I love old rifles, too - used one this past weekend.
Just returned from a friend's place in southern Indiana - 136 acres of mixed woods and planting to encourage wildlife use and get the DNR to pay for the property taxes - house and barn sits about 3/4 mile back up on high ground from the main county road.
Late Saturday morning, I was taking a leak in an upstairs bathroom when I spotted a buck and doe meandering through a draw in the woods near the back of his property, heading for a nearby tank for water. I went downstairs and told my friend, a retired Infantryman and avid hunter, and he asked if I wanted to hunt him. The last deer I shot was with an M-16 in Northern Arizona in 1972 for survival reasons so I was game. Among his rifles, he has a nice unmodified M-1 Garand he bought for $65 from reserve stocks while assigned to the Transportation School at
Fort Useless as an Infantry proponent instructor, so I borrowed it.
Went outside to the corner fence near the back of his house - the doe was ambling along but the buck was stationary behind a big walnut tree - he told me the rear sight was set center so I aimed a couple of inches to the left to compensate for my natural sight picture - slight downhill slope into brushy woods (worried a bit about their affect on a shot) at about 200-250m - I saw him sway trying to stay up after the impact and he fell after staggering about 30m - no expected second shot and the brush didn't seem to affect the path of the round - took the Gator down to the woods - I'd gotten a lung shot - missed the heart by a couple of inches - old eyes I guess - field dressed him and hauled him up to the barn to hang - sure was nice not having to drag or pack him out of the woods- left him with my friend for the meat and rack for his trophy room - 11 points and 18" spread - fairly young buck with really good teeth and thick, strong neck around 250-300 lbs.
We were supposed to be leaving to head back to Indianapolis for a dinner and were late because of the deer and I had to listen to my wife some about that - oh, well.
Yep - love those old rifles - and personally, I'd love to have a nice issue M-14 out of WRS at Picatinny - just don't want to pay the current going $$ for one.
And, of course, there's always the humorous side of hunting for those who are really bored with it all...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eeCtcgEq24
And so it goes...
Richard's $.02
