Gentlemen
Hi from the Cariboo. I hope this will serve as an introduction as well as some food for comment from my little tale.
I have always been interested in guns and shooting since I was at summer camp where they let us shoot little .22's and arrows at a small range off site. try that nowadays. My Dad was not a hunter and did not own any firearms so I grew up with pellet guns and slingshots. I also remember a friend and I crafting a metal pipe cannon that fired marbles and ball bearings using firecrackers as the propellant. Great fun. I never gave hunting much thought and the closest I got to it was shooting Rats by the chicken coop in Surrey when I lived there. I hated those things so it was easy to do. I didn't think I could pull on a Deer or Moose let alone open up it's Gizzard and start cutting. So,... this year, my friend, an avid hunter and shooter gets open heart surgery before hunting season and cannot shoot. Needless to say he is pissed and grumbling cus he won't get his Moose pies.
So the plan becomes "you guys will have to do the shooting". meaning me or his wife, who actually has a really nice Savage mod 99 30-30. God bless her because she saves the little animals and can't steer the bullets too well. I didn't have a gun so I started kind of looking. Way back in high school when I wasn't smoking the weed or whatever I took the CORE in class therefore I had a hunter number.
I dropped in one day to my local Fishing and Hunting store, this is a daily routine of mine, all they are missing is a woodstove and a pickle barrel, the BS is thick on the ground, and someone offers me a '45 Lee Enfield .303 Sporter for $150. This rifle was FTR'ed (factory repaired in Liverpool) and has a new barrel. I buy it then and there and armed now with my newly purchased rifle and Licence, off we go.
Turns out the rifle almost aims itself. I took my first Deer, for the cause , so to speak, but ended up enjoying the whole thing. This led to 2 more Deer, a Moose and a Coyote for the group. I ended up being the right place, right time, guy.
Needless to say I am hooked like a Downtown Junkie pushing around a shopping cart full of cans and bottles saving up for his next fix, which in my case looks like its going to be a Handi 45/70. Most of the chat in this forum is good news on a Handi.
I need an all around "just in case" gun for camping and fishing up here. There are plenty of Bears and such. I know I can do some damage with the .303 but I would rather just use it for hunting next year.
God knows, someone else may have open heart surgery and need a hand getting the groceries.
