How not to survive

[AtlLaw]

A few years back the two head instructors for the old Rhodesian Selous Scouts survival school ran a few cources. I went along-

Did you still have to eat rotten baboon?   

Mad Mike is alive and well in Florida!   

[Victor3]

We can fault him for being unprepared and dying in the wilderness, but his faults were small. No forest service map, and eating a part of a plant that he thought was edible. How many hundred mountain men died in the wilderness from far bigger blunders?

 A dead car battery could have meant my death once. Only takes one misfortune to cascade into loads of 'adventure'.

 Makes for interesting stories if you survive, but many don't.

[mannyrock]

  On a lighter note, let's give credit to McCandles for one thing:  He had never hunted big game in his life, but managed to stalk and kill a full grown Alaskan moose in heavy timber, using just a .22 rifle.  He was too naive to know that you ain't suppose to be able to do that.   He just did it.   :-)
 

[Dee]

I was told once that Eskimo hunters at one time prefer ed the 22-250 for ALL their hunting. Now I ain't actually seen it, but I heard it.
A lot of misinformation has been put out in the form of so called experts in these gun rags that folks buy. The reader just doesn't seem to realize that the writers are just like polticians. They are bought and paid for by the gun mfgs.

[mechanic]

I was told once that Eskimo hunters at one time prefer ed the 22-250 for ALL their hunting. Now I ain't actually seen it, but I heard it.
A lot of misinformation has been put out in the form of so called experts in these gun rags that folks buy. The reader just doesn't seem to realize that the writers are just like polticians. They are bought and paid for by the gun mfgs.

I read an article a few yrs. ago about the Inuit hunters.  Many of them prefer the .223 in high cap. magazines for all their hunting.  They even  take big bears with FMJ.  I wouldn't mind watching that....from a safe distance.

[ironglow]

  Just read the book about 2 weeks ago. I am not a chemist or dietician, but from my understanding..the seeds McCandless ate ..at the time he ate them, had formed an alkaloid glaze. They didn't poison him directly, but made his system so he couldn't assimulate any food he ate..thereby starviing to death. Yes, there was something about his needing fat food, but didn't get any. The .22 he had was one he simply bought just before going in the "stampede trail"  which led to the trail the bus was on that he lived in.
  Instead of a geo map, he had only an old road map. Had he had an geo map, he would have known about a nearby & stocked ranger cabin. There were also a couple dog musher's stocked cabins, not too far away.
  I got the impression that if he did not have a death wish, he was at the least..careless with his life.

  Eskimo hunters..only what I read in "Gun Digest", a yearly gun book..One of them, many years ago sent his single shot .22 hornet in to big sporting store with gunsmith shop. He requested that the barrel be relined..He enclosed a list of game he had killed..some 600 odd of them, including seals & polar bears in quantity.
   I saw a film on TV not long ago, concerning that young Canadian scientist killed by wolves. The local indians went out in search of the big  north woods wolves...I noticed the main Indian hunter was carrying a .22 mag, just like the 882L I have. They must know what works.

[Dee]

ironglow, Maybe that part of Canada doesn't get Guns & Ammo, Shooting Times, and American Rifleman. They just didn't know any better.

[pastorp]

Air freight into artic villages is expensive. 22 ammo is lighter than 30/06 and freight is less.

I grew up in florida and killed truckloads of wild hogs in my youth, most with 22 rifles & revolvers. I think the largest rifle I ever used was a 222 sako. Old Florida crackers didn't wast money on big bullets when a 22 worked just as good. When my son-in-law was here for christmas he was telling me about his brother hog hunting in south florida, you guessed it he used a 22lr. Boy howdy when the 22wmr came out we was sure impressed with how it killed, but that ammo was sure expensive at $2.00 a box when you could buy lr for 50cents a box.

Regards,

[ironglow]

Dee & Pastorp;
    I have seen some surprising kills with .22 LR & .22 mag..not surprising to me ..but would be to those readers of the "upper crust"magazines.
  Over my 73 years I have "seen" the venerable old 30/30 go in many folks minds, from the rifle that will take most everyhing..to the rifle that can hardly take anything..
  Either that, or the game animals have grown much tougher than they were back then !..

[Dee]

Same here ironglow. I grew up on the 22lr. I didn't know you couldn't kill big hogs with a 22. Apparently the hogs didn't know either.

[SHOOTALL]

Come on guys , if they all told the truth about the 30-30 and 32 win spl no one would buy the super duper next new magnum now would they ?
Could ya'll imagine all those hunters having to "hunt" close instead of shooting from a mile away ?
I watched a show on whale hunting , when they got one and hauled it onto the ices to clean and cut up they had to put a guy on guard duty for bears . He was using a mini-14 .

[mechanic]

I was a fairly big boy before I got to shoot a "high powered" rifle.  It was my Dad's brand new 30-30.  Later he got an old 7mm Italian Mauser for me.  I didn't know there was anything more powerful, and wouldn't have dared waste a bullet on a hog when grandpa had shot them for years with a 22.

[Dee]

When I was a kid, every packin house in Texas had at least one old single shot 22lr. Hogs, cattle, sheep or goats. Got the same treatment with the same rifle.

[don heath]

Also, Poor rural folk often cary what they can afford, and then try to make it work for them. Here it is the .303. Almost every second peasant seems to own one, and if they have to go out and deal with an elephant in the corn or a lion in the goat pen, that is probably what they will be carrying. Most get away with it...a fair number do not.

When I was a kid, Black folk were only alowed a 12g or a .22. A fair number of elephant died with a 12g Brenneke slug in the heart! I got to follow up several wounded lion and my mom seemed to for ever be sewing up some poor peasant who had gone out to defend his stock...

As a Parks research officer turned Professional Hunter, I have had a few close calls with big game - and It would take sheer desperation to make me go out into the dark under armed to deal with such game! By many of my contemporaries I am considered a 'small bore' fanatic...but that is in a country where the .375 H&H is considered a small bore .

[bearmgc]

Wow, thanks for sharing that. What stories you must have!

[Dee]

Yep! Next time I have to get up and go run an elephant or lion out of my garden I ain't takin a 12 gauge.

[Badnews Bob]

Now that's funny Dee   I have a .376 stery and a .45-70 for the lions, elephants, and rhinos, Jus in case ya know.

[mechanic]

Dee,

I can personally attest I have had no issues dealing with lions, rhinos, elephants, or even grizzleys since I bought my Buffalo Classic in 45-70...scouts honor.

[mechanic]

A few years back the two head instructors for the old Rhodesian Selous Scouts survival school ran a few cources. I went along-

Did you still have to eat rotten baboon?   

Mad Mike is alive and well in Florida!   

They anything like the montagnards ?

[Dee]

Well Bob you and mechanic need to understand that I have zero tolerance for elephants trompin down my tomatoes, or lions chasin my chickens. I just ain't gonna put up with it. I'll get the 3030 out, and set things right if I have to.
Course you don't see many elephants or lions, in this part of Texas anymore. Poaching has about wiped'em out I guess. The Roadrunner is makin a come back though. Maybe the fire ants got the elephants and lions?
I did see some elephant and lion tracks when I was huntin down around Glenrose here a couple of years ago though. The park ranger said they were really dinosaur tracks but it looked like elephant sign to me. He also said I couldn't hunt there any more either.

[ironglow]

Yep! Next time I have to get up and go run an elephant or lion out of my garden I ain't takin a 12 gauge.

   ...And I will sneak up on 'em with a full caged D-9 !

  Actually Dee, I haven't been to the Paluxey river site..but it's on my list if I can make it. Kinda puts a burr under the Dawinists saddles, doesn't it ?

[AtlLaw]

They anything like the montagnards ?

Who?  The Selous Scouts?  Na, no comparison.  But by all accounts the Selous Scouts were quite a fighting force.  So were the yards, but in a completely different manner.  I always liked the yards...    And Mike was in the Congo.  Other then that, what I say has absolutely no veracity at all... 

[Dee]

Yep! Next time I have to get up and go run an elephant or lion out of my garden I ain't takin a 12 gauge.

   ...And I will sneak up on 'em with a full caged D-9 !

  Actually Dee, I haven't been to the Paluxey river site..but it's on my list if I can make it. Kinda puts a burr under the Dawinists saddles, doesn't it ?

I give credence to Darwinist, about as much as I do some other things claimed. I have never believed this round ball was several million years old, or any of that. Best I can figure lookin at Genesis we've been here about 7,000 years. Most discussion on the matter pretty much agree.

[rzwieg]

They anything like the montagnards ?

Who?  The Selous Scouts?  Na, no comparison.  But by all accounts the Selous Scouts were quite a fighting force.  So were the yards, but in a completely different manner.  I always liked the yards...    And Mike was in the Congo.  Other then that, what I say has absolutely no veracity at all...  

I think you put one over a lot of heads. For those who don't know Mad Mike Hoare commanded a mercenary force in the Congo in the early "60s. This was about the same time the Belgians sent troops in to protect Europeans living there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Hoare

(I read Soldier of Fortune as a kid. )

[don heath]

AtlLaw...no...no rotten baboon but plenty of other 'hairy' eating experiences.

I learned fast that you could eat your fill of carbohydrate and still be hungry.  I have never been able to find anything 'too sweet' to eat. (at School we used to have Honey drinking or condensed milk eating competitions..keep eating/drinking until someone throws up) I never lost...but on the one day we raided a beehive and dolf got us all to eat our fill of honey (pressed out through some cloth)...10 minutes later we were all hungry again...then we ate the grubs and a little comb..and were satisfied.

Glad mad Mike is alive and well. Tell him his old mortar company comander has finally given up on Africa and retired to Scotland.

[ironglow]

Don & Atlaw;
  As far as I'm concerned, ..please feel free to make posts of your experiences as the opportunity dictates. I am sure many here would like to hear anecdotes by those who have "been there, done that"..