Petersen's Hunting August 2019

IT’S LIKELY peak summer as you’re reading this, and unless you live in the Far North, you’ve probably not yet had a break in the hot weather. Daytime temperatures are still flirting with triple digits, and the nights are hot and muggy. The green of spring has turned to brown, and there’s no rain in the forecast. Face it: The dog days of summer suck. However, autumn has a way of sneaking up on us. Maybe the locusts, more accurately known as cicadas, are buzzing their familiar song, predicting, as Grandma always said, first frost is just six weeks away. Then there’s always that one August morning that just feels like fall. I’ve always thought you could smell it, too, a little whiff of something that gets you thinking about that…

Fur prices may be down, but a single bobcat earned three hunters more than $48,000 last February. Kelby Frizzell, Colby Frizzell, and Clay Allen won the West Texas Big Bobcat Contest (WTBBC) with a bobcat that weighed 33 pounds, 14 ounces, the heaviest among 689 teams. Thanks in part to increasing payouts, hunting contests like the WTBBC have grown popular in recent years. It drew 19 teams in 2008, the event’s first year. Nearly 2,000 teams participated in three 2019 WTBBC events. Organizers awarded $393,400 in prizes, including a record $48,230 for the heaviest bobcat. If anti-hunting organizations get their way, those and countless other contests may be living on borrowed time. That’s because a growing number of states have banned or are attempting to ban various hunting contests. California was first,…

BULLET BASICS Solid copper with a large-diameter polymer tip, this bullet combines tough, deep-penetrating abilities of monometal with expansion. The goal is a deer bullet that shatters vitals and dumps massive quantities of energy with bone-breaking, deep-penetrating characteristics. A mild boattail helps aerodynamics, although being intended for deer, most CI XP projectiles are too light-for-caliber to have really high ballistic coefficient numbers. TESTING GROUND Last fall, I shot a mature Colorado mule deer buck from 180 yards. Exiting the 26-inch barrel of a Winchester Model 70 Extreme Weather at about 3,260 fps, it impacted with about 2,800 fps remaining velocity and around 2,600 ft.-lbs. of energy. FIELD PERFORMANCE Impacting the quartering-to buck on the point of the shoulder, it passed through heavy muscle, ribs, vitals, more ribs, and came to rest against the offside hide.…

HISTORY Based on the legendary .475 Linebaugh cartridge case shortened to a length of 1.285 inches, the .480 Ruger was launched in Ruger’s Super Redhawk six-shot revolver in 2003. Max pressure was established at 48,000 psi, just 2,000 psi shy of the Linebaugh cartridge. Velocity ranges 100 fps to 200 fps slower, depending on bullet weight. Ruger continues to support the .480 in various handgun models, including the ultra-svelte, five-shot Bisley Super Blackhawk. It’s a big-bore wheelgun dream for shooters on a blue-collar budget. Ammo is available from Hornady, Buffalo Bore, Federal, CorBon, Underwood, and Grizzly. APPLICATION Because the .480 Ruger operates at a lower pressure ceiling than the .454 Casull, to which it is often compared, it recoils with much less vengeance. Granted, it also produces around 10 percent less energy—but energy…

The UL Bend Wilderness Area occupies a neglected nook of northeastern Montana’s Missouri River Breaks. It’s full of sagebrush, boot-sucking gumbo, blood-sucking mosquitoes before a killing frost, and big bull elk. But it’s not full of roads. As a federally designated wilderness area, the 21,000-acre UL Bend is off-limits to a number of activities, including permanent settlement, roads of any kind, and all wheeled conveyances, including Jeeps, unicycles, and baby strollers. The land’s designation as federally protected landscape is a product of the Wilderness Act, passed in 1964 in the heady days of pre-hippie ecology. As someone who embraces the idea of keeping wild places wild and preserving a few shreds of pre-civilization landscape (not to mention hippies), I gravitate toward wilderness, both upper and lower case. But as a hunter, I…

Tip your tapered Easton arrows with a razor-sharp two-blade broadhead designed to penetrate deep and carve incredible wound channels. SEVR’S Titanium 2.1 is a rear-deploying head that flies like a field point and cuts like a razor. On impact, patented Lock-and-Pivot blades lock open and then pivot around bone to maximize penetration and ensure the head achieves a true 2.1-inch cut. Best of all, perhaps, is the fact that you can practice with the same heads you plan to fill your quiver with. Simply add an additional screw into the ferrule and the blades won’t deploy. $14 ; sevrbroadheads.com Capable of measuring big game out to 1,000 yards, the NIKON Monarch 3000 Rangefinder is small, ergonomic, and functional. The unit’s Stabilized Function reduces vibration caused by nervous/shaky hands (like when a…