I
won! I won!I
won! I won!
On Friday, 22
Dec., 2001 the Prize
95 Winchester was received. I was finally able to hold the rifle on Saturday.
What a beauty! In the old days when I received such a special new possession it
was mandatory to refuse to part with it even at night -- my wife would not let
me take the rifle to bed though.
As an aspiring gun nut in the early 60's, I looked forward to the monthly delivery of the "Vic's for Guns" gun sales flyer. Among the listings for Piat tank busters, Enfields, Mausers, and Arisakas there were always listings of Winchester Model 95's in 7.62 x 54R Russian. I wanted that strange-looking lever gun so badly, but adult warnings of ammo scarcity kept me from buying. I settled for lesser guns like a Winchester Model 97 trench shotgun and a Mauser Model 93. When I reached college in 1964 and bought a Moisin-Nagant in 7.62 x 54R, I realized the story about ammo shortages was baloney -- I also found the supply of cheap Winchester 95's had dried-up.
The passage of time brought about a change in attitudes. I have found myself shunning those rifles which can be fed at the local sporting goods store. Rifles like the 1871 Swiss Vetterli, 1886 Austrian Mannlicher, 1871 Dutch Beaumont, and the 1890 French Berthier provide the challenge of ammo making that feeds my interests. My quest for a Winchester 95 had waned. When "Rifle" and "Handloader" magazines began running banner ads for a "custom lever gun", I gave the ad a once-over and figured it was probably one of the new-production Winchesters in .30-06 or .270. Ho-hum!
It wasn't until Wolfe Publishing sent me a renewal
notice, that actual thought processes began to take place. I felt mildly
slighted that those who tore the card out of the magazine to use for
subscribing/renewing were entered in the drawing, while those of us who used the
Wolfe mailing were not. I tore a card out of the current magazine and sent it
with my renewal notice. The date was November 26th -- I didn't realize the
drawing deadline was November 30th. On December 4th, I returned from work to
find a message on my phone from Wolfe Publishing telling me of my luck. Minutes
later, I read the finer details about the prize and discovered it was not in a
ho-hum caliber,
it was going to be a wildcat! Digging through my old
"Handloader" magazines, I found the
November-December 1993 issue which featured the making of the .375 Hawk/Scovill
cartridge. It was about this time that my thinking process began to
short-circuit. I still had a valid license for a cow elk in a special elk damage
area. If everything worked out properly, I'd be able to use the new rifle.
The following day, I called Fred Zeglin, the owner of Z-Hat Custom, 4010A So. Poplar, Suite #72, Casper, WY 82601. We had a very pleasant chat, with Fred leaving me more anticipatory than ever about the forthcoming delivery of a rifle which would be adequate for the taking of any animal on the North American continent.
On the Saturday before Christmas, the rifle arrived --
what a beautiful piece of work. Somehow, I guessed the 95's from "Vic's for
Guns" would not have created the same level of excitement. Christmas
afternoon offered the first chance to fire the rifle. I had twenty
impressive-looking rounds from Quality
Cartridge, loaded with Hawk Bullets, for the
task of sighting and harvesting an elk. Although the rifle came with a set of
custom reloading dies, I didn't know the load used
by Quality Cartridge and the elk season closed on New Year's Eve.
My first two shots hit four inches high at 25 yards which would probably put me about four feet high at 100 so my sight needed adjustment. What a nice sight! For that matter, the sight by Ashley Outdoors was such a fine piece of work I was afraid I'd damage it while trying to figure out how it worked. So much for sighting-in on Christmas. The following day I sent e-mail to Fred and received instructions for making the adjustments. Friday afternoon I took off early from work and sighted the rifle. I now had seven shots and two days remaining.
Until this point, my standard elk rifle had been a .35 Whelen-slightly improved. Since the gunsmith who rebored and rechambered my .30-06 got carried away with the chambering reamer, factory loads fall somewhere down into the chamber and won't fire. Consequently, this rifle met my needs as a rifle which required custom reloads to shoot. It carried a four-power scope. Having never shot any of my 9 elk at over 100 yards, I felt very comfortable with the Whelen and the .375 H/S had even greater downrange potential. I was ready!
Although the "Fire Season of 2000" had the
surprising effect of greatly increasing hunter success in western Montana, I had
yet to see an elk. My restricted damage
hunt area was shaped much like a fist with one extended finger. Throughout the
season, I had hunted various parts of the fist. With time running out, I opted
to hunt the finger. Arriving just before daylight, I donned my snowshoes
and started up the rise to the east. Behind me was a large piece of posted
bottom pasture land with the off-limits Forest Service land to the west.
I had barely gone a quarter mile when I heard a series of shots from the road below. I waited, hoping animals would emerge from one of the several wooded draws around me. No such luck. The rest of the day was spent still hunting through a area so filled with tracks, beds, and other sign that I knew I'd finally found elk country -- now to find the elk. In the meantime, I realized I wasn't changing hands very often as the new Winchester 95 rode very comfortably in either hand (Since my days with the US Army Ranger School, I have never used a sling to carry my rifle.)
Finally dropping down to the road to head back to the truck, I met a game warden who explained the early morning shots. A hunter had fired at one of at least 100 elk, wounded it, and called to get permission to follow the animal westward out of the legal hunting area.
The next morning, New Years Eve, and the last day of the hunt, I gambled on the elk returning to the beds I'd found yesterday. The warm sun of the previous day had made the snow too crunchy to use snowshoes. The game warden's story of such a large elk herd made me think I might be better off just walking the road in search of a large crossing. About 200 yards from the truck, the road looked like a recent cattle drive had been through and it had been badly out of control. The fences on both sides of the road were trampled to the ground. A quick look with the flashlight showed the elk had crossed from west to east. They were on the legal side. I checked the rifle, it had a chambered round and the slick tang safety was on Safe.
The effect of fifty-plus elk churning trails through
14 inches of snow made for a slow ascent of the hill, but given the need for a
little more daylight and the hope for a quick lifting of a very heavy fog, I
didn't mind the pace. About 75 yards up the hill, I stepped aside to move around
a tree and there at the top, just a few feet in from the lip, was an animal with
its head down grazing. With only the top few inches of its legs visible, with
its head down, in the poor light and visibility, the 150 yards between us left
me with a nagging thought -- what if it's a domestic cow. All the ranchers had
pulled their animals down to the bottom for winter feeding. Without lifting its
head, it disappeared. Moving more slowly, I inched my way to the top hopeful
that it was, in fact, an elk and I could get in range without spooking them.
By the time I reached the top, the light problem was gone, now if only the fog would lift. The "cattle drive" headed straight out into the open sage country and I simply followed. When the herd came streaming out of a wooded draw about 250 yards to my front left, I knew things were going poorly. In the fog it took a long time to determine which animal could be safely shot without hitting any other animal and, for that matter, which animal was a cow. As I placed my sights on the one cow that had moved slightly away from the others, I found the front sight covered most of the front half of the animal at that distance. My mind flashed back to the 350 yard targets on the M-1 Garand qualifying course -- but any hit there counted and here I needed better shot placement.
As the elk continued to move east, crossing the fence that marked the eastern legal boundary, I made a firm resolution -- next year I will forego the drawing for this special hunt and return to the heavy woods where this charming new rifle can perform in the manner for which it was designed.
Since the end of the hunt, I have converted 20 .30-06 cases to .375 H/S with no problem. By fall, the hills will have echoed the sounds of many shots fired at gophers as I prepare for the next hunt.
Walt B., Montana
