BigGameHoundsmen.com

Joe,

I carry my old Woodsman a lot and it has done a lot of things for me. Also Zeus the Shade Tree Founder of this site gave me his father's very early Woodsman as a gift and I will always treasure that. I call them bobcat medicine.

liontracker wrote:Now that is scarry! ... I suppose your wife is a blonde also?LOL!
Never thought about damascus grips, are they checkered? My good friend is a custom gun/knife maker/engraver and is messing with some damascus right now. I will have to check out those grips.
It really is a small world.

My grips are not checkered...however, they can be if a guy wants. He can do half rounds, ultra light, or whatever you want....even custom engraving. And yes, it is scary....I do have a little blonde wife too!!!
Here is a pic of my gun...

you just cant beat a good ol Colt model 1911 .45.!
i've shot my share of handguns and i think its deffinatley one of the more well balanced guns i've shot...of course thats what he old man shot and what i was raised on.

but sig sauer does make a nice .45 in that p220

Ruger is another brand i was raised on..love the blackhawk in .357

guess theres just too many to name haha

I carry a Glock 357 Sig. The sig has the same ballistics as a 357 mag with the ability to carry 15 rounds in one mag. I like the Glock because even when its real dirty still functions, there light weight and comfortable to carry.

I also really like the Glock in a 10MM for a hunting gun. Gets 41 mag like ballistics

I like my 45 Long Colt in a ruger single six but its like carrying a brick on your hip by the end of the day!

I use to cary a Colt 45 1911 ACP but it was way to unreliable when it was dirty for my liking. I also had very poor results with the 45 acp round when it comes to killing. Its a great people round but I personally dont like it for animals

In 45 acp there are some new high velocity controlled expansion hollow points that very good. I shot a lion square in the chest with one and got 3 1/2 feet of penetration with it.


CO B&T - Get outta here!

Better bullet mght help, my bad experiences were with speer gold dots in a 45 ACP. On couple of lions, shot a lion multiple times all good hits, lion still had enough life to damage a few dogs. Recovering the bullets none of them expanded they were just like FMJ's. Shot a Oryx at about 5 feet right between the lookers bullet didnt even go through the skull just under the hide along the skull.

Maybe just isolated results but I quit carrying a .45 ACP after that.

Since then shot lots of bears, lions and other tuff with 357 sig with excellent results.

Big Mike,

I have has similar expereince with the 45 ACP on big game. I love the gun and the round is very historical and on of the most studies designs and rounds ever developed but it was designed for shooting people, and it does a fair job at that. A lot of other military rounds have been more useful on big game such as the 30-40 Krag the 45-70 and ofcourse the 30 US Springfield. I once saw a guy shoot a nice bear 17 times with a 45 acp using the Speer Gold dots. Never knocked him out of the tree. Nasty deal he hung up there and bled to death. I have seen the same bullet in a 41 Magnum deliver terrific results. All things being considered and I have several 1911's a Kimber Custom Compact, a Colt Gold Cup and recently sold a Springfield Armory. I like them but not for big game. I know this goes against everything that is holy and right but I have seen much better performance on lion anyway with 9MM 115 gr. XP's HP and 32 HR Mag. with 85 gr. Hornady XTP's. But they sure wouldn't be my first choice for bear. A lot of these more compact 1911 designs have even a shorter barrel and offer less velocity that posted on the box. If you are shooting a round that offers less than 1000FPS you would be well advised to forget expansion and shoot a hard cast semi-wadcutter and go for penetration. Like Big Mike said some of those 45's won't hardly get inside of a hard animal.

The old idea of knockdown theory has been pretty much laid to rest these days since we have high speed cameras, videos and understand dynamics of physics. It is all BS unless you use a field gun on them you better not expect Hollywood results. Killing can be a mighty messy business. Recently watched a classified video of a police shootout where a very drugged up Perp. took 12 rounds from an AR15 never even blinked and the detective emptied his 1911 45 into him at close I mean close range. He finally went down but he fell towards the shooter not away. The bullets seemed to have no shock effects on him at all.

I agree and the 45acp should not be in the hands of an average shooter on animals. And along those lines alot of lions have fallen to .22lr. I like mine because it is light weight and most of my hunting is on foot with a 35-45lb pack on my back. At the end of the day every ounce counts. I know the limitations of this gun.

I understand how you hunt LT and I am with you every ounce counts. During my salad days much like a lot of other guys that spent tons of time in the saddle and chasing the dogs I never worried much about what gun I had as long as I had one. I made out very well by myself for years with a Ruger Bearcat 22 and a Colt Woodsman. But I headshot cottontails for the stove or plucked the heads off grouse for the skillet and I never got worked up much. Cowcamp was pretty comfortable with plenty of venison and proghorn steaks sizzling. Thank goodness the statute of limitation has long run out on that but we pretty much cared tenderly for the land and the animals we were feeding. When I could drop a 1200 pound beef steer with one well placed shot from the Colt a black bear at 40 feet was not a great worry. But when it comes to putting a seal on weapons that are good for that vocation and not just hanging there like a pair of fence pliers you use to tighten a loose shoe then I beleive it is better to get selective.

A calm competant man with a good well oiled model 94 Winchester 30-30 gives me a whole lot more comfort than the best pistolero on this forum. Nuff said!

Mike,
Guns are always best when they are passed down to you from special folks. My woodsmen was gave to me by my grandad. He was a heck of a man that knew his guns, trapping, hounds, and worked till the day he died.I agree what you say about them being bobcat medicine. I run a trap line through the winter and I carry it when I go out after bob's with the dogs. They are just to much fun to plink with.
And my .44 was given to me by my dad as a graduation present. Its a hell of a piece of shootin iron. its a first generation with the barrel cut down to 4.25" and is engraved but with all the blueing wore down so much it makes it look fancey but tough, that and the fact it has stag horn grips! Theres nothing better than old guns and good dogs in beautifull country.

I agree on those gift handed down Joe.

I had three early Rugers I had the 44 cut to 5" the 41-Mag cut to 4 5/8" and the 45 LC was stock 4 5/8".

I had each of these fitted with the tall post Elmer Keith style front sights for long range shooting. Had a lot of fun with these.


For you classic Smith and Wesson fans they have come back out with a Classic series of their most famous revolvers and they are truely beautiful weapons.


David you talked about Pythons and Diamond backs. these are truely fine guns with very close tolerances and command a high price even on the used gun market.

This action was developed from the fine Colt Officier's Model Match 38 guns and beefed up a little. I greive over a fine 38 colt Match i had and let slip away many years ago. It had the finest double action of any handgun I have ever handled. I use to shoot rapid fire target matches with it and it would really hold them in there. With a plus P loaded of 12 1/2 Gr. of 2400 powder and a 146. Gr. Speer half jacket hollowpoint ( A load developed by Skeeter Skelton) it was a pretty wicked little hunting gun as well.

Oh the regrets of a gun nut!

I carry a Ruger Alaskan .454 Casull because I am afraid of Sasquach. The 2 inch barrel is easy to carry and since I was threatened by another houndsman that he would "pull me out of my truck and beat my ass if he cought me up where he was hunting". I hope that the presence of a real peace maker will stop that activity in its tracks.

Forgive me for getting a little off topic but talking about effectiveness of pistols reminds me of a little incident that happened to me last winter.

My girlfriend and I were going lion hunting on Feb 15th. We got to there area we were going to ride collared up the dogs, loaded the saddle bags and climbed in the saddle and I realized I forgot my pistol. Well $hit. i went to rumaging through my truck cuz I ussually always have a gun in it. The only gun I found was my Keltec .380. For those who dont kow this is a small pistol about as big as the palm of your hand and be carried in your pants pocket concealed real nice. I call it a gut gun cause its about only good for shooting at real close range. To top it off i had only 1 magazine with one good hollow point round and 6 ball ammo practice type rounds. I figured no biggy not gun kill anything anyways. So off we go. after about 1/2 mile the dogs strike a red hot track and blow out. I tell my girlfriend this dont sound right for a lion so either we just rode smack into one or we got another dam bear that wont sleep. Well we ride after the dogs and they are raising hell baying then moving a bit. Riding down the canyon I start seeing rooting from feral pigs it it all starts to make sense. Son of a beach there chasing a blankity blank pig. Now I got a choice I have shock collars on three of the six dogs and can stop them but what about the other three? So i say screw it my tried and true lion dogs are now pig dogs for the day. They chase and bay for about a mile. We catch up to them with the pig bayed in a brushy saddle. Tie up the mules get the wind in my favor and sneak up to them. Then I think to myself all I got is my keltec 380 to kill a pig, this is going to be a wreck.

My Girlfriend is snapping pictures as we sneak up. The dogs are keeping about a 5-10yard circle around the pig. Lucky for me none of my dogs are the jump in and pull hair kind so they are keeping there distance. The pig would pick a dog out and charge it. The pig seemed pretty slow, probably from being a bit winded so the dogs could easily get out of his way. I snuck in the best my clumsy ass can sneak and get about 10 yards from the pig. The pig faces me and I get a little window to shoot. Line up the sights between the lookers and bang!! To my amazement the pig flips over backwards DRT (dead right there). My girlfriend tells me I looked like a monkey F'n a football holdn that little gun. Wish we could have had a video would have been pretty funny. Lady luck was on my side!

Experience and confidence in ones ability is a requirement for good performance. It will NOT make a firearm of any type produce miracles reliably as by definition miracles are rare occurrences. Man has improved all of his implements over the generations for two reasons ability and necessity. It's easy enough to take a chance shot at something that is unarmed and consider yourself a cool and level headed marksman. The same goes to a less organized approach to your opinions about sufficiency of caliber. Anecdotes of people who have through lack of proficiency and confidence made asses out of themselves with large bores, have their place as warnings that over gunning your self is no improvement on your personal proficiency. How ever the opposite can be said of giving false merits to a caliber because of it's occasional accomplishments in perfect circumstances.
firearms can be likened to a horse race for simplicity. Handicaps are given out to encourage average humans to place hard earned monies "for most" on a slower animal. When everything is equal but one aspect then a true evaluation can be performed. The last I checked life didn't offer handicaps for ballistics. So claiming that a 357 is superior to a 44 is a mute point or should be if the accuracy is comparative.
If you ever have the privilege of preparing for a firefight you will find yourself looking for the weapon that follows this order. 1 familiarity 2 reliability 3performance in the intended application. the first step includes the accuracy 2nd and third mean it fires when you pull and it kills as effectively as it possible can. IE speed,diameter and weight. ball ammunition or FMJ. is not your friend it requires precise accuracy like any other round to be effective.
Now I admit to a thrill at the sound of my dogs working a trail and pride at the end. For me the end is not pulling the trigger. When I do pull that trigger I want finality and the most humane end I can administer. I have seen the effects of buck fever and am familiar with the fear and nerves of combat. Fortunately so far it has been manageable of course I've never faced down hundreds of bears or thousands of mtn. lions. I don't really intend to either I have plans on treeing them and enjoying the dog work along the way. I've heart shot jack rabbits at 50 yards with a twenty two to have them keep scrambling. this leads me upwards in caliber to my PERSONAL comfort level the 44 rem mag.

Does anyone have experience with the S&W lightweight vanadium in .44 mag.?
If so, what is the recoil like?