Petersen's Hunting April/May 2018

LATE LAST year, at an antique store in Maine, I picked up about a dozen old issues of Petersen’s Hunting . There was a pile for the taking—one buck apiece—and I regret not buying them all. But with a few flights ahead of me, the logistics of getting all those magazines home limited my shopping spree. The issues I did buy dated from the late 1980s into the early ’90s, and the masthead of editors and contributors reads like a who’s who of the outdoor writing world. Wootters. Sit-ton. Sundra. Coogan. Adams. Robb. And, leading the charge throughout this run, Craig Boddington, who served as the editor of Petersen’s Hunting from 1983 to 1994, an impressive 11-year tenure. With the exception of our founder, Bob “Pete” Petersen, no other name is…

Wyoming’s Leftover Tags THIS IS FOR JOSEPH VON BENEDIKT AND HIS ARTICLE ENTITLED “5 DIY HUNTS TO DO NOW” (NOVEMBER, 2017). WYOMING CHANGED THEIR SYSTEM ON HOW THEY GIVE OUT LEFTOVER TAGS. AFTER THE INITIAL DRAWING, ALL THE LEFTOVER TAGS GO INTO A LEFTOVER DRAWING. THEN IF THERE ARE TAGS LEFT OVER AFTER THAT, THEY GO ONTO A LEFTOVER LIST. VINCE GRAY Via email Vince, that’s good information. Thank you for caring enough to write in and set the record straight! Thanks for reading Petersen’s Hunting ! —JvB WORRIED FOR THE FUTURE I enjoyed reading the recent article about hunting grizzly bears (“To Hunt a Grizzly,” March), especially one written by an expert such as Craig Boddington. He gives it to you straight: It’s not easy and you’ll probably throw money at a few tags before…

The discovery of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in free-range whitetail and mule deer in Montana last November was met with swift and decisive action. Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (MFWP) carried out two special hunts in December and January. They weren’t aimed at eradicating the disease. Instead, the agency wanted to get a better handle on infection rates. Six mule deer and one whitetail tested positive. So far, MFWP has more questions than answers, including a critical one: How will the cash-strapped agency pay for CWD monitoring efforts? “We were fortunate to receive a grant last year through Pittman-Robertson funding for $1 million over the next five years, but that is a very small amount and unlikely enough to do what we feel is necessary,” says John Vore, MFWP game management bureau…

BULLET BASICS Engineered to provide .375-bore shooters with a bullet light enough to drive fast yet tough enough to drive deep, this homogeneous gilding metal projectile features an aerodynamic-enhancing boattail and a polymer tip that aids fast expansion and protects the bullets nose from damage while in the culling belt and rifle magazine. It can be handloaded to admirable velocities in the .375 H&H and similar cartridges, and Hornady provide fast factory loads in its Superformance line. TESTING GROUND Former Guns & Ammo editor Richard Venola took a giraffe with the bullet pictured. Giraffes feature exceptionally thick skin—a function of maintaining blood pressure in the extraordinarily long legs and neck—and incredibly massive bones. As a result, they can be very hard to kill cleanly. FIELD PERFORMANCE Fired from Venola’s .375 H&H M1917 rifle, the 75-yard…

HISTORY Designed in 1915 specifically for Savage’s lever-action Model 99, the .250 Savage—a.k.a .250-3000—featured a strongly tapered case and was the first cartridge to break the 3,000- fps barrier, the Holy Grail of bullet speed, using an 87-grain softpoint bullet. It proved effective and popular for whitetail deer. Later, the .250 Savage became the parent cartridge to arguably the most popular predator-hunting cartridge ever—the .22-250—and itself was tweaked and “improved” by handloaders by blowing out some of the taper and by steepening the angle of the shoulder to increase capacity. APPLICATION In an accurate rifle, the old veteran .250 Savage is an outstanding deer and antelope cartridge out to 300 yards or so, although the original 87-grain projectile weight isn’t the best option. A streamlined 100-grain version provides a bit more mass and…

JOHN HENRY “HARRY”SELBY died peacefully on January 20, 2018, at his home in Maun, Botswana, following a year of declining health. He was 92. Harry Selby was born on July 22, 1925, in Frankfort, South Africa, the youngest of six children born to Arthur and Evelyn Selby. When he was three, his family moved to a sprawling cattle ranch in Kenya, rich with game. Harry’s earliest memories are of mealtime conversations between his father and uncles discussing the troublesome herds of buffalo and zebra competing with their cattle for grazing. Growing up in the constant presence of game, Harry learned to stalk and shoot at an early age, hunting small game at the age of eight and soon progressing to larger game, taking his first elephant at 14. During World War II,…