but he had to go. I made it up into my stand just in time to see him turn into the woods about 300 yards away, still nervous, but not panicked.


People don't think about it, but deer ain't all cuddly. As a matter of fact, I heard from Anthony, that someone out there recorded video of a doe eating the carcass of a fallen comrade! How's that for cute and cuddly, boys?


Anyway, sitting there, I saw a few lone bucks, and a couple of does, probably sisters, being chased by a retarded, yet ambitious spike buck looking for love. It breaks my heart to see a feller work that hard and get NOTHING--kinda reminded me of my college days when I got stood up 5 times by five different young ladies in five weeks my freshman year.

Here's a seven pointer that hung out for awhile.

It was a pretty good show. And the whole time, I'm hearing shots from all around the countryside as well. And naturally one of the shots was from someone in our group. By ten o'clock, I was more than ready to get down. The sun was up and I was super thirsty, but by the time I got back to the truck and cracked my big orange, I got the text: "Head to roof stand for tracking."


Usually this is no big deal. When you shoot a deer through the heart and lungs, their instinct to run after they're hit can carry them for 10 to 15 seconds, even on broken forelegs. I've seen it done before. But, when you hit them hard with a well placed shot, the blood trail is easy to follow. When I found the guys tracking, it was clear that this was not a well-placed shot.


Tiny drops, few and far between, and an ever longer growing trail meant that the deer the "new guy" shot wasn't just going to lay down and die. After an hour of tracking, sometimes on our hands and knees, someone had to call it. When the blood had all but stopped, we were just guessing on direction anyway. Giving up on a wounded deer is disappointing to say the least. And I'd like to be able to wag a haughty finger, but I won't or can't. It happens, and has been happening for as long as people have been hunting.


In fact, while we were tracking this deer, I found a relic from another time and another hunter. I found most of what I guess is a spear point laying in the clay from some ancient, distant cousin . Was it broken in use, or had it been discarded back in the day cause it was broken? Who knows, but for a second, I felt the coincidence of the moment; two hunters, a couple of hundred years apart doing the same thing at the very same place. It was a pretty cool feeling.

The tip was broken off. Was it damaged in a deer a couple hundred years ago?

I also found my first antler shed. It wasn't much to look at from just a yearling spike buck, but it was my first after years of stumbling around in the woods with a rifle. So I picked it up, carried it back, and threw it in the back of the truck--scratch that off the bucket list. I bet Emily's last rat would like the minerals in it while she (the rat, not Emily) keeps her teeth short and sharp.


The "new guy" took some ribbing from me as I couldn't resist even a gentle finger wag. We all felt pretty bad for the guy, and even set a target out at 100 yards and let him shoot from a stand to check his rifle's zero. It checked out perfect, which meant, he had just flubbed the shot. Buck fever? Lousy shooting position? Probably all of the above. Before the afternoon hunt, I got down on all fours and pointed to my armpit and said to him, "Right here! Hit 'em right here!" for the last word on the whole affair.


For my afternoon hunt, I cased the M1 and pulled out that Marlin Model 375 in .375 Winchester that I was bragging about a few months ago on another blog. This lever gun has a scope on it which lends itself well for evening hunts as the darker it gets, the better one, hell, I, can see targets with it. I took some jabs myself from the hunt host about this rifle along the lines of, "I have a real rifle you can borrow if you want." I've never really understood this mentality from him on the subject actually. In his mind (and Jack O'Connor's), if it ain't a bolt-action rifle chambered in .270 Winchester, it ain't worth carrying.

At any rate, I ended up in a stand with this rifle and some time to kill before the Remington Hour. Before the end of the day, I watched a pair of red tails ride a thermal up and out of sight. I heard shots from afar and sighed--always happy for another hunter to collect, but always wistful it ain't me that just punched his tag. I sent Cousin Bill a message of text when I thought a deer was headed his way--modern deer hunting includes many types of communication...the lone gunman mentality is quickly evaporating with smart phones. I do miss my walkie-talkies though. The third grader in me still likes them!

It was only a matter of time before a shootable deer stepped out. It wasn't a buck. Again, the only male deer I saw still needed some growing up to do. Since I'm a guest at this location (as well as most of the other locations) I pretty much do what I'm told. No bucks smaller than a HUGE eight, and only big does. Stuff happens, sure, I've blown it before, but I try to stick with the program. And just between you, me, and a fence post, the youngish does taste a hell of alot* better than a gnarly ol' buck.

This could be captioned, "Before". I'll spare you the after for now.

So when a two or three year old stepped out, I shot her. And when the 200 grain, .375" diameter bullet drove through her foreleg, into her heart, and out her neck on the opposite side, she dropped in her tracks going much less further than a buck did that morning from a poorly-placed shot from a (you guessed it) .270 Winchester Model 70. Suck it, Jack O'Connor!

So, opening day for me became harvest day, and I'd made it to another rifle season by the Dan River. I'll always count myself lucky to do so. I have seen too many widows at the gun shop bringing in forsaken rifles for sale. And last summer I lost a good friend, hunting partner, and brother from another mother to cancer. I never take it as a given that I'll be around for another year. I don't count birthdays anymore, but hunting seasons...opening days.

Sure, I can count the friends I have that like to hunt on one hand, but most are the kind that'll help you change a tire in the dark after you cut it on a sharp rock after an evening's hunt on opening day, which is just what we all did for Cousin Bill last night before we left for home.

Range Time: The Ugly French Duckling

First off, need to link the original blog to this new one here. The gun blog. Recently, I revisited this rifle to get it ready for hunting season, to get me ready for the way it shoots...or the way it doesn't.


http://dumbasscarpenter.blogspot.com/2011/02/countdown-continues-ugly-french.html


When I set this rifle down last, I was fixin' to get ready to head to the range, and last weekend, that's just what I did.


The funny thing about being in a gun club with over a thousand members is the fact, that on any given Sunday, you can almost bet the place will be deserted. Too many husbands, and too many fathers "don't have time" to go to the club--which, is good and bad. It means I can saunter downrange whenever I want without worrying about harshing some guy's "shot string". No polite, (see, we all have guns, so we're all polite) "Mind if I stroll down there to hang a target, Sgt. Slaughter?"


The bad news is that the husbands and fathers don't get to the club in time to do their range work and end up just having faith that the gun is still holding its zero, or that the ammo they bought the day before their first hunt will also shoot where the cartridges they can't find from last year did.


So I started out with my French MAS all by my lonesome with plenty of time to poke around the range, and even take pictures. Notice how ugly a rifle can be. To be fair, the wood and the metal's finish is absolutely gorgeous. But it's all put together like a duck-billed platypus. The french obviously never had to worry about patent infringement with the Mauser corporation like the U.S.A. did with our early combat bolt gun.

My 1950's vintage MAS 36 with the factory recoil pad from a Mas 49/56.

Now this rifle, when you look down the barrel (with the bolt removed--duh!), only has what I'd call a ghost of rifling. Nothing I've read, and nothing I've seen on You Tube suggests that this thing would be accurate. So I wasn't expecting much when I opened the box of cartridges that been collecting dust in the garage since the kids were tots.


There were three kinds to choose from, some old 6.5X55 Swedish conversion cartridges, and two other loads with real 7.5X54 MAS brass. The recipes, at this point, were a mystery to me--the loads were lost to the ages. Too bad. Because I grabbed three of the same kind and sent them down range and was astonished--you know it's true, because I hate that word--at how accurate the load was/is.

That's a three shot group!

That's from me, brett mothershead, with 45 year old eyes, open sights, and a 61 year-old rifle with just that hint of rifling at 100 yards. This is amazing accuracy for any rifle with a scope! Could I repeat this? I have no idea...probably not, but I know when to stop. The bad news? I was holding center on the orange card. The thing shoots at least 8 inches high at 100 yards. That could be a problem for a hunter. What good is stellar accuracy if the thing won't shoot to point of aim.


The sights on the rifle, though very functional, were at the end of their adjustment for close up work--close up for combat purposes. To regulate the point of impact for this particular load at 100 yards, I'd have to get someone, a gunsmith I know (named Brain), to weld an extension on top of the front sight blade to lower the point of impact...but hunting season's just around the corner, and I don't have a year to wait before I use this rifle (it's a Brian/crabby-gunsmith thing; think sloooow). A challenge is a challenge.


The good news? I had more cartridges with honest 7.5mm brass with a different recipe. I'm assuming I got these out of that great reference book Cartridges of the World and just judging by the look of the bullet, they're 150 grain Sierras. The awesome yet shoots-em-high load looks like a Hornady, but I'll have to yank one apart and backwards engineer it. Anyway, I held on the card again with the other load and was met with exactly what I'd expect from the rifle. Nothing so amazing, but good enough to make a lethal shot on game.

The card's 5.5"X7" and the group's 2.25"--plenty strong for deer.

The group is a tad right, but taking the forearm off and tapping the front sight over seems like alot of trouble considering to punch the lights out on a deer-sized animal one need only place one shot into a lung-sized target. No, I'll hunt with that load--whatever it may be--this year and revisit the other load, the very accurate load, when I have more time and influence over a recalcitrant gunsmith who can raise the front sight.


Satisfied with that load, I shot away the last of the Swedish conversions and threw the bulgy, though not so sooty as I remembered, brass casings away. I'm sure some other trash can-diving reloader will have them out by this weekend. What can I say...we're a frugal bunch.


By the end of my time at the range, I'd readied one other rifle, a Marlin 336 in 30-30, and came to share the range with some others. It was nice to see, a father and a husband out doing his range work--on his muzzleloader and his young-uns.

The next generation out and about.

I'm always ready to lounge and watch and wait on the next generation of shooters, hunters, and little people. We crabby old men need to recognize that these fellas are going to make the future of our sport possible. I like to say, "Hook 'em young." That way, there'll always be someone on a range in the fall. I've dragged mine to The Rock many times and it makes me happy to see fathers doing the same with their kids. When you "have time", you can do lots of good things for your upcoming hunt, and your upcoming hunting partners.

First Post For Guns N Poses!

Har har.
I made a blog for the serious guntard like me. I also plan to write about hunting here so as to keep the old blog separate. I'm not sure why i think I ought to do this, but I am going to.