TX:Sometimes, it's good to `lever' back to the basics

Josey1

Sometimes, it's good to `lever' back to the basics By JOE DOGGETT Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Chill shadows were gathering across the Central Texas ridge as I slipped through a scrabble of brush and prickly pear. I was "still hunting," easing along the edges of broken cover and hoping to spot a deer. I was also stepping back in time; a lever-action carbine with open sights rested in the crook of my left arm. My right fingers were curled through the lever, and the thumb rested lightly on the half-cocked hammer. Moving softly and slowly along the ridge and against the clock felt invigorating and satisfying. Two white flashes jumped perhaps 100 yards ahead. Two deer with flared tails were bounding in my direction. Something had spooked the pair of does from the far side of the ridge. I stopped amid the shadows. This was a huge bonus; deer flags almost always are going away. It apparently takes an alarmed white-tailed deer about zero seconds to run 100 yards. In the moment required to react, the two deer split my tangle at point-blank range. One went left, screened by brush, but the other broke right across a clearing. The ready thumb clicked back the hammer of the old Marlin 336 and the stubby 20-inch carbine barrel swung at 30 yards with the racing doe. The movement felt fluid and positive. I pulled the trigger and the gun bucked and I waited for the deer to tumble against the 170-grain bullet. I'm still waiting, and I'm beginning to lose patience. The lead looked good but the shot was, literally, "a swing and a miss." The deer sailed with uncommon grace over a three-strand fence and vanished. A deliberate search at the point of the shot and the point of the fence-jump revealed no evidence of a hit. The shot almost certainly carried high. That is, apparently, the typical miss with iron sights on a running deer. In haste, the shooter throws the rifle up but "does not draw the front bead down (into the V or notch of the rear sight) as fine as he does when shooting at a target. As a result the bullet goes over the deer's back." That was the analysis by Jack O'Connor in The Rifle Book, and it applies as much to rookies in 2002 as it did in 1949, when the landmark book was published. And many of today's deer hunters are rookies -- at least when it comes to the grand old game of hunting with open sights. The average deer hunter probably never has raised a center-fire rifle without peering through the superior optics of a telescopic sight. Even the in-line black powder rigs usually are fitted with scopes. The typical bolt-action rifle equipped with a variable scope is capable of excellent performance out to several hundred yards, or as far as the average hunter feels comfortable in taking a shot. It is, without question, the tool to use for serious trophy hunting. However, there are times when the game is not so intense, when simply toting a gun -- the right gun -- is reason enough to be in the woods. The Special Late General Season open through Jan. 20 to does and spike bucks in many Central Texas counties is a fine example. This was the thinking of David Boyles and myself during the final-weekend hunt on a small ranch near Brownwood. We were "levering" ourselves back to basics. Boyles was carrying a classic lever-action gun, a Savage Model 99 chambered for .300 Savage. His rifle was manufactured in 1949 and the venerable Savage cartridge was introduced in 1921. My Marlin remains undated, but the serial number, G7874, must reflect a bygone era (several million 336s have been manufactured). Both guns are exceptionally clean and crisp, although Boyles had the edge on performance. The Model 99's 24-inch barrel and the 180-grain .300 bullet produce a muzzle velocity of approximately 2300 feet per second and a muzzle energy of roughly 2200 foot pounds -- nowhere near a flat-shooting belted magnum but more than enough for tagging whitetails out to 200 yards. Conversely, the stodgy old "thutty thutty" with the 20-inch barrel shoots a 170-grain bullet at approximately 2100 f.p.s. and with roughly 1800 f.p.e. But, again, a well-placed shot will drop a deer cleanly beyond 150 yards. And I had no small measure of tradition stuffed into the tubular magazine. The .30-30 Winchester, also known as the .30 Winchester Center Fire, was first offered in 1895 and commonly acknowledged as the first sporting cartridge loaded with smokeless power. (Actually, according to Popular Sporting Rifle Cartridges, 1970, the obscure .25-35 Winchester debuted smokeless that same year. And, to be technically correct, the military .30-40 Krag was introduced in smokeless powder in 1892). While considered downright puny in today's center-fire lineup, the original .30-30 was nothing short of thunder and lightning alongside the dated black powder calibers forced to lob large balls in ponderous arcs. It quickly became a huge favorite and remains popular across the country -- quite an endorsement after more than 100 years of service. Sadly, the guns and cartridges were not the only things dated during our recent foray. A mandatory sighting-in session proved that any debate over long-range capability with the open sights was purely academic. Neither of us could draw a decent bead with failing eyes and faltering excuses beyond 50 or 60 yards. The primitive iron sights went fuzzy and swallowed the bull's-eye. Open sights are a demanding discipline. The shooter must attempt to align three separate images on different planes at once -- the rear notch, the front bead and the presumed target. No one this side of chameleon lizard with rotating eyeballs can focus all three at once -- you either look close or far. But at least the young hunter with keen vision can obtain crisp, close sight image; those of us saddled with "drug store magnifiers" are goners. The best I could muster was a brassy blur against a gray question mark. But, by snugging the bead as low as possible, I was able to achieve decent performance from a 50-yard rest. So did Boyles. We shot comparable three-shot groups of approximately 1 1/2 inches (well, maybe 2 inches). His was a bit low and right and mine was a tad high and right, but we agreed that any deer that gave us a broadside shoulder within that range was in serious trouble -- especially if the unlucky animal leaned to the right at the instant of the shot. The deer, naturally, did not read the John Wayne/Chuck Connors script. It is, after all, hunting. Two days of determined effort failed to face a set-up chance. I missed the aforementioned flying deer, and Boyles muffed an opportunity when three does approached his brush blind from behind and bounced away at 25 yards, beating his tardy fast draw. As an odd twist of fate, I did bag a turkey jake. I was sitting in a tripod and overseeing a corn feeder at 50 yards when the brush parted and a gang of hens and jakes rushed into the opening. One prominent jake stepped into the clear and I held low, with the whole bird standing on the bead, and pressed the Marlin's trigger. The turkey fell dead amid a fan of feather, cleanly taken just behind the drumsticks. The placement was excellent for a heavy deer bullet, with virtually no wasted meat. Yes, no small amount of luck was involved but I was able to fill a turkey tag and listen to my partner mutter and grumble on the ride home. Thinking back, I'm glad that 170 inches of antlers were not hanging in the balance of the trip, but we knew going in that "any deer" would be a fine prize. And with goals lowered we were able to raise our expectations, if not our sights, with the old lever-action guns. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/outdoors/1208543