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Gday guys, been a while since I have last visited. Great to see a forum for us!!!
 

Gday there people. Went to an auction down here with dad a couple of weeks back and picked up myself a few nice model 94 Winchesters AS EVERY MAN SHOULD DO
I bid on 6 and won 5 of them. Didnt pay too much and got now when I think about it great bargains.
The 4 that are new and unfired are all comemmoratives. 2 of these came new mint in their boxes!!
 
From the top- The two at the top and the one at the bottom are rifles I already have.
 
The top is my 9422
2nd rifle is my first ever rifle: 30-30 Ranger
 
Auction wins: A rare case coloured and engraved what they call an 'antique' model 94. Made in 1978. I love the blueing and this will be a shooter!
 
4th rifle: Antlered game comemmorative in 30-30 Unfired but no box
 
5th rifle: Unique muscat style full length fore arm piece. RCMP (Royal mounted Canadian Police) comemmorative in 30-30 ,22'' barrel. Not many of these uglies around. Unfired
 
6th rifle: Beautiful New in box Little Big Horn Comemmorative in 44-40. Dad really wants to buy this one It is mint and nice.
 
7th rifle: This is my prize!!! I wanted this no matter the cost! I actually did very well with the price considering even what I have seen these go for on gunbroker over there. I didnt even pay over $1000 for it:yes: It is the Legenday Frontiersmen comemmorative in 38-55. It has the right sized barrel 24'' and looks magnificent! The wood is what one would expect on the higher grade big dollar Winchesters and this one is soo nice! It is new in its box and I will be shooting this one! Can't wait to start reloading for it. From the research I have done the old 38-55 can hold its own.
 
The bottom rifle is a Bicentennial comemmorative that I gave to dad on his 50th Birthday.
 
So I guess you guys and gals can tell I have a thing for nice model 94 Winchesters
 
The only catch is that I won't be able to fire any of them until late October because of some hard core training I must endure for my new career. A man can never have too many Leverguns :)
 
Heres the pic

Well im off sambar hunting again. Its a long weekend down here because of cup day and im going up to the deerstalkers lodge. Havnt been since before the fires so I think ill be doing more exploring than actual hunting. All the game trails I used to hunt are not used by the deer any more because of the fires so I must re explore the area again :)
Everyone have a great weekend and God Bless :)

Gday everyone. Ive posted the hunt in the big game forum, enjoy :)

Well here is the story of my first successful deer hunt!
 
I met my good friend and hunting mate Eric up there in our stomping grounds, around the corner from our campsite, after a quick hunt I snuck in before dusk.
 
Lo and behold Eric had already bagged himself a nice sambar stag! He always seems to do this to me After the congratulations and a few ice cold beers around the camp fire, we made plans to gather the rest of the venison from his stag the following morning.
 
We awoke at around 6am, with a slight headache from our celebrations the night before and we carried the rest of the meat from his stag back to his 4wd.
 
The weather was perfect for sambar stalking, a slight breeze and a little rain which would make my stalk hopefully quiet. I set off leaving Eric to do some trout fishing because he had already achieved bagging a deer. I started stalking up a really nice gully with the sun slowly penetrating through the dense forest canopy above. I was already quite tired from lugging a back leg (about 35kgs) from Eric's deer earlier and just took it easy, going about 1km up the steep gully along a fresh game trail. I had found some fresh browse and some fresh sign also by this time. It got to about lunch time by now and after glassing the gully opposite with my binoculars I had my lunch. I must admit that I also had a nice nap out there on the side of the gully and some light rain woke me up. I put my pack back on and grabbed my Tikka T3 .30.06 and went on hunting up the gully.
 
It rose quite steeply and I was getting higher and higher when I rounded a curve and found some more fresh sign. I was now hunting into the wind so conditions were perfect but I knew the wind direction could change at any time.
 
OK NOW THE GOOD STUFF
 
After a few paces up this new gully I heard some rustling on my right about 30m straight up the steep hill side. The sight that met my eyes really got my heart pumping! I could see the yellow tipped antlers of a stag flinging around in the scrub. He was thrashing some dogwood (native plant) with his antlers. I couldn't believe my eyes and he didn't even know I was there! I slipped off the safety on my rifle and looked at his antlers through my Weaver Grandslam scope. He was behind some thick scrub and I waited for what seemed like an eternity for him to present a shot. He finally edged out enough for me to aim at the front shoulder blade/spine area. I squeezed off the shot (180gn Rem core-lokt handload) and lost sight of him because he dropped on the spot behind the scrub. I knew I must have hit him in the spine because he dropped on the spot and I rushed up the hill to my first deer. I had to put a couple more into him and to be honest I did feel a tinge of sadness and thanked the Lord for providing the deer. It was about 15.30 at this point. I won't go into detail of what followed next but I will say that I did find my handloaded projectile just under the skin on the opposite side. It had gone through the spine and mushroomed ok. I will post more on this handload in the reloading forum.
Eric was finally able to pick me up on the UHF radio and he came to help me carry some of the meat out at about 17.30 as dusk was falling. I now know just how hard it is to carry the game you have just hunted out of the scrub because I was absolutely exhausted! As Eric said, I had to get my first deer in the steepest, darkest, furthest gully from anywhere We had to leave the rest and we returned the following morning to get the rest of the meat and also my first set of antlers. The deer is a young sambar stag of about 3 years and his antlers, even though not fully developed are quite nice and symmetrical.
 
Well there you have it. My first deer, a nice sambar stag for the youngest member of the Deer Stalkers Club. The club meeting was last night and the good blokes of the club were overjoyed when I and Eric shared our hunting story. It feels great when you get your first deer doesn't it? :)

Gday there everyone! I finally got my first deer a couple of days ago!:biggthumpup:
 
Just got home this morning. Ive just cut up some of the meat and am still unpacking my gear.
 
I will post details all about the hunt in the next few days hopefully. I think I will post it in the exotics and dangerous game forum because it doesnt really fall into the other categories.
 
This was only my 3rd hunt this year, i only had a chance to go out twice last year and have only been deer hunting for about 3 years or so, therfore I still have much to learn.
 
I am sooo happy!:) His antlers are not too bad either for a young stag. Anyway I must clean my rifle among other things. I will post pics soon people :)

Bought one of these yesterday when i picked up the new Remington 7615P. Its a quality piece of reloading equippment! Much better than using the priming arm on my Lyman press! Its hard to 'feel' the primer depth through the press because of all the moving parts, linkages ect. This hand primer takes the guess work out and it wont seat a primer too deep causing it to go BANG in your face, which happened to me on 3 occassions with the press Wearing saftey glasses of course. It takes all case sizes from .32ACP to .45-70. No need to buy shell holders too which is a big plus in my book. Easy to use and at least I dont have to go out to the garage to prime now:biggthumpup:
 
Do many of you reloaders use one of these?

G'day everyone. Im just about to pick up my new rifle the Remington 7615P. For those that are not familiar it, the 7615P is derived from Remington's 7600 series rifles, which are derivatives of the 870 shotgun. It is chambered in .223 Remington and down here is the closest thing we can have to being not allowed. It has been banned in western Australia but not where i am in Victoria.
 
Anyway this will be my first pump-action and I want to do everything right with it. Some of you may recall the huge thread I started on 'which gun' a while back which ended up with my purchase of a Tikka T3 lite in .30.06. Well that rifle is one of the best things ive purchased and after breaking it in properly and sorting out my loads it shoots into half an inch at 100m (not 100 yards). Not bad for a hunting rifle with no mods at all O yeah i topped it recently with a Weaver grandslam 4.5-14x44 and it performs superbly!
 
Anyway back to my question. How do you guys clean your pump guns? Any advice on cleaning a 7600 will do because it is a very similar rifle. Obviously it has to be cleaned from the muzzle and i know i will hate cleaning from muzzle to chamber. Ive read articles of drilling out the base of a cartridge case and inserting the neck of the case into the muzzle (sort of like a rod guide) to protect the crown from cleaning rod wear. Is this recommended guys and gals? Also are there any different/extra steps to cleaning compared to a bolt-action? I cleaned after each of the first ten shots of my Tikka and then every two shots until i got to 30. Should I use the same procedure with my new pump-action?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys

Gday/howdy all! I havn't been on this forum in a long long time. Hope everyone is well!
Anyway, I have been considering the Remington 7615 in .223 for quite some time now. Anyone out there got one? How do they shoot? I would also like to get some accesories for it such as a retractable stock and possibly the heat shield over the barrel. With the stock, which would you guys prefer, folding over the top, or the other, to the side and why. Any experience with this rifle or its accessories would be greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks guys

Hello everyone. I know i havnt posted here in ages:eek:
I was in my local gunshop the other week and the owner told me that Winchester Repeating Arms co. is closing down:eek:  Is this true? I havnt heard about it anywhere.
 
Chris

Have a great birthday mate and have fun playing doom 3:D
 
God Bless

Hey guys. Iv'e been thinking of adding a cheekpiece to my synthetic stocked Tikka T3. Iv'e thought about maybe working around those cartridge holder thingys that slip over the stock.
Any words of wisdom would be appreciated. Thanks

Ok, heres some pics of my unsuccessful:(  but enjoyable hunt guys. They original photos looked great but i had to resize them heaps and they have lost most of their quality. O well, enjoy.
 
From the top:
 
This is the top of one gully above Blue Jacket Creek, looking out over The Great Dividing Range.
 
This is a nice shot of Blue Jacket Creek. I got honked by a sambar near hear:p , after he heard the click of my zippo lighter when I was sparking up a smoke. It scared the heck outta me lol:eek: .
 
Hows this for using the environment? Its either a hunters or doggers hut found along the track on Clarks spur, just out of Woods Point.
 
A shot with me and my gear, on one of my many meal breaks. Any of you guys use the hun-tech pack like mine? And yeah, that's the Tikka .30.06, ill be putting a weaver grandslam on it when I save some more :o $. You can see the cast antler I found leaning against my pack.
 
Me with a Reservoir in the back round. The mountains (if you can call them that) are the start of our huge mountain range, called the Great Dividing Range.
 
This shot is of a baby beared dragon that I found out there and took home, to add to my reptile collection:D . I called him Sambar because I was stalking sambar when I came across him. That one dollar coin is about the same size as a quarter. How tiny and cute is he eh:rolleyes: ?
 
Next shot is just to show you guys the kind of scrub and country we hunt sambar in down here. There is a game trail in that shot somewhere too.
 
This shot was taken in the Woods Point pub (they call it the pub in the scrub). For those of you that don't know, a pub is basically a bar. This shotgun was overcharged (obviously) with a reloaded cartridge. Check out the chamber!:eek:
 
Nice zoomed in shot of The Great Dividing Range. Its funny how it was cold up here, but 100m down the gully it was a lot warmer.
 
Hope you like the pics

Hey guys. I went to the range before my hunting trip a couple of weeks back just to make sure the 06 was spot on. I met a guy there by the name of Noel and guess what? He was also a member of the Deer Stalkers club.
Anyway he had a couple of big bores that he invited me to shoot. They were a .416 Rigby and a .375 h&h Magnum. I wasn't going to say no, was i:D  The .416 was the really nice Ruger number one, with open sights of course. I shot this first. I was wearing my past recoil shield and Noel also put a slip on recoil pad on it. Ive gotta tell ya i was nervous:o I held it really tight and squeezed the trigger. It was sooo much fun! The recoil was not a sharp kick like say a .338 wm, but was slow and heavy. It was cool. Heaps of knockdown power as i'm sure you guys would already know.
 
Then I tried his really good looking Sako in .375 h&h. Ive heard these things kick quite a bit, but i thought the recoil was not too bad at all. To be honest it didnt kick too much more than one of my hot .30.06 loads. If i was to buy a big bore, i'd probably settle for a .375 h&h.
Anyway i thought i'd share my 'big gun' experience with you guys:)

G'day guys. I went to the gunshow yesterday and saw a .22 rimfire pump action that i liked. It was a Colt Lightning, 8 shot (i think), made in 1890 but the barrel seemed to be sleeved. I liked the way you load the magazine, by pushing that brass block out to the side and sliding the cartridges in to the tube from the reciever.
Im sick of loading from the muzzle on my 9422.
 
Anyway, does anyone know about these or even own one? I was told the best he could do was $400 Aus. Are they a good little .22? Does the price sound right? Thanks guys:D

G'day guys and gals. I came back a few days ago from my hunting trip. Unfortunately I didn't bag a deer:(  I still had heaps of fun and learnt a few more things. It was just nice to get away from everything to spend a little while in the bush.

I'm still a beginner when it comes to hunting, this being only my third hunt. I stalked about 6 deer and actually saw 3. I just wasn't quick enough to get a shot off. I also got honked twice by a couple of stags. The problem is that the country we hunt sambar in is just really thick scrub and it's hard to get a clear view after about 50 yards. It's also really dry out there and to be honest, it was like walking through a packet of cornflakes, so the deer can hear you coming. I've learnt how to track them by finding heaps of sign and browse and game trails. I also found a couple of wallows surrounded by heaps of prints. But the best thing I found was a cast antler. It's only from a spikey (young sambar stag) but I think its cool. I might make a knife handle out of it one of these days.

I stayed in the deer stalkers lodge that is situated in a small mining town called woods point. You only have to travel for about ten minutes from town to find a good hunting spot:D , the bar tender at the local pub reckons that a sambar stag walked down the main street a few weeks back! I loved it out there, seeing a night sky full of stars, having peace and quiet for once and having a nice cold beer in the pub with a few friendly locals after a hard day out in the hills. I will probably be going out there again in a few months and will hopefully bring home some venison. Well, I did miss you all and its good to be back. I did take a few pics so let me know if you want to see them and ill post em.

Hi people. Im going hunting tomorro! I havn't been for quite a while, but i finally got a couple of weeks off work for some hunting bliss! I've been looking foward to this for ages. I'm hunting what many consider to be our premier game animal, the mighty sambar deer. I will be hunting in the Great Dividing Range (huge mountain range) and staying at the deerstalkers lodge. And don't worry, ill take plenty of pictures for you guys:D
 
Im going to miss you all, my friends.
I'm also going to miss my girl:o O,yeah i forgot to tell you guys that we (me and the girl the was an animal liberationist) decided it best that we just remain good friends, which we are. I've met someone else since then and we have been together for a little while. She makes me sooo happy and guess what? She wants to come shooting and may even come on a hunt someday:D
 
Anyway, ill talk to you people in a couple of weeks. Be good while im gone and God Bless:)

G'day guys and gals. Its about 1:50am Saturday morning down here:D Im probably a bit early right? Well i reckon some nice raisin bread with a thick spread of butter would go down quite nicely. Also some of mums home made scons with a nice cup of hot chocolate ( you can tell im still a kid can't ya;) )
 
I'm going on my third hunt next Monday! Im hunting the elusive sambar for a few days down here in the great dividing range. I will be staying in the deer stalkers lodge and going to the Woods point pub to sink a nice cold beer after a hard days hunting. Hows that sound? Im soo looking foward to this hunt as its very hard to get some time off work. Its going to be great. Anyway, i better get to bed. Hope you all have a great day:D
 
God Bless

I cant be the only petrol head here. At the moment i'm saving up for a 1970 fastback Mustang. I absolutely love these cars. There must be someone on the forum that owns a Mustang. My father was what you guys might call a 'petrol head' in his day and this influence has rubbed off on me.
 
Heres a quick quiz for you people, what is my username and what does it represent?:D

[The Hog Deer]

The Hog Deer [/u]Axis porcinus

Terminology: Male - Stag
 
Female – Hind
 
Young - Calf
 
[/u]Hog deer are the smallest of our deer species down here in Australia. They were first released into the wild, in 1865, in various locations around Victoria. They have found their place around the coastal regions of South and East Gippsland. As far as we know, the establishment of hog deer has not harmed our natural environment.
 
'Hoggies' are a native of Asia but their future outside of Australia remains uncertain. A population of only a few hundred exists in Sri Lanka, whereas in Thailand they are severely endangered.
 
In order to survive, they need areas of dense cover close to freshwater swamps, river flats, lake margins or marshes, where they obtain most of their food. They are mainly grazing animals, feeding on the various grasses and sedges found around wetlands. It is quite common for them to be seen in small groups in their main feeding spots early in the morning or later during dusk. During winter and also in bad weather, Hog deer are rarely seen, choosing to remain hidden in heavy cover close to feeding areas.
 
Whoops, I better describe what they look like. A mature hog deer stag will stand about 70 cm at the shoulder, sorry I don't know what it is in inches. A prime condition stag will weigh between the vicinity of 45 kg to about 55kg, again I'm sorry I don't know what it is in pounds, you must remember that we are upside down here in Australia and we drive on the wrong side of the road! Anyway, the hinds (females) are smaller, measuring about 60cm at the shoulder and weighing around 30 to 35 kg which would make them quite easy for carrying out after a hunt I imagine.
 
'Hoggies' have a uniform brown colored coat in the winter months, which changes to a reddish-brown tinge during summer, at which time a line of light colored spots or blotches can be seen on each side of the upper back. The older stags become quite grey in the face. The tail is short and brown like the rest of the deer, but underneath it is white and when raised in alarm the white hairs are flared out in a distinctive display. They also stamp their front feet and bark when alarmed.
 
The antlers are normally six tined (pointed), with a brow and two top tines on each side. It's not a rarity for extra points to be grown and in some cases one or both antlers may have developed a palmated beam, like a fallow deer's antlers (I will be putting up a fallow deer post soon). A trophy hog deer stag will have antlers 30 to 40cm long, but most hunters consider any six point stag a trophy.
 
The biggest problem with hog deer is finding a place to hunt the little buggers. Their current range is very limited, to both private and public land. Access to private property is jealously guarded by the land owners, unless a considerable amount of money is waved under the farmers nose. Public land that can be legally hunted is also extremely limited. The most popular avenue is using a ballot system, or buying into a program of guided hunts. I haven't hunted 'hoggies' myself, and doubt I ever will. I say this because the list for the balloted hunting opportunity is long enough to go around the world three times, and have been told by many that if I put my name on the list, I may be able to hunt them when I'm about 40! I would rather spend my hunts (free of charge) going after the elusive Sambar which I will be posting about in the future.
 
The minimum legal caliber for hunting hog deer is .243 Winchester with a 100 grain pill.
 
Feel free to post any experiences you have had (if any) with hog deer.
 
These pictures were the best I could find. This is the front of the 'Para Park Co-operative Game reserve Limited' brochure. These are 3 magnificent hog deer stags.