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Post by dusty20 on Nov 14, 2016 10:53:19 GMT -5
Hi all, I told my wife I was buying a rifle if Hilary got elected and she made it impossible. Well trump got elected but she said we might as well buy a rifle anyways.
I'm looking for something I could use on an elk trip if I ever go, something I can get coyotes with, something I can shoot for fun, something that is legal for deer in Indiana although I only bow hunt (just in case I change my mind). Budget is around $400-$500 with scope. I know that is pretty limiting but there are a few options.
So it looks like the Ruger American and the Savage Axis in .308 are two of the more popular options. I can get a Savage with cheapo scope for about $300 on sale and I can get a Ruger with cheapo scope for $469. I'm not a huge fan of the Savage but am contemplating buying one for the low cost then adding better scope mounts, better scope and possibly different stock. If I get the Ruger I wouldn't have much room for anything additional.
So what do you guys think? Am I off base here, anything additional you would add?
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Post by dusty20 on Nov 6, 2016 20:17:46 GMT -5
I use this stuff. It is vanilla extract or something. I heard about it on wired to hunt. The thing that got me was the amount of sponsored type guys talking about this stuff that werent sponsored by nose jammer.
I know in my experience I have had deer that travel right through my path without noticing. I've had them walk on the same trail I took without appearing spooked. My brother shot a doe on the trail he walked in on. Neighbor tentatively gave it a try and said after his first use he is a believer. He has a difficult time finding a trail to walk in on where his property is located (we live in the north where its all ag and small woods and we have limited access paths to get in). Said normally when deer cross his trail they get edgy or just flat turn around. Since using this stuff he said they walk right across and seem not to notice.
I spray scent eliminator on my clothes and boots and spray the soles of my boots and the perimeter with this stuff.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 29, 2016 20:02:42 GMT -5
I used the grim reapers to take down a doe. Went through the other side and got stuck with about the same amount sticking out both sides. Doe broke the arrow running through corn. They open just fine and its nice having the practice tip included in a package. Only complaint I had is after a year the tips started oxidizing so maybe coat them with a light oil or something to keep them from doing that?
I've decided to shoot fixed blade because I only pull 60# ( shoulders literally dislocate if I pull more than that).
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 26, 2016 20:46:07 GMT -5
I can absolutely see both sides of the argument for this. From a purely tracking after the shot I love the idea.
For $15 I absolutely think it could be worth it. For example I shot and lost an arrow this year and the arrow is around $9 each, broadhead was a cheapy at probably $6 and had a lighted nock at about $10 so I lost a $25 arrow. If it was a $40 for a 3 pack broadhead that could have been a $33 arrow easy. It's kind of an expensive insurance plan if nothing else.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 22, 2016 8:09:05 GMT -5
I know two guys very well that heated with an outdoor boiler and they were slaves to their boilers. One actually sold his house due to it. Then others tell me they are very efficient but I never got to see the piles of wood they used either. Unfortunately,I haven't figured out how to post pictures or I would show you my wood pile. I burned 15 gallons of chainsaw gas on my worst year! For the people who don't know,THAT'S A LOT OF CUTTING! Lol I always thought that an outdoor boiler would be nice. Didn't know that they were that bad on wood.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 22, 2016 8:07:52 GMT -5
Oh And My soapstone stove is unbelievably easy on wood too I've heard that those things are really nice. They look good too.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 22, 2016 8:07:20 GMT -5
I don't know that I'm necessarily wasting wood by any means. I have a wood box that holds one days worth of wood it's about a foot deep and maybe 3' wide 3' tall. I essentially grab three arm loads of wood to last me the day. Maybe that is a lot of wood for some people but I don't know.
I know that there are burners that are much more efficient than mine.
The biggest thing I was curious of is do people put as much of an emphasis on flue temp as i have or do you just get a fire going and get it hot And let it go.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 21, 2016 9:21:17 GMT -5
Nobody else here has a wood burner?! Don't let me down.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 20, 2016 12:52:21 GMT -5
I would be curious on what the hvac guys or crawl space guys say. From what I understand if you have a vented crawl space then obviously seal everything but if it is not vented you must have it conditioned to some extent.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 19, 2016 14:53:25 GMT -5
I probably won't be much help but here is what I think I learned over the years. I have the same problem as you, wood burner isn't central in the house and the rooms away from it are cold - could be 20°F colder than the living room where the insert is. If you are going to use the central heat system on "fan" only to distribute heat from the wood burner, the ducts have to be insulated or you will lose too much heat. If you can move air from room to room inside the house, that would help. I have seen small fans that mount in the corner of a door frame, but never went that route. Oak has to be seasoned 2 years. Don't burn green wood. Make sure the chimney is clean - no creosote. Keeping the wood covered but open on the sides and up off the ground helps keep it dry. I wonder if I am adding to my problem by keeping my heat system on fan. I do that all year around. We have a lot of ceiling fans that come winter I will switch to the reverse direction to try to keep air moving. I will point out that my crawl space is semi conditioned. it is still a nasty tight dirt floor crawl space but it is sealed for the most part and has an air duct or two that feed the crawl space.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 19, 2016 13:15:46 GMT -5
Bought a house last year with a wood burner. We had to reline the chimney after getting an inspection but other than that it was good to go. We used it a decent amount last year but it is not our primary source of heat as we do have a furnace. I would like to get to a point that the furnace is secondary and rarely used.
The previous owners had it tucked back into a corner of the house in what would have been the original third of the house. the room that the wood burner was in was easily 95°+. The living room was on the other side of the old exterior wall and wouldn't even feel warm so we got next to no radiant heat out of the burner. It did have a blower with heat box around it that was plumbed into the HVAC directly below in the crawl space. This was enough that I could keep the living room at roughly 70° if I stayed on top of the burner and tried to keep the flue temps right around 500°. I thought this was a bit depressing because I had hoped that I could keep the house at 70°+ with not much work or not over firing the burner. I checked the air temp coming out of the burner and it was rather toasty! The problem is that the air cools down so much being pumped from one side of the house all the way to the other. Here in the next week or so I am going to install a new chimney in our living room so that I can centralize the heat source. I think this will really help out.
The wood burner is pretty old and just has the two slide air inlets on the front. It is a big fire box and is a rectangle with the air flowing lengthwise with the rectangle from inlet to flue. There is no gasket on the door and it looks like there never was. I have a magnetic speedo type gauge thermometer 18" from the woodburner on the stovepipe.
As a semi newby I need some tips: How should my fire start, sustain and trail off - When I start a fire I have to open everything up to get the air moving to get good coals and a good burn. Once I do this the fire climbs quickly and the flue temp skyrockets 700-800° in a couple minutes. At this point I close down the air inlets to a sliver and it sustains around 500° flue temp for a while then slowly falls and I keep opening up the air inlets until its time to start again. Is this normal for you to have to adjust the air inlet once every 45 minutes or less to keep the flue temp up?
What is a safe stovepipe temp? The gauge I have shows about 500° being about the top, 600° gets me into the red. Is my goal to keep my stovepipe temp around 400-500° or is there something else that I should be monitoring? Obviously room temperature is going to be the important thing but In the past I had to keep the stove pipe right at the 500° mark to keep my house anywhere near 70°.
Should my stove have a gasket on it? Is this thing just really old and not designed to maintain a good fire without lots of adjustments? Best guess is this things from the 40's or 50's maybe?
I have a flue damper but keep that wide open to avoid getting smoke back fed. I have so far only adjusted the air inlet to adjust fire temp.
Anything you guys can give me hints on that you can pickup that I'm doing wrong based on my short novel here???
I have tried to read as much as I could on best practices for fires, how to build the best fires, how to control fires the best way but most of the information out there is so vague it really doesn't help much.
Thanks in advance!
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 18, 2016 22:11:45 GMT -5
I have the huntstand app and I have all my stands mapped out there. Typically when I hunt it will show your current GPS location and I screenshot that and send it to my wife. The app also allows me to mark trails to get to each of the stands. I like this method so far.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 18, 2016 18:53:05 GMT -5
20' ladder stick up first on back side of tree. Place ladder stand and be sure it is level and ladder sunk into ground firmly. Climb ladder stick and attach straps to platform from behind. Remove ladder stick. All while using climbing belt with my harness. Safest way I found for setting up a ladder stand alone. That is the way to do it! I haven't done it yet (thought about getting the sticks last year) but it's going to be the new way. You can keep strapped to the tree the whole while then hang your lifeline for your first climb up the ladder and I'd bet about half the price of one of those Doo hickeys in the video and can be used for every stand.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 17, 2016 21:47:20 GMT -5
All good ideas! I always connect the center support as best I can and then run the two ropes behind the tree as high as I can and fasten them down. I really liked the idea of using the ratchet straps so the ropes don't loosen up like they always do. I also like the idea of putting the strap on it and around the tree and then walking it up. That way even if it pulls away the stand is still connected and you don't pull the ole animal house ladder falling backwards stunt. I remembered seeing this a year ago or so and thought it was a pretty cool concept. youtu.be/g-rbbDlvEDo
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 13, 2016 18:48:00 GMT -5
Guys thanks for the replies. Keep them coming. Here is my situation...this will be lengthy. Let me start off by saying I only hunt from ladder stands anymore. I still have 3 hang ons but they are sitting in my garage because I don't like/trust them. My ladder stands all have a minimum of 2 straps on them. Almost all of them are strapped to 2 different trees for added stability. All my stands have at least one other tree right next to it besides the main one the back of the stand sits against. I do this because it gives me added cover and I feel more secure with multiple trees "within reach". With that being said, several years ago I was hunting a stand that sits right along a river that cuts through my woods. The stand sat up inside a clump of 4 trees. It was a great setup until one day the tree I was harnessed to fell! Luckily, it fell right into the river and of course it took me with it! I always tied off to this tree because I knew if it ever did fall (what's the likelihood of that, right) it would be better to hit water and not land. Fortunately I only broke a couple of ribs when I landed on the tree. Many years ago, long before I had ever heard of a harness I was hunting opening morning of bow season and it was ridiculously windy. Probably shouldn't have been hunting but I was young and dumb. I was getting leery of a limb way up above me from the creaking and cracking it was making. All of a sudden it broke loose and I had no choice but to jump from my stand so I wouldn't get crushed. Ended up hitting the corner of the stand and busting one of the legs and breaking my ratchet strap. So, with all that being said, I have a crazy fear being attached to tree that will limit my ability to abort or even worse, could fall (extremely unlikely) at any time. However, as I sit here typing this I am watching 5 does feed in a winter wheat field and I'm also harnessed properly to the tree😉 I have been fearful of this happening as well. I am not the most educated person regarding trees but I would often like to think I can spot a live or dead one. Sometimes I am shocked when I see a tree that appears alive and well toppled over . I wear a harness and lifeline when in a tree. My brother fell and fractured two vertebrae and surgery on his ankle. Couldn't work for 3 months. He had a harness but before we got to the top to put on the lifeline we were using a rope as a makeshift lineman's belt. Won't make that mistake again. I'm still waiting for a better way to put up a ladder stand. I hate being 16' high on a wobbly piece of junk steel swaying in the wind trying to fasten a ratchet strap.
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Post by dusty20 on Oct 5, 2016 13:33:53 GMT -5
2000 Chevy Malibu is sold! Price of the Fiesta has dropped to $10,000.
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Post by dusty20 on Sept 30, 2016 20:10:33 GMT -5
Just curious, my brothers in-laws are just up the road from a check in point. I didn't realise it was public ground. Anyone have info on it. The dnr interactive map takes me to pigeon river website...
Is it pretty busy around there come hunting season?
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Post by dusty20 on Sept 25, 2016 19:54:58 GMT -5
Dusty, you ask a good question, why? There's always an answer, but they really don't want to tell us. I think much of the data is out there, but one really needs to understand statistics to make any sense of it. There are lots of variables to consider, even interacting variables, so I think it would take a person with some advanced knowledge of statistics to understand it all. One would think that there are some PhD Statistician hunters out there. Most hunters understand the larger impacting variables, and this is probably all one needs to know. If an animal is so driven to mate that it loses a significant percentage of its body weight in the process, it can be anywhere at anytime regardless of rain, snow, moon, day of week, temp or change in temp or even impending danger. I had a buck bust me coming down my latter during the magic period. We looked at each other for what seemed to be a long time, but was seconds, and then he puts his nose back to the ground in nature driven pursuit of boss babe ...as if I were a squirrel on a tree. Not sure if you are asking me why I want it or why it is a possibility and someone won't tell us? Either way for me I couldn't say it's going to change how I hunt or why. I'm an engineer and yes I've taken statistics although far from a PhD. I like numbers if for nothing else other than to review them. I think having more insight makes things more interesting. Trust me I'm fully aware that at the end of the day these are wild animals that can and will do the complete opposite of what I expect them to do most all days. Just something that interests me is all.
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Post by dusty20 on Sept 22, 2016 20:40:42 GMT -5
I do have that and use it every day I go hunting. I like that it lines up all the weather, moon up and down times as well as overhead and underfoot times. I was just thinking something I can pull up the old photos and find out the wind and moon and such.
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Post by dusty20 on Sept 22, 2016 12:17:41 GMT -5
Been thinking for a little while about getting some software that really take a deep dive through pictures. One that pulls wind direction, speed, moon etc. I don't have a huge property and not sure what I would expect to get out of it but am very interested to see if there are any interesting patterns I haven't thought about. Why does it seem like some days every field has a group of deer in it on my drive home and the next day with similar conditions nothing to be seen?
Either way just curious if you guys have tried anything or had luck with any of them. Seems like there isn't anything free out there and don't want to buy one and realise it doesn't do anything more than I can do in 2 seconds looking at the group of pictures.
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