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Post by M4Madness on Jan 6, 2020 18:40:44 GMT -5
Welcome back and glad to read that you and your wife are back, picking up a great hobby (hiking), doing projects (box blind) and the most important (going to church). Hopefully it both of you taking hikes. Mother nature does some great healing. Thank you. I took up hiking mid-2018 at age 50, and recently introduced her to it as well.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 6, 2020 11:37:01 GMT -5
The only magazines I have ever used are polymer Magpul PMAG's and aluminum USGI magazines.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 6, 2020 10:17:11 GMT -5
Thank you!
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 6, 2020 6:27:56 GMT -5
It sounds like it is short stroking to me, meaning that the bolt carrier is not traveling fully to the rear before picking up the next round. Try loading a single round into a magazine and then loading that round into the chamber and firing it. The bolt should lock back after the magazine is empty. Try this a few times -- it should lock back EVERY time. If it doesn't, then you definitely have a short stroke situation, which can be diagnosed after proof of its existence.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 6, 2020 6:19:45 GMT -5
Thanks, Duff. We've still not met in person even though we live within a few miles of each other (lol), yet I've met your wife a couple of times at hikes she was on with Teena. I hope you've had some good hunting.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 5, 2020 20:33:34 GMT -5
Thank you, Greg, and it's very nice to make your acquaintance. Yes, I may have failed God a lot in my life, but I've never given up on Him. I've always known what He expected of me, even when I ignored Him and did what I wanted.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 5, 2020 20:10:11 GMT -5
Welcome back!! I’ve always enjoyed reading about your adventures! Glad to hear things are looking up!! Thank you. I'm hoping to get back into the deer game full force this year -- my four deer a year average suffered tremendously with only two in the last two seasons combined. I'll be six in the hole right out of the gate this October 1. LOL! I did get out and enjoy the great outdoors today (on the last day of the season), so that's something. But it wasn't to hunt -- I drove an hour south and hiked 10.4 miles around Tucker Lake. It was a nice sunny day, with the mercury sitting at 48 degrees when I got back to the vehicle.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 5, 2020 16:40:49 GMT -5
Apparently the IDNR is required by law to report to the General Assembly on the effects of high-powered rifles for deer by February 15:
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 4, 2020 17:23:39 GMT -5
I edited my original post to remove the bad photo links and add a new photo. It now sports a Vortex Viper HS 2.5-10X44 scope. Using 56 grains of IMR 4198 and a 200-grain .40 SST in a light blue Harvester sabot, it's running around 2400 FPS.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 4, 2020 17:09:46 GMT -5
I recently rounded up all the parts for this pistol chambered in .300 AAC Blackout, had them Cerakoted, then built it last week while on Christmas break. The reason I chose to go the AR-15 pistol route is that I wanted something compact for my suppressor so that I didn't have it attached to a long barrel while hunting in woods. I couldn't go the short-barreled rifle (SBR) route since Indiana for some unknown reason felt it necessary to include a provision in the HPR bill that prohibits rifle barrels less than 16" for deer. So now I'll just use my 8.5" pistol barrel. LOL! An added plus is that I'm no longer restricted to 10 rounds -- not that I need that many for deer, but it's one less thing to deal with. The icing on the cake is the Law Tactical folding stock adapter. I built this pistol as a single shot by blocking the gas port, so that's where the side charging handle will come into play. Shoot, rack the bolt to chamber a new round, then shoot again. It makes for a much more quiet configuration without the bolt clattering around in semi-auto mode.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 4, 2020 16:48:47 GMT -5
Thanks, guys! I'm ready to get back back in the deer saddle. I'm amazed that I pretty much sat out two seasons, but at least the bucks will all be two years older when I get back into the woods this fall. LOL! My 2018 deer: My 2019 deer: I rounded up all the parts to build a .300 AAC Blackout AR-15 pistol for a treestand gun, and had them Cerakoted. I got them back last week and assembled it. Talk about planning a season ahead. LOL!
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 4, 2020 11:06:10 GMT -5
Welcome back.. You still have that purple Jeep? Been a while since I've spotted it. Yep, still drive it back and forth to work daily. I haven't passed your truck on Hwy. 54 either.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 4, 2020 9:26:03 GMT -5
Good to see your still kicking....thought maybe a stone saw got yeah! Ha I'm still sawing away -- lots of big buildings going up around the country. The Metz Carillon Tower is being rebuilt in Bloomington, and I'm anxious to see my work standing tall. I've still got the '69 Mustang, and have done lots to it since you last saw it in Plainfield. I swapped out the auto transmission for a modern 5-speed manual, threw in a "posi" 4.11:1 Ford 9-inch rear, added all new performance coil and leaf springs along with Koni shocks, installed a complete computerized speedometer, tach, and gauge cluster. The interior panels and dash have all been refurbished. It now has new Torque Thrust wheels and sports Mickey Thompson tires all around. I'm looking forward to getting it back in the road this Spring.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 4, 2020 9:03:02 GMT -5
Hey, everyone! I hope you've all been well. I did the unheard of -- I essentially skipped two deer seasons, as well as putting my online presence on hiatus.
I went through a very rough patch in early 2018, losing my mother to cancer, divorcing my wife of 23 years, 350 acres that I virtually had sole hunting access to for 20+ years sold, and all of the other farms I hunted were heavily timbered. I was site staff on the world's largest firearms forum (AR15.com), and I just walked away from it and every other forum that I frequented.
The extent of my hunting the 2018 and 2019 seasons was to go out one evening each firearms season after work in my work clothes and harvest a single doe for the freezer. Both hunts were over in less than a half hour, and I was done for that year. No bowhunting, no rut.
All that said, things are changing for me. I started hiking seriously on Labor Day weekend and have logged over 200 miles of trails since that time, spending a great deal of time in the forests that I so love. I'll be 52 years old in a couple of weeks, and I feel that I'm in the best shape I've ever been. My wife and I have reconciled and are doing well, and I'm returning to church. I negotiated with a Rural King manager and got an awesome price on five 21' ladder stands over Christmas break, and have big plans for the 2020-21 deer season. I'm going to improve the conditions on a 250-acre farm that needs a little attention after all the timbering. I may even build a box blind tower and attempt my first food plot ever.
It's good to be back...
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Post by M4Madness on Sept 14, 2018 7:10:52 GMT -5
He was actually on at 10:56 yesterday morning. I started recently looking in here after many months of inactivity, but am not excited about deer season at all. 2018 has been the worst year of my life. I lost 350 acres behind my house that I have hunted for 23 years, my mother died in April, and I'm over halfway through a divorce from my wife of 23 years, and the sad part is that she doesn't want the divorce. I could sure use prayers on my behalf through these troubling times. Good luck with the deer, guys!
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 6, 2018 8:52:20 GMT -5
My brother called me late afternoon yesterday to tell me of an odd occurrence that he witnessed while on the job. He works for a phone company as a repair technician, which takes him into rural areas daily. Yesterday, he was driving a country road near Tunnelton in Lawrence County. It was a very steep hillside with a road traversing it about halfway up on a shelf. So, to describe it better, it's a steep hillside, then a flat road, then the steep hillside continues on up to the top. Both sides of the road are fenced.
As he is driving around this hillside, a buck comes running up the hill towards the road, and jumps the fence onto the road. Mid-flight, it realizes that my brother is upon it in his work vehicle, so it panics as it lands, immediately attempting to spring off again. The pavement was slick and the buck lost its footing mid-spring and flipped forward like the beginnings of a cartwheel, only its front legs didn't catch it.
It landed squarely on the top of its head, with its rack embedded in the dirt on the opposite side of the road, just short of the fence. My brother described it as someone diving into shallow water. It then flipped on over, and thrashed and twitched around for quite a while. My brother had nothing but a shovel, and didn't want to beat it in the head with it, so he just sat there until it died.
My guess is that it either jammed its vertebrae, broke its neck, or fractured its skull at the antler pedicles. He said its body was enormous in relation to the forkhorn rack it possessed. It looked so ridiculous, he said, to the point that it was like cutting a small buck's head off and sewing it on a huge buck's body -- totally out of place.
Anyway, he knew a deer hunter who lived about a quarter mile away, and called him. That guy showed up in disbelief, then called the Sheriff's Department to get a "roadkill" tag so that he could keep and process it. I guess they told the guy they'd try to send someone out, and that's where the story ends for me.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 4, 2018 18:43:48 GMT -5
Before, a person had to literally take a deer to a check in station and have another person see the deer. It was impossible to legally tag a buck as a doe (unless the check in guy doesn't even check the deer, which is another matter.) With the old "brick and mortar" check stations, there was never a law requiring the attendant to go outside and view the deer. I checked in 60+ deer at various check stations prior to online check-in, and I bet only a half dozen times did they come out and look at my deer. In fact, lots of times they just handed me the paper log and had me fill it out myself, as they were too busy with other tasks to check in deer.
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 2, 2018 10:56:18 GMT -5
Two antlerless 50 yards from my bedroom window. I just don't feel like messing with one right now. Lol!
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Post by M4Madness on Jan 1, 2018 19:48:41 GMT -5
The state may as well lower all counties to 2 bonus antlerless, since VERY few use more than that. It won't really affect the herd size, but maybe it'll finally get the naysayers to see that the problem is way bigger than bonus antlerless and depredation tags. Then again, after seeing no real herd growth after a few years of reduced tags, they'd probably just say that the DNR was too late and still not admit that predators, loss of habitat, and the biggest problem of all -- too many hunters for Indiana's herd -- are what's really to blame. If every hunter in Indiana took a single deer annually, we'd be in big trouble...
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Post by M4Madness on Dec 24, 2017 14:07:28 GMT -5
My brother-in-law got it done this morning after a rough season (non-fatal arrow on a buck and firearms season miss on a buck). He lives in Martinsville, so it was somewhere within easy driving distance of that. Nothing like waiting until the last day of muzzleloader season to close the deal. Lol!
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