May 30th - I give a presentation to my daughters class

May 30^th

So…today was quite interesting.

My daughter Chaney, who is a dedicated fifth grade academic is studying the American Revolution.  Her school does a “Walk through the Revolution” program where the kids dress up as famous colonial personalities and convert the school into a Williamsburg type deal for a day.

Of course this wouldn’t be complete with out some mention of firearms!

Chaney told her teacher that I owned a number of historical firearms, among them a Pennsylvania Long Rifle from 1790.  (Ok…it’s a little post Revolution…but it is still old).  She thought it would be cool if I could come in and do a little show and tell.

Well…apparently her teacher thought so too.

Now, the idea of showing up at a public school with a rifle…historical or not…kinda scared the hell out of me, so her teacher was  kind enough to get permission from the principal and send me an email expressly inviting me and my rifle.

So this morning, with Chaney dressed as Lafayette and sporting a tri-cornered hat, I accompanied her to school.  In each hand I  lugged a possibles bag, EMPTY powder horn, and a rifle case containing my Pennsylvania Long Rifle.

What struck me most…and inspired me to write this blog were the kids.

I was sequestered in the classroom as the kids assembled outside prior to the school bell.  Soon they began to file in…all dressed in colonial costumes.  Their teacher was waylaid outside by another adult and I could see her through the window engaged in a conversation while the principals voice came over the loud speaker.  The kids seemed generally disinterested in the announcements that he was giving…and in fairness, most of what he was saying was general administrative stuff that really didn’t apply to them anyway.  All the kids sat in their desks talking with one another until…..

The principal asked everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. 

This they heard.

With the teacher still outside, these kids without prompting stood…removed their tri-corner hats and bonnets, and belted out a full throated pledge to the flag.  (This even included the one kid dressed as King George…which I found kinda funny)

Immediately after this, the teacher came into the class, introduced me, and had me begin my little show and tell.

After a few minutes of wowing them with my vast knowledge of armaments and military strategy she asked the kids if they had any questions for me. 

Boy did they…

They wanted to know everything about the gun:…how does it shoot?…how accurate was it?…what do you do if it “jams”?

Then the questions turned to more current subjects:  When did guns start using “clips”.  Do you hunt with that rifle?...and my favorite: What exactly was the NRA?

This last one threw me. 

I glanced at the teacher with a look of concern on my face.  After all this was her class…I was a guest…and I really have no clue about her politics…finally lets face it…this is a public school in California.

She nodded at me and I explained that the NRA was first and foremost a civil rights organization protecting our right to keep and bear arms as codified in the 2^nd amendment.  They also are tool for research, as well as a safety and training organization.  The teacher even repeated at the end of my soliloquy that they “protect” the rights of the people.

The kids thanked me and gave me an applause, and Chaney gave me a big hug as I said goodbye to the class and Chaney’s teacher. From a showmanship standpoint I’m not sure how well my presentation went….believe it or not I did get a little bit nervous, and there was a lot more that I would have liked to tell them,…but I was thrilled that Chaney’s teacher allowed this to happen in the first place!

There is hope!

May 29th - The Remington is Done!

May 29^th -  The Remington is Done!

Well Memorial Day has arrived, and with it I FINALLY got the opportunity to take the Remington out to the range!

I spent a lot of time and energy making it shoot straight….and here is the result:

First shot was the top one, from a cold barrel

Not bad ehh???  This group was shot with 5 rounds of 180 grain factory loaded ammo from 100 yards.  For custom ammo this group would be good….with factory ammo it is friggen amazing!

Now we have a firearm that I can sell with confidence.  I knew that it would perform well based on the work that we put into it, but without actually shooting it…well…you just never know.

So…let’s review where we came from: 

This was the Remington 700 when I got it:

Then we broke it apart:

Then we:

1)Polished the raceways

2) laped the lugs

3) improved the trigger and set it to a 2.5 lb pull

4) pillar bedded the receiver

5) Glass bedded the receiver and barrel

6) free floated the barrel

7) attached leupold bases and rings

8) placed the barreled action on a walnut stock

9) finished the walnut stock with a hardened finish

10) installed a recoil pad

11) installed swivel studs

12) Checkered the stock (grip and fore end)

13) Test fired for accuracy.

This is what it looks like now:

Now this gun was built to be sold.  Under normal circumstances I would have one of my dealers simply list this gun for resale.  However a number of my readers have expressed interest in acquiring it once it was finished.

…so….for the next week I will be keeping this gun “off the market” and allow my readers first crack at it.  If you are interested in purchasing this rifle send me an email at slieberman03@gmail.com or you can contact me at 949 – 939-8921. 

Thanks again for following along!

May 27th – Making a leather Sheath

May 27^th – Making a leather Sheath

So….we have a finished knife.  It cuts well, (as can be attested to by a few slaughtered paper towels) and now needs some functionality.

The best way to carry a knife in the field is on your belt and in a sheath.  The best sheath is one made out of leather….and the best leather is thick rawhide.

I usually buy my raw leather from Tandy Leather, and I always look for the cheapest relatively thick piece I can find.  Each sheet of raw hide can produce a number of products…this sheath represents about 1/16^th of the over all hide.

So….first we need to do is cut out a couple of blanks that relatively fit over the blade.

Next we need to fold over the belt loop and sew it onto the back.  Once the two halves are connected it would be impossible to do this sewing job, so I need to do it now.

Now it’s time to get all “arts and crafts like”….we take the top layer of leather and thoroughly soak it.  Once it is wet we can mold it around the knife.  Once it has dried, it will retain this shape and actively hold the knife in place.

Ok…time to sew!  The best way to do this is to use an  awl to poke the holes through, and then using a needle and twine, connect the two halves together.

finally we trim the excess on the band saw, and smooth out the roughs with sand paper.

Lastly I use a stain to change the color to a deeper brownish hue, because…well….because I kinda like it this color.  I suppose I could have left the originally natural leather color…but I like this better!

May 25th – The Handle

May 25^th – The Handle

So…the blade has been hardened and polished up and now we need to put a handle on this thing.

For this part of the project I will be using a scrap piece of walnut I have lying around.  It is 20mm thick which is a perfect dimension for this….I can use the band saw to cut the stock piece in half once it has been rough shaped and it will leave me with two 5mm identical pieces.  Even 5mm is slightly too thick, but there will be enough material that will allow me to sand it to shape without having to grind down too much.

So…step 1) We need to draw out a template!

This looks about right….it is slightly larger than the metal handle, but that is ok…as long as it is not too small!

Next we need to transfer the pattern to the wood, and cut it out.  Once that is done we can drill the pin holes then cut the stock wood in half on the band saw.

Now we need to assemble it and check our work…

Not a bad fit!

The best way to secure everything is with two part epoxy (sparingly applied!!!) and a crap load of clamping pressure:

Finally, once everything has set we can head back over to the belt sander to rough shape it out and grind down the excess on the pins.  Once that is done we switch to 120 grit sand paper to smooth out the final shape.

The last step is to use 600 grit sand paper and linseed oil to restore the original color and luster of the walnut….and voila!:

The final part of the knife making process will be to actually put the sharpened blade on the edge, and then make a leather sheath for it!

May 24th – Hardening the Blade

May 24^th – Hardening the Blade

Well…the knife has sat overnight annealing in the bucket of Mica.  All of it’s molecules are nicely stacked up and we now have one really brittle knife.  I mean REALLY brittle…if I were to drop this thing on the concrete floor it would probably shatter.

What we want is a tough blade that can handle a lot of stress besides just cutting.  We want to be confident that I could use the blade as crowbar if I had too.  One of the reasons…hell…the only reason we through all that metal in a full tang blade is so the user will be reassured that if the blade is needed as a wedge tool it wont snap under pressure.

This is kinda important…if these issues were not particularly important to me…say I was making a smaller knife, or a decorative knife…I would be much more inclined to reduce the amount of metal over all for weight, and sink a small tang into a beautiful antler or flared piece of wood for a handle. 

That is not the purpose of this knife though…it is a full purpose tool…and thus needs a full tang.

Ok…so how do we harden it?

First…we need to heat the blade back up again until it looses its magnetism. This is the critical temperature that tells me it is ready for the next step.

Right out of the forge...still holding it's colored heat

that next step is to dump it into this big ol’ bucket of motor oil.  This quickly cools the metal down to below magnetism and freezes the surface molecules in their “starting to jumble” state.  It also produces fire and looks really friggen cool to anyone who happens to be passing by my shop!

AGHHH!!!  Fire!  I hope it doesn't catch on my grass skirt!

The metal is “flash cooled” with the oil and the blade quickly looses any residual heat.  During this time if a file is rasped against the blade it will leave a colored mark.  That color is the heat drifting away.  The color equates to the relative temperature.  With the blade still too hot to touch the color is a deep purple.  As the heat leaves the blade, subsequent passes with the file will leave “bluer” colors, till eventually we get a yellowish straw color.  When we see that straw color we are done…..and back into the oil quench it goes until the blade is at room temperature.

Once we pull it out of the oil the blade is caked and coated with gunk.  We need to clean it up, and we do that with a polisher disk.  We really don’t have to remove any more metal now….we only want to get the gunk off.

There it is!  The blade is basically done.  Next we have to shape out our side handles!     

May 23 – The Skinning Knife Evolves.

May 23 – The Skinning Knife Evolves.

So each day that goes by gets me closer to Memorial Day and my chance to get to the range and trial my Remington.  It can’t get here fast enough!  I really want to see how well I did in accurizing it!

After doing a couple of chores around the house last night I had a chance to get back in the shop and further develop the skinning knife…a knife I will now dub the “Chaney Knife” since my daughter Chaney has already laid dibs on it when it is done.

So…first things first.  We need to get the final shape on the blade and reduce the thickness a little bit more.  I could do this with a hammer and forge, but frankly, grinding away on a belt sander is a hell of a lot more efficient and more precise.  

Hmmm....looks like a knife!

Next we need to polish it up a bit and add the saw tooth grooves with a die grinder…not an easy function…but with a steady hand it is doable.  I would note here that the knife is not really sharp yet.  It has a narrowed edge but the “blade” has not been put on yet…that will come at the very very end.  I’ve sharpened early before, and I have the scars to prove it!

looks like a clean knife!!

Now we need to really bring the blade to a point that it looks almost finished.  This allows me to see what the thing will look like (and feel like) when it is done.  This is sort of the equivalent of a rough draft.  As nice as this looks, I’m going to have to re heat the blade to harden and temper it  and that will completely ruin this finish and we will need to bring it back to this state again.  For now though we get an idea of where we are going…and I like the direction.

Looks like a badass clean polished knife!

It is at this point that we need to start thinking about the handle.  I’m figuring on placing a chunk of walnut on either side of the tang ergonomically shaped.  To help hold everything in place two pins will run perpendicular to the blade and will be exposed on the wood.  These do help in affixing the wood, but they also are decorative.  To help make sure everything is “square” I will drill the holes for the pins now.  It is important to do this now, before I harden the steel or it will be a bitch to drill through…and I’ll end up breaking more drill bits than I care to.

Looks like a badass cleaned polished knife with holes in it.

Ok…so now that knife looks…well…like a knife, and all the holes are drilled and everything polished….it’s time to ruin it!

I need to get this thing hot…red hot…and allow it to cool over a very very long time.  This is how we anneal it, and is the first step in the hardening process.  Think of it like this:  You have a bunch of molecules stacked on top of each other in a jumbled mess….that is what the steel looks like now.   When we heat it up the molecules begin to vibrate and move around allowing gaps to form between them.  If we were to cool them quickly they would freeze again in that jumbled mess ,with the void spaces and all, making the steel very brittle.  We need to cool it over a long period of time to allow the molecules to gently lay down on each other and keep those voids a minimum. 

So…step one:  Heat it up!

Fresh from the forge....the heat is slowly going away...but still at about 1800 degrees

Then Step two:  Put it in a pile of Mica over night.  This substance holds the heat around it and allows for the metal to hold it’s residual heat for hours as opposed to minutes.

sleep tight....I'll see you tomorrow!

Regardless, though…when the knife comes out tomorrow it will be blackened and burnished….not the prettiest thing out there….but not to worry…we have one more step tomorrow that will make it even uglier than it is now!

May 21 – The Knife Making Continues

May 21 – The Knife Making Continues

Ok…while I continue to cool my heels waiting for the weekend to test the Remington we will continue on this skinning knife project…

One of the cool things about making your own knife is the flexibility to design it the way you want…or the way you assume you want.  Commercial production knives are by design made to be sold,…and often times designed to catch the eye more than perform their functions usefully.  Essentially what I am saying is an ugly knife may serve its’ purpose more than a classy looking knife.

One of the most annoying things about skinning an animal…especially a big one is having to constantly re-sharpen your knife during the process.  This of course could be the result of using a crappy knife, but having a double cutting surface…especially in tight corners can make things last a little longer. 

I’ve decided that with this blade I will make it a full tang…meaning one piece of metal encompasses the whole knife from the point of the blade to the butt….and I’m going to shape it to be fully functional.  Meaning I’m going to give it a tongue depressor shape with a sharp edge on both sides.  I’m also going to serrate one portion to give it a “saw” function.  I’m narrowing the blade to take some of the weight off of it too.  The steel is going to be hardened, so I don’t have to worry about it snapping under pressure.  Having a blade the same thickness from point to hilt would be over kill.

So…first thing we do is draw out a template of generally what I envision this beast will look like:

Then I place that templates over  the steel stock I made out of the spring steel and cut away the excess with an angle grinder and a flap disk

Now it’s time to head over the belt sander where I begin to reduce the thickness as well as refine the shape a bit

Finally we smooth out the whole thing to check our progress…Not bad…but not good enough….the handle area will still need to be reduced a little, and I’m not quite happy with the tang…that needs a little bit of reduction too.  That said,…not a bad point to call it quits for today and start up again tomorrow!

May 21 - Making a Knife

So, for those of you who have been following along at home….Saturday was to be the big field test for the Remington.  Unfortunately this was the one #@!@ weekend that the range I use ended up being closed for annual repairs.  So…we have to put it off till Memorial Day.

In the meantime….what to do?

What the hell….let’s make a knife!

The three most basic equipment necessities of hunting are 1) a firearm (or bow) 2) some form of glassing instrument…preferable binoculars,…and 3) a good knife.

Now…a “good” knife usually costs upwards of a couple of hundred bucks.  Why pay for one when we can be a total badass and make one ourselves?....(Besides it is the one way we can be assured that “Made in China” won’t be stamped on it.)

So…where to start?

Well…first lets talk about steel.

Steel comes in a variety of carbon densities.  The more carbon the “harder” the steel.  A really good blade that will keep its edge, needs to be made out of a higher carbon concentration steel.  Now, we could go to a metal shop and buy a blank of high carbon steel for 50 or 60 bucks, or we could keep the badass persona and recycle something to get the steel we need.  A couple of  items that most people have that we could use are an old file, or a circular saw blade.  The semi-adventurous can go to a junk yard and take the spring steel from an old junker car.  For me though, I like to scavenge for true junk…..rail road parts!

Our business…(the real business that actually gives me a paycheck) uses the rail road for deliveries.  You would be amazed at the amount of junk that those cars shake off as they make they way down the track.  Some of that junk winds up outside our warehouse yard…(especially after we are serviced by the rail road)…and some of it is pure gold.

Take this for instance:

This is a spring that goes on the wheel housing of a rail road hopper car.  The fact that it was just lying on the track outside my office is a little terrifying….but we won’t dwell on that.   Spring steel is high carbon, and extremely valuable.  This baby, once cut up and straightened will be able to produce a number of knives, tools, and other stuff that I just gotta have,.... but don’t want to pay for.

So…the first thing we need to do is cut off a chunk and turn on the forge .

My garage is also my blacksmith shop…well, actually it hasn’t really been a garage for years.  The Forge is a Chile forge, that runs on propane.  This forge will heat the metal up to just shy of 2000 degrees which will be necessary to straighten it out. 

 This is my Chile Forge right after I turned it on.  That red glow is hot,...but surprisingly the heat stays in the forge pretty well.

Heating the steel causes the molecules to move away from one another thus making the metal malleable.  Hammering the hot metal on an anvile allows us to move it around and shape it into the bar stock we need to shape out a hunting knife.

 So...here the small chunk of spring has been heated, and straightened out...still too thick though...it will need to be hammered into a flat bar next.

 This is my anvil.  It is about 130 years old and has moved from owner to owner around the planet.  It was born in Europe, and somehow made it to New Jersey then eventually to me.  

Now…I’m putting all sorts of importance on the value of high carbon steel….and don’t misunderstand me,... it is important.  However, I need to relate an experience I had in Africa:

 My Zulu tracker was preparing to skin a zebra I had shot.  I watched as he reached into his bag and took out a triangular piece of sheet metal that had duct tape on one end for a handle.  He ran it over a pebble he carried in his pocket to sharpen the “blade”, then began to skin the zebra.  He did his job with such speed and agility it was like watching a friggen performance art piece.  The point is, we hunters in the west DEMAND the best high carbon steel blades with walnut or hickory handles, blah blah blah.  This guy in Africa was using a scrap piece a lunch box and was just fine.  It is all a matter of perspective!

May 18th- Carolyn's Elk Hunt

Carolyn’s Elk Hunt –

 Carolyn, about to begin her stalk on an Elk.

A few years back my teenage daughter, (now a college student in the Oregon) won a coveted youth cow Elk Tag in California.

That was cool of course, but what was really cool was that Tule Elk live in hilly ranges of San Luis Obispo.  I was shocked when I found this out, figuring that Elk would live in the high sierras and getting to them was going to be a chore.

As it turns out quite a few of them every year migrate off of the National Forest and onto the Eng Ranch, a working cattle ranch and a strong supporter of our local SCI Chapter.  Each year the ranch takes advantage of this migration and guides hunters in filling their tags.

So…a week long trip into the back country turned into a long weekend in San Luis Obispo.  I talked to the ranch manager and he suggested we keep all of our weekends open during the fall hunt.  He didn’t control the game, and when they showed up on the ranch he would give us a call. 

Well…like clockwork he called us the week before the season opener.  The Elk had arrived and we could come any time we wanted.

I picked Carolyn up after her high school classes let out and we headed up to the Ranch.  Traffic was light and we ended up arriving before sunset. 

The first thing I noticed about the ranch was the topography.  The ranch was a treeless bowl lined on either side by two hundred foot high hills.  It was pasture land, which makes sense for a cattle ranch,…but Elk?  Don’t Elk like trees?

Our guided suggested we drop off our stuff and he would take us on a quick drive so we could “see” the Elk….I really had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but politely agreed.  We drove the back trails of the ranch and popped up onto the top of the western hill.  There, down in the valley was a friggen scene from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.  Elk,…Cows and Bulls…by the hundreds!  With no trees to obscure our vision we were treated to a massive show of nature’s grandeur.  The Elks bugled, fought, moved about, and generally gave us a show until the sun finally went down.  We headed back to the ranch house psyched about tomorrow mornings hunt.

The next day we were back out at the same place at first light.  Sure enough, the Elk were still there.  It was then that I asked the question that had been nagging me since the previous evening….with no cover to hide behind…how would we get close enough to the Elk for Carolyn to take one?

“We crawl on our stomachs….from over there.”  Our guide said casually pointing to a spot about a mile away.

Ok…this should be fun.

Well…it turned out to be a whole lot more interesting than I thought.  Carolyn and her guide worked their way through the grasses about ten feet ahead of me, and I stayed back occasionally video taping the progress.  Since, we were on a youth hunt I was not even allowed to touch the .270 that Carolyn lugged on her shoulder. 

Taking advantage of every small furrow and ditch on the ground, we inched our way as close to a resting herd as we could.  Finally, after pushing some bushes aside we realized there was a sub herd of Elk about 75 yards ahead of us. 

Carolyn slowly rotated her body around so she could take a seated shot, using her bent knees as a rest as I tried in vain to get a good video of her taking the shot.  She singled out an older cow Elk and squeezed the trigger.

The herd scattered, as her elk fell to the ground.  After a couple of hundred yards the rest of the herd just sort of stopped and went back to grazing. 

 Carolyn and her Cow Elk

The Elk was beautiful, and would end up feeding us for almost two years.  The skull rests on our mantel as a trophy, and Carolyn used the tanned elk hide to make a variety of gifts…among them my desk blotter and pen holder….pretty cool when you can show them off and tell your friends…”Yeah…my daughter shot an Elk, skinned it and made me this for Father’s Day…what did your kid get you?”

 The desk blotter Carolyn made for me for Father's Day out of the tanned Elk hide.

May 15th- The Remington is Complete!

May 15^th – It is done! (well…almost done)

The Remington is complete.

The Checkering has been finished and sealer applied.

Here are a couple of pics of the final rifle:

 

So…to recap:

1)    The trigger has be reset to a 2.5 pound pull

2)    The lugs have been lapped

3)    The action trued, and the raceways polished

4)    The receiver has been pillar and glass bedded

5)    The barrel channel has been glass bedded and the barrel free floated

6)    The rifle has been fitted with a leupold scope

7)    Synthetic stock has been replaced with a walnut stock

8)    Recoil pad installed

9)    The stock has been finished and decorated with hand checkering.

So in the end we went from this factory rifle:

To this “custom rifle”:

When I first received this rifle it would put a 180 grain bullet in a 5 shot group roughly the size of an orange…now with all of the mechanical work it “should” shoot a group roughly the size of a fifty cent piece.

That is the last part of this experiment…to take her to the range and try her out!  That will happen this Saturday and I’ll be sure to post a final picture of the target to see how we did!

I hope you’ve all found this interesting!

May 14th - Checkering Update

May 14^th – Checkering Update

Ok…so a quick update on the checkering progress.  Last week we checkered the wrist of the rifle….this week we are checkering the fore ends. 

This is a similar process…well…similar in that we use the same tools and we are making a series of diamonds as we did on the wrist.

The major difference is the layout.

On the wrist, I was able to lay out the full outline with all of its’ boundaries.  Not so on the fore end.

The spacing cutter will actually make the final border line.

Let me explain:  I need to carve two parallel lines of equal length down the fore end. 

(I’m doing the same thing on both sides of the stock so that the checkering region is the same.)

Next I will carve in the master guide lines on the section closest to the wrist.  You can see them here:

Now…here is the trick…I will begin carving the checkering lines,…one at a time…up the fore end of the stock.

Here is what it looks like as I progress:

Eventually when one of my checkering lines touches the opposite part of the borderline I will have a new border.

Ok…it sounds more complicated then it is…I’ll show you in a couple of days when it is finished what it is supposed to look like.

May 11th - BISON!

May 11^th

There is no more historically important animal in North America then the Bison.  It provided the ultimate in sustainable lifestyle for the Plains Indians, and the migratory people that preceded them.  It became the preeminent icon for our westward expansion.  It’s precarious flirtation with extinction was our national tragedy.  Not a tragedy limited to the killing off of such a magnificent creature, but a tragedy in the whole interconnected ecosystem it supported…..mainly the same Plains Indians mentioned earlier.  The killing off of the Bison was not just an environmental tragedy,… it was a form of genocide. 

Historians debate weather the great kill off of the late 1800’s was a direct military exercise to eradicate a food source for the Plains Indians, or simply a negligent act on the part of market hunters.  Regardless of the intentions, the fact is the Bison were almost wiped out, and a way of life for thousands was permanently changed.

But…devastation sometimes breeds awareness, and that awareness can breed positive change.

Even during the die off, people began noticing that the Bison were in trouble.  From that whole sale slaughter came the birth of the North American Model of Game Management.  Never again would a species be threatened as a result of hunting over pressure.  Indeed….from hence forth, hunting would be used as a tool of game managers to increase herd sizes and help make healthier populations. 

Like a spy movie with a time bomb about to detonate, the Bison was saved…albeit at the last possible second.

Bison numbers now grow…not like before, when literally millions wandered the plains, but their numbers steadily increase from year to year.  A major source of funding for this is through hunting, and like our ancestors that roamed this land for thousands of years, I wanted to join them in hunting and gaining nourishment from the Bison

After a bunch of research, and some really good recommendations I settled on Folsom Outfitters of New Mexico to help me in this pursuit.  I really was not expecting this to be a “hunt” in the traditional sense.  With no real natural enemies the Bison tends to be fairly docile.  I sort of figured it would be like shooting  domestic cattle.  Not particularly exciting, but in the context of the historical process, I was willing to do it anyway.

I was flat out wrong.  Hunting Bison is a hell of a lot harder then you would think.

I think one of the reasons that people, (me included) have a misguided notion of bison hunting is that they are really easy to spot.  Hunters spend a lot of time “looking” for game….with a herd of bison on the range it’s just not that hard to find them…even from a long long long way off.  On a sea of beige grass, they are the giant island of black. 

The problem is not finding them…it’s getting close enough to shoot one.  The ease in finding them is also their natural defense.  A herd has a thousand eyes looking in all directions, and by definition a prairie has no trees…there is just nothing to hide in to allow you to get close.  On top of that you also have the swirling New Mexico winds to contend with…you might be able to belly crawl in out of sight…but one sniff of you from 200 yards out results in a stampeding herd.

You also need to isolate a sub herd from the main herd.  Take a bull from the main herd and the other bulls will stomp and mutilate it  when it goes down.  You need to find a sub herd with a bull on the outside edge.  Then when it goes down, you hope and pray that the sub herd stampedes into the main herd and away from their fallen comrade. 

After three attempts at this scenario we were finally successful at isolating a bull.  I shot and he went down.  The herd stampeded away….Cool!  Then it stood up and started eating like nothing had happened.  Shocked, I shot again…this time a lung shot.  I heard the “THWACK” of the bullets impact, and the bison just kept on feeding for another 3 minutes.  Finally It laid down.  When we dressed it out I found the bullet from my first shot….it had completely obliterated it’s heart…it just didn’t seem to care.

I am proud of my bison…not just in the difficulty that it proved in getting it…but also in the context of the bison itself.  Like our predecessors I used every part of the animal.  The meat obviously, but the bones, as well as the skin.  I also did this knowing that the hunt helped ensure that this bison herd will continue to thrive and grow, and will be here for my grandkids, and their grandkids.   

May 10th – Wrist checkering complete!

May 10^th – Wrist checkering complete!

Woo Hoo!  We are half way done with the checkering!

Both sides of the wrist have been checkered with a matching pattern.  They diamonds have been deepened to the finished level, and a protective coating of linseed oil applied.  This part of the stock is now finished.

 Left side complete!

 Right side complete!

The next step will be to move onto the fore end.  Here I will put a checkered pattern on each side that will allow the support hand to securely grip the rifle. 

Ok…so a number of emails have come in asking what the tools are that I use for this process.  Well….here they are:

 Like dental instruments for wood.

These are Dem-Bart checkering tools each one has a slightly different purpose and a different angle on the cutting edge.  They are not blades per se, rather they are files similar to any swiss cut wood working file, just on a much smaller scale.

May 9th - Checkering part II

May 9^th – Checkering part II

Ok….a short blog today, but I wanted to give you all a visual update on what is going on. 

Yesterday I showed you the installation of the sling studs and the first outlining of the checkering on the wrist of the Remington Rifle. 

Last night I carved in the first of the diamonds onto the right hand side of the rifles wrist.   This is accomplished with little spacer tool to etch the lines then a deepening with a 60 degree cutter to about 2/3 of final depth. 

I am pleased with the overall layout.  The next step will be a slight widening of the lines with a 90 degree cutter which will also push the depth of each groove to its final level.  Once that is done a gentle application of linseed oil and we are done with this side and it is onto the next!

 Notice the "diamonds"in the pattern?  Now all that is needed is to make them slightly smaller with the 90 degree cutter.