Irv and Randy talked about that during dinner. At first, it hit me like a good story. I thought, "Good work!" After letting it sink in for a while, it's extremely sobering. (That's still good work, though...Originally Posted by GJM
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Irv and Randy talked about that during dinner. At first, it hit me like a good story. I thought, "Good work!" After letting it sink in for a while, it's extremely sobering. (That's still good work, though...
The answer, it seems to me, is wrath. The mind cannot foresee its own advance. --FA Hayek Specialization is for insects.
I had the crosshairs on the bear's brain, but because of the combination of the close distance, the relatively large caliber and the consequences of missing the brain that close with a bolt action, moved to the chest at the last instant. The one shot fired stopped the charge and was fatal to the bear.
I was convinced the bear would ultimately turn, and waited to the last possible moment to shoot, as for moral and practical reasons, I didn't want to injure a bear while on a deer hunt.
Off topic but that is why I think the G20 makes so much more sense than heavy kicking revolvers as backup in this role. With any reasonable handgun the power to be sure of a body hit take down is just too sketchy. I've seen an AK hunter who was mauled and survived write that when you're down to a handgun it's a brain pan thing.
That's a pretty neat notch to have. Not that you wanted it considering all the hassles that must have ensued. But that's a pretty small club.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
GJM, that is amazing. Glad you prevailed.
To my point though, being a hunter, being someone who may be roaming the wilderness with a bolt gun would be a strong reason to take a course using that gun.
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GJM: he doesn't always shoot bears, but when he does, he prefers 375 Dos H's, and some drama
At 15 yards and closing I'll bet it looked at big as a school bus.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
It may be more involved than suitable for this thread, but I am not certain whether the semi-auto or revolver is preferable. Revolvers shooting hard cast bullets penetrate better, semi-auto pistols have more capacity and may be easier to shoot fast. If you can only stop the bear with a bullet that penetrates the skull, I would take the revolver with hard cast loads. If the bear turns at any credible shot, that hurts the bear, and you may have non bear uses for the handgun, the semi-auto gets the edge. Confounding, is that the semi-auto loads best for penetrating (heavy and fast) seem to be further out the reliability envelope of a semi-auto.
Yes, bears look big, regardless of their actual size. This bear was a female between six and seven feet, but the effect would have been the same regardless of whether the bear was five or ten feet tall.
As to who might benefit from Randy's practical rifle course, I believe all if us would benefit from an exposure to the capability of bolt and lever guns, just as semi-auto shooters benefit from exposure to a revolver. At an early NTI, held at Gunsite, one stage had a pick-up lever gun, that had to be loaded and deployed on multiple targets. Obviously the stage designers felt that a relevant skill. Regardless of locale, bolt and lever guns tend to be legal -- something that can not be said about semi-auto black rifles. For most areas I recreate, I would far prefer a bolt or lever gun to an AR.
I can't help but recall this quote from "The Edge" with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ALOI63X_CE
"What one man can do another can do. Say it: I will kill the bear!"
Seems appropriate to clear up a few things...
This is not a precision/sniper/whatever class. It's a practical rifle class. It's easy to see where the confusion comes from as so few think of a bolt-action rifle as anything other than something to use for nappy-time shooting, but it's not, and doesn't have to be. Randy defines "practical" in the course and I didn't get it written down well enough to quote him.
No, semi-autos would not be appropriate and would not be allowed. This is a class to learn to run a lightweight, compact, bolt-action rifle for practical applications. It is up to the student/shooter to figure out if they have that application or if they have anything to gain from that. Personally, I think chasing a .025 second faster FAST is beyond a point of diminishing returns and have taken an interest in being a little more well-rounded. I don't own a stick-shift or a motorcycle anymore but I can drive both if I had to. Same reason I spent an entire year taking classes and shooting matches with an AK.
I took the class that I wrote about because I wanted another reason to train with Randy, because I ALWAYS learn something from shooting with Randy, and because I wanted something that would force me to slow down and revisit the marksmanship aspect of shooting. It's the same reason I took his carbine class with an iron-sighted AR the year before, which I also wrote about. Going and taking one more carbine course where we barely kiss 100 yards with my RDS and whiz-bang, or worse with new-hotness, isn't getting me (or probably most of you either) anywhere. I learn from challenges.
If you don't believe that the wooden guns will be the last to be taken away, or don't believe that applies to you for whatever reason, that's ok. I frankly think that Randy came up with that rationale simply to appease the people that can only train if they think they have a tactical reason for doing so, and this might give those folks a reason.
There is a history of combat shooting that is being lost. Randy is one of the few ties we have back to that history. Some think that's important, some don't. Folks that never touched a gun in their life, joined the military, and everything since springs from what they learned there may well have a lot to offer, but some also prefer to know where we all came from so that when some new guy on the scene tries to give us his brand new technique we can know that a bunch of old guys out in the desert tried those things and put them on a shelf as unsat before some of the guys pushing newfangled were born. I enjoy training with guys like Randy, Awebuck, and Jeans as much because I always learn something about shooting even if I don't still employ all of their techniques, but also because those guys have a depth of knowledge that is becoming rarer and rarer in an industry full of dogma preached by folks that don't even realize they are victims of said dogma.
Tom, Randy does teach that course in locations other than Lakeland. He's teaching it at the end of May in Casper, WY. Probably best to reach out to him directly to discuss the possibility of additional classes in other locales. This is his email address, from his website: RandyCain@centerfire.net
I took PR several years ago in Lakeland, and enjoyed it immensely, despite having to fight my rifle for parts of the course. I've taken nearly every course Randy offers, some as many as four times, and Practical Rifle ranks among my very favorites - valuable and fun.
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