Tale of a Rifle a Canadian and some goats.
Hey Guys, don't generally as a rule write stories or reports (More of the went for a walk shot something and walked slower and heavier back kind of guy - not exciting) but fuck it here we go.
Saw a rifle pop up on trademe sometime time June this year, caught my eye, beaten to hell and gone and looked to be fairly rusty. Description was, well, optimistic by the seller. I didn't care the price was right, $275. It would certainly gave me something to do during the rain Palmerston North likes to put on over winter. Got a helpful contact to pick it up and send it down to me, cheers.
First inspection left me feeling quite good, in the way I could deduce from the trademe pictures what it would be like, I wasn't disappointed put it that way.
Here was the stock, didn't get a picture of the thing put together as it was stripped rather quickly.
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When you find a Mrs that hunts and can shoot and lets you clean strip and restore firearms on the desk in the bedroom - you don't tend to care about the floral bedspread so much :).
SO spent a few, well a lot of hours stripping the stock, re checkering, a little bit of reshaping, and then refinishing with a combination of Tru-oil and beeswax/Linseed/Turps buff to give a matt sheen rather than gloss.
During all this the barrel was inspected and found to be rather pitted, could still shoot alright but I'd be surprised if the bullet would make it out with much copper left on it, would be a bitch to clean. So off to Scott at SSRNZ, to fit with a 20" heavy-ish barrel with recessed target crown in .308win and to replace the recoil pad. Came back not long after looking nice, Scott didn't have the gear to deal with fitting a recoil pad on a finished wooden stock so got it down close and I did the rest by hand. Gave him a big thumbs up for knowing when to stop, as I've already experienced muppets doing things to rifles they don't know how to do or don't have the proper gear to do and fucking things up. Action was glass bedded in action a Vortex diamondback 2-7x35 and Burris Low Zee rings and some new mounts were ordered from TOZ and arrived in no time. Cleaned up the action and trigger smooth as butter.. Put together it looked like a rifle once more.
Mrs reckons I'm the only person she knows who successfully polished a turd:
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Now to test it out, first shot out to the Range up Tiritea. Sighted her in, Shot a two shot "group" to confirm zero, gave the Mrs a shot and my Canadian friend, gave them some shit about missing the paper and went to retrieve the paper and head off home..... Fuck there was four shots into the same bloody hole of about 3/8ths of an inch, copped some flak for being blind through the spotter (couldn't feel to bad though it seemed to shoot).
Time for a field test, Canadian friend (Here on referred to as "Canada") was interested in shooting some goats and going for a good walk at the same time so plans were made in an area that could do with some more goats shot really. Canada hadn't shot a goat before so he was quite excited. Got to the carpark threw on the packs and off we go at about 11am... in the rain.
45min goes on and some nice tender ones are spotted on a slip, Canada was told to hurry along and shoot the buggers.. One shot rang out and two roll down the hill WTF?
Turns out he got his first two goats with one shot, and boy does a 150grn .270 corelokt do damage on the second goat.......Went and retrieve them and it stopped raining :). I told him we'd double his tally, which was an understatement.
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Carried along with Canada and the Mrs shooting the odd one here and there as we ambled to camp leaving most as there was a lot of nannies and kids the few that were shot were back-wheeled and strung up in the trail of death.
Spotted a nice black nanny yearling on the river bank and stalked through the bush and got within 5m where the .308 was unleashed for the first time 2x mag I love....
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Here's my ugly mug looking white as ghost due to camera flash was getting dark.
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Pulling into camp just before dark laid the rifle down for the day, hadn't had a lot of action but that will change, was looking nice I thought.
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Next day was up and at em, with a walk around planned and a bit more shooting to be done.
Canada with his moose hunting gear on:
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Mrs saying hellooooo to the goat population.
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A Hut on out travels - we camped somewhere else.
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The river:
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Mrs on Swing bridge.
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Coming up to a clearing a few where spotted 80m away, found a bit of a rest and let off one, back of the head and dropped like a sack of shit, the place exploded, bloody goats everywhere. Had time to load up one and shoot another going full tit at 100m which went head over heads and stopped dead before they were gone.
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A few more where shot that day, the most memorable was three old billies on the river flat Mrs and Canada dropped down to them and I stayed high waiting in the bush. Two shots rang out and I thought good they got two, one more to get. Well two start crashing towards me, no shot as the other where below and the firing zone was decided to be along the hill only in one direction. So Dropped quickly down level with level with them. Shot one in the neck, threading the needle between a shit load of scrub. The other one bolts upwards, I fly up the hill and along to meet up with him just as he was about to go out of sight I shot him in the shoulder and he dropped. Was bloody good times, 2x mag rules....
Mrs and Canada cleaned up a few more on the way back to camp getting there and hour before dark, so plan was to go get another, spotted a mob that made a quick exit without an opportunity, however, maaa maaa, was heard from the bush, a kid had been left behind. Sent it the killer attack woman (my Mrs) who stalked into the bush and bleated a few times. By this point all me and Canada could hear was the bleats of the kid, then BOOMfaa. The bleating stopped. Mrs returns a few minutes later looking sheepish, with a cute little kid that still had it's umbilical cord attached.... minus a head. .270win doesn't take prisoners, why she shot the little thing? "You buggers would call me a pussy if I didn't" We told her she was heartless and we would of just given it a cuddle and she now scares us slightly...
Next day was the walk out and collect the scattered remains of our victims.
After a few hours walk spotted a Nanny and two kids opposite side of the river, which where quickly dispatched by the Mrs and Canada. They looked tasty and weren't to far away from the car..... I wasn't fucken going for a swim to retrieve them though.... Canada wasn't such a wimp.
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A Broken family
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Dry bags are good for floating goats over the river with apparently. Won't find me doing it though.
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Was a bloody good hunt, didn't go hunting by ourselves just stuck together and picked off the odd one or two here and there. Quite social and almost a welcome change after the generally quiet and solitary deer hunts. Saw over 100 and only shot 17; 7 for Canada (he was out front as it was his first goat hunt), 5 each for Mrs and me. Had I known how many there where would of shot a lot more, also had to be careful around nannies as they had recently dropped so the kid had to be able to be shot first or at the same time as the kid. Will be back though.
The meat was hung in the fridge for 5 days and then a curry made by the misses for me and Canada and our freezer got rather full of meat too. Nothing wrong with goat curry yum!
