Cliff R

Redfield makes excellent mounts for hunting rifles, but not sure if they are still doing that sort of thing. Plenty of choices for AR platforms. On the lower end the Weaver mount is decent, up higher Vortex, Leupold and Burris make some good ones.....

This is just my opinion on scopes for hunting rifles. If you are going to do an EXPENSIVE hunting trip, like out to Colorado like we do in the Fall outfit your rifle with the very best scope yoiu can afford and a ROCK solid mount to secure it to the rifle. I've never used anything on the rifles I take out West but Leupold and never had a single issue. In almost all cases I bought solid one piece mounts for them. They also get the living chit beat out of them as we're hiking in pretty rough country where a pretty bad "spill" or two is going to happen and often you're going to protect your fall more than the rifles. If you are just deer or varmint hunting around the homestead or short local trips there are PLENTY of lesser quality afforable scopes out there that will make the grade. I have found Vortex to be pretty decent for the price point. Decades ago Tasco filled that void pretty well. I didn't always have the money for the very best for all my rifles and "dabbled" around with various brands over the years, Weaver, Simmons, Tasco, Burris, Nikon, B & L, Redfield and Vortex were a few. These days there are so many options it will make your head spin looking thru them, most of the names I've never heard of. I'd also add that many of the "big" names in scopes have went cheap and offshore/importing much of what they sell these days, so do your research. I think Leupold even has an entry level line-up that's pretty low cost, but I'm not sure about where they are made or the quality. Something else to note here when it comes to selecting hunting scopes is that I see folks buying HUGE scopes with a LOT of magnification. That's OK but keep in mind that in all the years I've been hunting, even for Elk out West I have yet to kill one at a really long distance. Actually most were less than 100 years and the vast majority less than 50. I know, I know, we see TV shows ALL the time where they are taking Elk one mountain side to the other and using custom long range cartridges and scopes damn near as big as the rifle sitting under them. I've NEVER encountered that scenario so don't plan for it. Instead I use small scopes in either 1-4X or 2-7X and keep them on low power most of the time. That way when you push up a big Bull or half a dozen of them blast right past you like their asses are on fire you don't see nothing but hair when you try to get a good bead on them! There is also the issue of weight. Every ounce at 12,000' is like a pound when you are hiking or packing in WAY off the main roads to where the big Bulls are hanging out, another advantage of smaller/lighter scopes and rifles. In any case even to this day I avoid low cost optics. There are certainly a LOT of pretty cools ones out there, some do everything from provide night vision, send info to your cell phone, quick provisions for BDC, and even tuck you in at night and cook breakfast for you the next morning....and they are NOT overly expensive for all the options! Even so I still have trouble buying "no-name" or "off-brands" as I've had poor success over the years deviating from "top shelf". Right now down in the safe the cheapest scope on any of my rifles is the Burris .22 scope on the Ruger 10-22. followed closely by a Vortex on my Varmint AR, a Burris on on of my 308-AR's and all the rest are Leupold Vari X in either 1-4 of 2-7 power.........

14.7" barrel non-adjustable gas block, .308. The upper is from PSA but I didn't use their BCG, and use an A2 stock but can't tell you where the buffer and spring came from as I built it before finding this site, plus I have BAD cases of CRS and DGS these days. I've ran quite a few different loads thru it, some Remington and Winchester factory loads both 150 and 180 grain bullets, some 150 grain Sierra soft points in Lake City Match cases pushed by H414, and Barnes 175 grain hunting loads in Lake City Match cases pushed by Varget. Accuracy is excellent and never single malfunction of any kind. Sadly I couldn't tell you the size of the gas feed hole in the block, never had it apart to date.....

Thanks guys. I quit taking those big old bucks a few years back when I dropped one clear thru the woods a little over 200 yards with the 450. This buck had been eluding me all thru the archery season and showed himself briefly for a few seconds opening morning of gun season. He was not going to be taken by bow as he was almost 100 percent nocternal and I caught him when it was just barely light enough to shoot slipping back into his bedding area. The meat was so tough we had to pressure cook any of the roasts and even the ground meat was like eating hard rat turds. Most of it went to the dogs. After that I've only taken does and younger bucks with twisted up small racks, and they have all been excellent. Not sure if it's just me but I prefer the bucks to the does as far as the taste. The weather was cool enough I skinned this one then let him hang almost a week before processing. "How are the pups?" The pups are doing great. We just had a littler a few months ago and finally got the chocolate female we've been wanting. We call her Coco, and she is doing really good. Smart little gal she is, and has already found her place in our family. Her and Elena are inseperable. We had a HUGE male in the last litter I wanted to keep, but sadly you just can't have two Roosters in the hen house. The owner sent me some pics of him recently. He's 20 pounds at just under five months old!

Thanks. I leave the trophy bucks alone these days and looking to cull some smaller ones out and this was one of them. Had him on trail cam a number of times and the rack is tiny for the size/age of the deer. Got some nice venison out of him, probably close to 50 pounds. I'll take a couple of smaller does when the next 2 day gun season comes in. We're overrun with does this year, been seeing 20-30 every time I've been out.......

Haven't been on here in a while, enjoying my retirement. Found a little time to deer hunt during out short gun season. I hunted two days of the archery season but only saw does, lots of them. Opening morning of the gun season I had over 30 does come thru between daylight at 9:30am. I didn't go out again till later in the week and same thing, nothing but does. I was about to give up and come down when this half rack came over the cattle fence above me and into the woods. He spotted the does that were hanging out to my right about 75 yards and bolted for them. I piled him up at 60 yards on the move thru some pretty heavy cover. The 450 never disappoints and has become my "go-to" rifle these days. It's just a good all around platform, light, powerful and the most accurate out-of-the-box auto loading rifle I've ever owned. If all the rounds aren't punching one jagged hole at 100 yards you just didn't do your part!.......

At some point in the mix of all that somebody besides us realized that TZZ ammo in 64 round boxes was made for sub machine guns and loaded pretty hot. For sure that wasn't helping the life of the slides. After they fixed all that I spent another 16 years or so as an SAI and never had a single problem with an M-9 pistol as far as breaking it. It was also pretty rare to have a problem with one on the firing line either, failures to feed, eject, stove-pipes etc were literally non-existent. Ugly and bulky as they are they are a very reliable pistol. With the 45 pistols they replaced it was IMPOSSIBLE to run a line of four or more shooters and get thru an entire BPMC or PPC course without multiple "alibies". Even with that said most of our 45's at that point were NOT is very good shape and had been "patched" back up scores of times, then put back in service instead of melted down to make car bumpers out of!.....

I'd be surprised if he was using factory ammo and switched them by accident. Handloads seldom get crimped nearly as hard as factory ammo does. Most of the blown up gun issues I've seen over the years were from too much powder, or the wrong powder being used and almost always "hand loads". When the Beretta 9mm pistols first came out I was an SAI and put them to the test on the range. We fired thousands of rounds thru the 10 pistols we were allocated. They sent Israeli TZZ 9mm ammo. That chit was HOT and put out a huge fireball when night shooting. It came is 64 round boxes. Hum? We continued to use it until another unit had a slide come off and hit a shooter in the face. I'm thinking it was a Marine Corps unit but with my BAD cases of CRS these days that may not be the case. Anyhow, they went after Beretta for some "upgrades" and some changes were made to the pistols. At my unit I took a closer look at the ammo and noted that it was loaded really "hot", something like 11 grains of some sort of powder, don't remember exactly what at the moment. I talked it over with my Weapons Officer and we decided to stop using it and switched to Winchester 9mm ball ammo instead. Somewhere in the mix of all of this the powers that be decided to switch to the lighter Winchester loads and we chit canned all the TZZ 9mm ammo. I beleive to this day that if we would have conintued to fire the "UZI" ammo we'd have blown up some guns as it was really giving them a pounding..........

I was an SAI for 20 years. Every once in a while we'd get a servicewide message to expend certain lots of 5.56 ammo. PERFECT opportunity to load up a BIG pile of magazines and head to the range. We'd get those M-16's so hot you'd have to wear a welding glove on your left hand to continue to fire them. Can't think of too many things that would bring a BIG smile to your face that tearing up the range with full auto bursts from an M-16. Even with that said hitting what you are aiming at at much of a distance isn't going to happen. You could put up 6 targets about 5 yards apart at the 50 yard line and "spray" them with a 30 round mag and dispite your best efforts you'd get a couple of center hits on the one you started on and maybe a couple of stray rounds would fine one or two other targets, but for the most part you'd be lucky to hit 4 out of 6 of them and seldom were any rounds in the kill zone. Flip the selector to semi-auto and it less than 5 seconds I'll put one round dead center in ALL 6 targets........FWIW.......

For sure there are a lot of folks up in this part of the County that feel that way. Can't say as I'll miss them much and for sure it will be nice to not have 2 or three plugs in every tire on all of my vehicles. Yes, at least twice a year they would litter the roads out here with sheet rock screws and EVERYONE had to get their tire plug kits out.........

Thanks, glad to be back. Retired again in January and have been knocking some items off of my "bucket list" (if the tall blond that delivers mail here on Saturday reads this you are on it!) which has been keeping me pretty busy and little time for Forum's. It's amazing how it's pretty easy to work harder once you retired that you ever were before. We also bought a pontoon boat and I've been getting it cleaned up making some changes, upgrades, etc. Got that all done and going to try to enjoy some time off over the long weekend. I can lighten my gear up as well now that it's safe to go out and wonder about again......

For sure any properties bordering the "compound" will be worth more, and folks owning them will sleep better at night. One of those folks actually sold and moved shortly after he had an arguement with one of the brothers over driving equipment onto his property and doing damage when they built a portion of the big tall fence. A night or two later someone put a .270 round thru his house and it lodged in a wall! That was enough fo him and he sold and moved. I've got a slight buffer between us, but I could see the compound from my property on the other road if the trees weren't in the way.......

They finally got into trouble they couldn't "lawyer" their way out of. Over the past couple of decades they have commited a LOT of evil acts in my area and charged a few times but not convicted of anything significant. This time they made death threats to the Judge presiding over the case, the Prosecutor and a Lawyer. That brought additional charges and bail revoked. For some reason no one here can figure out they let him out on $100,000 bond. He cut off the ankle bracelet and tossed it in my neighbors flowerbed, then went missing. He made the decision to go out feet first instead of being tried by a jury of his peers......which......IMHO was a good one. Neither of those two will be missed, and this end of the County is a better place to live without them in it........FWIW........

It is amazing no one else was hurt or killed. They fired rounds at the OSP helicopter during the stand-off, and for over 9 hours shot at Law Enforcment that surrounded the compound. For some reason I'll never understand they left the safety of one of the houses/bunkers and took off across the property in a side-by-side. For sure that wasn't going to end well as it offered little if any protection from incoming rounds. They still made it past the first group of LE and tried to make an escape to the East. That didn't go so well so they came back to where they started drove at the armored vehicle and that's where it ended. Not sure what's going to happen to all that land, guns and other property at this point, they had no children so it all ended then and there.......

+2 In these hard times I would be really stupid to destroy the weapons, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. The Judge presiding over the case already chose to keep the bail bondsman $100,000. No one knows why? He was well within his rights to try to apprehend him and he only had 6 days left before the deadline. Technically he wasn't brought before the Judge for his hearing, which would be pretty hard to do at this point unless you want to dig him up. I'm certain he will appeal and get his money back.......