Why You Should Have a CRKT ExiTool

I came across this on Facebook, so credit to the original publisher (Whoever that may be)

Every vehicle you drive should have an escape device. Our favorite is the CRKT ExiTool:

At only $21 the CRKT ExiTool is a wise investment and reminds us of the old adage: "Better to have and not need, than need and not have."

Find out more here:

www.outdoorpursuitscanada.com/products/CRKT--ExiTool-Safety-Tool.html

Some of our favourite Camping, Hunting and Fishing tips from Field & Stream magazine:

Carry Seasoning in a Straw

Use straws to store salt, pepper, and spices for camping trips. Heat one end of a clear plastic straw with a lighter, then crimp it with your fingers or a multitool. Fill the straw with the desired seasoning, and repeat the process on the other end. Just snip off one of the ends when you’re cooking, and reseal it when you’re done. Store in a plastic bag in case of a leak.

Chill, Then Pull

When fishing-rod sections get stuck together, wrapping a bag of frozen vegetables around the joint for about 20 minutes helps to loosen the grip.

Shrug Off Sling Slip

Pin a quality round-ball compass onto the shoulder of your jacket. It works well to prevent a rifle or shotgun sling from slipping off, and you can refer to the compass easily if you need it.

Prolong Plastics

When wacky rigging, reinforce the plastic worm by embedding an inch-long piece of toothpick above the hook. It will last way longer.

Wag a Dog Tag

Make a single-blade spinnerbait with a recycled pet ID tag. Straighten out a large, sturdy paper clip, slide a weight on, and bend the paper clip to form a shallow U. With pliers, make a small loop at one end, and attach a hook tied with feathers. At the other end, attach a snap-swivel hooked to a shiny dog tag. 

Monitor Meat

At my hunting camp, frequent power outages make us wonder if the meat in our freezer is safe. I cut the top off a plastic water bottle, filled and froze it, and placed a quarter on top of the ice. The quarter moves if the freezer thaws.

Handle Tiny Flies

To hold small flies that you’re tying onto fine-diameter leaders, use the handle of an X-Acto hobby knife, which is about the size of a ballpoint pen. Just insert the fly into the jaws, where the blade would go, and tighten.

Leather Your Livers

Toughen up chicken livers for catfish bait by packing them in a coffee can between layers of non-iodized salt. Store the can in the refrigerator for about a week, and the livers will toughen up to the consistency of leather. They’ll stay on the hook better and never spoil.

Get Food and Rest

If you bump the scope on your rifle at hunting camp and need to readjust your sights quickly, make range bags by filling 1-gallon zip-top plastic bags with deer corn. Filled about 90 percent full, two or three bags will settle a rifle nicely.

Fire at Crackers

When I take my grandson plinking on my property, we shoot at dollar-store crackers. He likes the round and square ones, while I prefer the little oyster crackers and cheddar bites. My grandson can see the bullet impact, which makes it more enjoyable. Plus, our targets don’t cost much and there is no cleanup—we’re just feeding the birds.

Step Smart

Rain, morning dew, or frost can make the rungs of your ladder stands slippery and dangerous. To add traction, I sprayed all the rungs on my stands with Plasti Dip rubber coating and sprinkled sand on them while the spray was still wet. For even better coverage and more traction, you could do a second coat after the first one dries.

Listen Up

For a cheap, yet effective, bobber for light-tackle fishing, use a foam earplug. Just thread the hook through and slide it to the desired position on the line. You can make it a slip bobber by inserting a length of plastic coffee stirrer.

Make Weight

Make easy-to-pack decoy weights by filling ­empty plastic snuff cans with concrete. Drill two small holes into the bottom of the can first to attach a wire loop large enough to fit around the decoy’s head. Let cure, cover, and wrap one or two in camo duct tape.

Shave the Years Off Your Guns

When I’m finished hunting or handling my rifles and shotguns, I use an old-fashioned shaving brush to cover them with my favorite gun protectant. I apply the protectant right to the bristles. The brush gets into all the little tight areas and distributes the protectant nicely, so my guns go back in their safe fingerprint-free, protected from rust, and looking almost like they did the day I purchased them.

Sip, Soak, Scrub

If you forget to pack a pot scrub­ber to clean your dishes in camp, remove the plastic rings from a few six-packs of canned beverages and bundle them tightly together with a zip-tie. It’s very effective at scraping off food residue baked onto pans. Just make sure to dispose of the plastic rings properly at home.

Slip a Cork

Save your wine and champagne bottle corks—they make great slip bobbers. Drill a small hole through the cork’s core, insert a broken rod tip (every angler has a few of those) or even a stiff plastic coffee stirrer cut to size, then epoxy in place. Paint with oil-based paint (nail polish works in a pinch).

Stop Rust With Rice

For ammo storage in a bug-free environment, use uncooked rice to prevent moisture buildup. Wrap it in a single layer of tissue paper and store inside your ammo boxes. It works just as well as desiccants like silica gel but is much easier on the wallet and the environment. I also place a packet of rice in with ammo and firearms I’m shipping to an outfitter.

Revamp a Rack

Whether it’s an antler mount hanging outside on the barn or a shed found in the woods, antlers that have been bleached by the elements can be restored to a natural color with Minwax Golden Oak stain. Rub it on with a cotton cloth and let dry. One coat usually does the trick, but you can repeat until you’ve achieved the desired coloration.

Ten-Cent Solution

If I need to inspect my rifle’s bore in the field (I’ll admit that I’ve slid down a hill or two) or while cleaning it at home, I open the action and set a shiny dime on the bolt face. It reflects enough light from my flashlight into the bore for me to see if it’s clear or clean.

My gun shoots faster than yours... so what?

The Truth About High Velocity Hunting Bullets

Article by David E. Petzal.  *From Field & Stream* Uploaded on November 13, 2009

Back in 1915, firearms designer Arthur Savage stood the shooting world on its nonfunctioning ear by introducing a cartridge that sped an 87-grain bullet on its way at the then galactic speed of 3000 fps. Called the .250/3000, it appeared in an era when the .30/30 was considered a red-hot round, and it marked the start of a craze from which we have not yet recovered. With every decade cartridges get bigger and muzzle velocities get higher. Maybe it’s time to ask why.

Sudden Death Shortly after the .250/3000 appeared, stories began to sprout in the pages of outdoor magazines about the unearthly killing power of the little cartridge. A World War I–era Field & Stream described it as sudden death on tigers and other large Indian game. You can kill a tiger with a .250/3000, or with a .22 Long Rifle (and I will come and visit you in prison), but it is a stunt. High velocity by itself does not kill anything, nor does it kill anything faster than standard velocity.

I started out believing devoutly in lots of speed, but 40 years later, having shot creatures of all sizes with just about everything that goes bang, I’ve never been able to find any correlation between bullet speed and sudden animal demise.

For 15 years I hunted whitetails in South Carolina, where you can shoot lots and lots of deer, so I had the ability to draw some valid comparisons. The smallest cartridge I used was the .257 Roberts; in other years I used the .270 Winchester, .257 Weatherby, and 7mm Weatherby. None of them killed anything any faster or deader than any other cartridge.

Same with the .338, .340 Weatherby, and .338 Remington Ultra Mag., all of which I have used a lot. The latter two give anywhere from 250 to 300 fps more than the former, which is a bunch, but the beasts do not go down any quicker.

Magnum Force Not only do super-speed cartridges not kill any faster, but there are distinct disadvantages to them as well. First, let’s consider recoil and muzzle blast. Most of my .338 loads use around 70 grains of powder with 225-grain bullets. This gives me around 2750 fps. My .338 Remington Ultra Mag., with the same bullets, swallows an appalling 93 grains and produces 300 fps more. In a 9-pound rifle, a .338 so loaded produces about 28 foot-pounds of recoil, which is tolerable only to experienced shooters and the criminally insane. The RUM churns out 40 foot-pounds, which leaves you feeling as if you’ve gone five rounds in the Octagon with Chuck (“The Iceman”) Liddell. Muzzle blast also rises proportionately. You can, of course, get a muzzle brake, but that presents its own set of problems.

Second, when you get bullets traveling at 3000 fps and over—these days, way over—even the strongest and slowest-expanding of them makes a mess of whatever it hits unless the shot is long enough to let some of the velocity drain off. If you are a trophy hunter and don’t mind an acre or so of hamburger around the entrance hole, this is not an objection. But if you like wild meat and are disturbed by the waste of same, it is a problem.

Third, barrel life for the super-speed cartridges is considerably shorter than it is for standard-velocity loads. A well-cared-for .30/06 (60 grains of powder per cartridge) will give you about 5,000 rounds of first-class accuracy. Any of the super .30s (80 grains of powder) will get perhaps 1,500 before they start to deteriorate—and the cost of a good barrel, installed, is now about $600.

Why Bother? Given all these drawbacks, why is it that high velocity keeps getting higher, and new and horrific super loads keep appearing? Because nothing makes hitting at long range easier than a good dose of feet per second. If you think you will need to take a shot at 300 yards and over, high velocity is your very best friend. Last winter, I asked Ed Brown and Mark Bansner, makers of top-level custom rifles, what their most popular chambering was. Both replied that it was the .300 Weatherby. Kenny Jarrett’s biggest seller for years has been the .300 Jarrett, a ravening beast of a cartridge, the bullets of which turn the air fuchsia where they pass. These men build guns for trophy hunters who expect to take long shots as a matter of course, and in that arena, speed is king.

In fact, if there is such a thing as the No. 1 high-velocity cartridge, it would be any of the big .30s: the Weatherby, the .300 RUM, the .300 Jarrett, or the Lazzeroni Warbird. Loaded with streamlined 180- or 200-grain bullets, these cartridges are not even getting unlimbered at 300 yards.

However, speed alone will not solve all your problems in hitting at long range. You also need resistance to wind drift and momentum, or the ability to sustain velocity way out there. The way you get it is by going not to light bullets that give the highest initial velocity—but to the heavier slugs in a given caliber, and to bullets that are streamlined.

For example, if you have a 7mm magnum, you want 160-grain bullets in preference to 140- or 150-grain, and if your rifle is one of the real 7mm monsters, you may find that 175-grainers are the way to go. In .30 caliber, you should look for nothing lighter than 180-grain, and so on. As for bullets, you want sharp points (preferably polycarbonate) and boattails, both of which increase the ballistic coefficient of a slug. For example, much as I love Swift A-Frames, they are not particularly aerodynamic, and I would prefer Swift Sciroccos if long range were in the equation.

The truth about high velocity is that it is a mixed blessing. But when your target is a dot in the distance, it is the deadliest thing since the cholera.

The Hunting is (mostly) Done! The Eating Begins!

Caveman Roasted Leg of Venison

Here's one for your inner caveman: a whole roasted venison leg, just like Fred Flintstone would've cooked it. This is game cookery at its most primal and dramatic, and the results are a showpiece—which is good, as you'll need a crowd to help you eat it. Because the meat is only mildly doctored—with a classic wet rub of olive oil, thyme, rosemary, garlic, and juniper berries—and cooked in an unforgiving manner, the key to success here is a prime hunk of meat ideally from a younger deer, field dressed impeccably, and aged if possible. Thumping your chest while gnawing the bones is optional.

MAKE THE RUB: In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, thyme, garlic, rosemary, juniper berries, salt, and pepper until it resembles a coarse paste. (Add a little more olive oil, if needed, to make it goopy enough to spread.) Rub this mixture onto the venison, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. Remove the leg from the refrigerator several hours before cooking. It should be at room temperature when it goes into the oven.

PREHEAT THE OVEN to 350 degrees. Drizzle the meat with the vegetable oil, patting it lightly with your fingers to coat evenly, and place the leg on the rack of a large roasting pan. Roast, undisturbed, for 1 hour.

HEAT THE STOCK to a low simmer on the stovetop. Turn the meat. Using a baster or ladle, baste the meat with about half of the hot stock, and roast for another hour.

TURN THE ROAST a second time, and repeat the basting. After about 15 minutes, check the meat in its thickest part with an instant-read meat thermometer. The cooking time will depend on the size of the roast. Remove the roast when the thermometer reads 120 degrees for rare, or 126 for medium rare. (The meat will keep cooking after it's removed.)

REMOVE THE ROAST to a large cutting board and allow it to rest, tented with a few sheets of aluminum foil, for about 20 minutes. Carve and serve.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup fresh thyme leaves
8 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup rosemary, roughly chopped
3 Tbsp. juniper berries, crushed
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup cracked black peppercorns
1 whole venison hind leg, bone-in (12-15 lb.)
3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
4 cups game or beef stock

***Photo, Recipe and Story Taken From Field & Stream - March 2010 - All Credits to the Author***

One thing I have found over several years of hunting is that no matter what you try, no matter what you buy - carrying a rifle just isn't that comfortable.  True a lightweight rig can save your back a bit, and a padded sling may ease the shoulder strain some - but you still need to move that rifle around and try it in different carries to be able to stand it for any length of time.  The following article from Outdoor Life magazine details the pros and cons of the three main sling carries.

I have adapted my own style - it's kind of a mix between the European Carry and the African Carry.  I keep the rifle pointed barrel ahead, but perpendicular to my shoulder.  With a hand on the fore-end of the stock, I can balance the weight of the rig, manoeuvre around trees, bushes and rocks - and with a quick lift and half turn be in a shooting position that wraps the sling around my wrist, which I find helps to lock the rifle in the shooting position and help to steady the shot. 

Looking for another creative outlet to discuss, debate, post, reply, laugh, cry and otherwise completely enjoy the wide world of firearms and the outdoors?  Look no further than: 

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The Dozen Sexiest Cartridges

Article from Outdoor Life - Dec/Jan 2012 - By John B. Snow

Ah, the .30/06. So useful, versatile, practical and—dare we say it?—boring. And what of the .308, the .243 and the .30/30? They don’t offer much to quicken the blood either, capable though they all are. If you desire a gun that not only gets the job done but does so with a bit of flair and panache, then these 12 cartridges are for you.






.17 HMR: Rimfire Rocket
The .22LR might be the most popular varmint round in existence, but the .17 HMR kicks its backside by every ballistic measure. It is speedy—2,500 fps with a 17-grain bullet—flat-shooting and almost universally accurate in the guns it is chambered for. For varmints within 150 yards, it is seriously bad news. For the shooter on the trigger, it is habit-forming fun.

.204 Ruger: Varmint Vaporizer
The .204 Ruger breaks the 4,000 fps barrier and has so little recoil that it is easy to spot your hits—two qualities that can lead to uncontrolled and inappropriate laughter when shooting over a prairie dog town. The light bullets it uses also buck the wind surprisingly well. It is a sexy little number and you can count on explosive performance out to 500 yards.


.220 Swift: King of the Hill
The Swift is as old as your grandfather and burns barrels like they were made of dried pine, but don’t let that stop you from acquiring the ultimate varmint round. The stubby .223 WSSM made a brief claim for the title of fastest commercially loaded cartridge, but not enough folks took a shine to it with 40-grain bullets—so 76 years after its introduction, the .220 Swift still reigns supreme.


.257 Roberts: Stylish Starter
If you want Junior to blend into the crowd, then by all means get him a .243 for his first deer rifle. But if you want him to become a ballistic aficionado, go with this little quarter-bore instead. Its larger bullet diameter gives it an edge over the 6mms, it can be downloaded for first-time and recoil-sensitive shooters and it has a name that befits a Scottish laird.


.257 Weatherby: High Plains Hunter
The .257 was Roy Weatherby’s favorite of his eponymous magnums, and if it was good enough for him, it should be good enough for you, too. It is a quintessential open-country deer and antelope round. It scoffs at long shots and high winds and burns a cupful of powder every time you pull the trigger.


6.5 Creedmoor: Accuracy Nerd’s Delight
The world’s foremost ballistics geeks teamed up to design the 6.5 Creedmoor as an accurate long-range target round with mild recoil that’s also easy to reload. Offered now with Hornady’s 120-grain GMX bullet and propelled by Superformance powder, the 6.5 Creedmoor is making a name for itself as a deadly hunting round as well.


.280 Remington: The Gentleman’s 7mm
If the .270 Win. or .30/06 strike you as too ordinary, fear not. The .280 is an excellent all-around hunting round, although it took a while for its popularity to grow. But its star-crossed beginnings are part of its charm. It’s also a handloader’s dream.


7.82 Lazzeroni Warbird: Exclusive .30 
The Warbird has the profile of an ICBM and delivers nearly the same killing power. At 400 yards, this .30-caliber magnum hits with the velocity and energy that a .30/06 has at the muzzle. Its exclusivity gives it undeniable snob appeal, but it also means you’ll never find a spare box of ammo on the shelves of your gun store.


.38 Super: A Better 9mm
It was the most powerful handgun cartridge on the planet when it was introduced in the late ’20s and, over the years, it has developed a cult-like following among pistoleros. It’s been carried by assassins, secret agents, Mexican drug lords and action-pistol shooters, all of whom rely on its speed and knockdown power to gain an edge.


.35 Remington: Northwoods Master
Show off your sophistication by opting for the .35 Remington over the .30/30 for your “brush” gun. It has better terminal ballistics, making it more capable on large-bodied whitetails and black bears. Plus, it was the cartridge—chambered in the Remington Model 8—that lawmen used to bring down outlaw Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde fame.


.416 Rigby: The Smasher Professional hunting guides in Africa love it when clients show up with a rifle caliber that starts with the number four. And when that cartridge bears the name “Rigby,” they shriek and stamp their feet like tweens at a Justin Bieber concert. The four-one-six generates a thunderous 5,000 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle and is a consummate dangerous-game cartridge.


.500 S&W Mag: Heavyweight Champ
Why did Smith & Wesson build this behemoth of a pistol cartridge? Because anything larger would have been against the law. This maxed-out round can handle any creature that walks, flies or crawls through the dirt. Able to deliver five quick shots from a revolver, it’s a good option on dangerous game. Heavy, long-barreled handguns with muzzle brakes make the recoil manageable.