The place to begin is to give that hunting rifle a thorough cleaning. I mean, take it apart and scrub out every nook and cranny. Get the proper sized screwdrivers and make sure that every screw is snug, especially those on your scope and scope mount. This is also the perfect time to check for worn parts, or anything that looks like a worn part. If you’re in doubt, have your gunsmith look at it. It’s far better to replace a questionable part than to have it break when you are miles away from a gun shop.

I don’t usually clean the bore of my hunting rifle after each time that it is fired. But I do give the bore a good cleaning before the season starts. The thing to avoid is taking a shot at game with a clean, slick bore because there is no telling where that shot will go.

It is critically important to get a lot of trigger time with your hunting rifle in the off-season. If you are shooting a big-bore rifle, you’d be really smart to consider practicing with low-recoil ammunition. Low-recoil ammo will allow you to get in a lot of shooting practice without the danger of developing a bad flinch or taking an unnecessary pounding.

If you’re a handloader, you can find low-recoil practice loads in most of the handloading manuals. If you don’t handload, you can purchase good practice ammo from Superior Ammunition or from Nyati Ammunition.

Get that rifle clean and get some practice ammo on hand. Next time we’ll talk about effective practice techniques that will help guarantee a successful hunt.

Mossberg, along with many other notable firearms industry companies and key professionals, is in full support of this program as well as having it Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Tom Taylor, serve on the ACA Advisory Council. ACA has two primary missions:

1. To provide the concealed-carry and personal defense community and industry with an organization and a program to which personal-defense firearms customers can turn as their “first-contact” point for practice and familiarization. The ACA enables the entire concealed-carry community to be pro-active on the issue of practice, preparation, and training.
   
2. To offer an attractive and easily accessible program to “draw in” new and inexperienced purchasers of concealed-carry and personal defense firearms to gain them familiarization with their personal and home defense firearms while having fun doing it.

For complete details on Armed Citizen Alliance, visit the website at www.armedcitizenalliance.com.

Folks who live in snake country should take the time to learn to recognize the poisonous snakes in their area. It’s really not right to just kill every snake that you run into because snakes just do too much good. Quite frankly, I don’t even kill poisonous snakes unless they are hanging out too near my house, my camp, or my critters. I do kill them when they are close enough to surprise me and place me & mine in danger.

Folks who have dogs are well advised to expose them to snake-avoidance training. This training takes very little time, costs very little, and is extremely effective. I have killed three rattlesnakes that my dog alerted me to. And, in each case, thanks to the training, my dog was keeping her distance while sounding the alarm. Your local vet should be able to put you in contact with the training in your area.

Just about any firearm will do when you have to dispatch a poisonous snake. However, during the warm months, I keep some of the CCI shot cartridges handy for whatever pistol I happen to be wearing. I’m sure that the .22 shotshells will kill a snake, I’m just not convinced that they are all that effective. However, the shot shells in .38 Special, .44 Special, and .45 (both Long Colt and ACP), will do just fine.

The best advice I ever got about dealing with poisonous snakes was from my father. He simply said, “Don’t put your hands or feet anywhere that you can’t see.” To that I will add, if you have the Combat Mind Set and are truly in Condition Yellow, the chances of your being bitten by a poisonous snake are very small. Know what they look like and stay alert. But, for goodness sakes, don’t go around killing every snake that you see.

This is where his lack of decision-making skills began to show up. First, he worked for the Murphy-Dolan crowd that held the economic choke hold on Lincoln County. But, before the feud was over, he had changed horses and began riding for the McSween-Tunstall side of things. Some believe that he was in the party that killed Sheriff Brady and also with the bunch that took the life of Buckshot Roberts. Somewhere in all of that, he became buddies with Billy the Kid.

1878 found Brown, in the company of the Kid, selling a herd of stolen cattle in the Texas Panhandle town of Tascosa. When the Kid and the boys headed back to New Mexico, Brown stayed in Texas and ultimately became an Oldham County deputy sheriff. However, he soon got fired and some say that it was because he was always looking for a fight.

By 1882, Henry Brown had wandered into Kansas and gotten a job as a deputy marshal in the town of Caldwell. It looked like Brown had decided to put his outlaw past behind him and, in just a short while, he was promoted to the job of City Marshal. He did such a good job of cleaning up the town that the citizens presented him with an engraved Winchester rifle. But, for Henry Brown, the old ways died hard.

In 1884, Brown, his deputy and two other men, were caught robbing the bank in nearby Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Two citizens were killed in the robbery.

The night of the robbery, a crowd of upset citizens stormed the jail. Somehow or another, Brown broke loose from the lynch mob and ran for it. However, he just couldn’t outrun a load of buckshot that cut him nearly half in two. His three pals were successfully lynched.

Was Henry Brown a good man turned bad, or a bad man turned good? I guess we’ll never know, and the lynch mob didn’t care.

I recorded the album in Jim Jones’ Albuquerque studio, with Jim producing and providing much of the musical and vocal backup. Jim and I have performed together since we first met at a jam session at the Academy of Western Artists doo-da a few years ago. Jim is a great performer and songwriter and we manage to have a lot of fun together while going down the road.

WEST OF SOMEWHERE is compiled of a group of western songs that we tested before audiences all over the Southwest. I like the approach of recording songs that you already know that the audiences enjoy. This album includes several songs written by Ian Tyson, the cowboy music icon, along with tunes by Tom Russell and Townes Van Zandt. Great tunesmiths, all.

You can get a copy of WEST OF SOMEWHERE by clicking on the appropriate icon at the top of this page. Or just send $17 (check or money order) to Buscadero Productions, P.O. Box 1134, Alpine, Texas, 79831. Be sure to include a note if you’d like for me to sign it for you.

Western music is simply a pure form of folk music. I’m always looking for songs that will speak to western people. Western songs don’t always have to touch on tumbleweeds, cactus, coyotes, and dead horses, but they do have to touch your heart in some way or another.

Cowboys? The world is full of cowboys because everyone is from WEST OF SOMEWHERE.

By the way, this is the 100th post on my blog. I hope you are enjoying it. If so, spend some time visiting our sponsors and let them know about it. Also, thanks to my web manager, Carlos Vazquez, for all of his hard work. I’m having fun and I sure hope that you are, too.

According to some sources, the whitetail deer is found in every state in the U.S., with the exception of maybe four or five. And it is one of those animals that has learned to acclimate with the human population quite well. When I was a kid, in Texas, we figured we had about 2 million deer in the state. However, latest figures show that we’ve got something over 4 million. And that is the same situation virtually all over America even though our population has exploded during those years.

Mr. Whitetail is also a very democratic animal. You just don’t need a lot of gear to be a deer hunter. In fact, a gun, cartridges, a knife, and a hunting license, is about all that’s required. Oh sure, you can add a scope, binoculars, a range finder, camo gear, scent protection, and all kinds of other stuff, if it makes you feel good. But you don’t really need it. And, when I was a kid we figured a fellow was kind of a sissy if he used all of that stuff.

Frankly, most of what any of us ever learn about hunting big game, we’ve learned while on the trail of the whitetail. They are spooky, sneaky, and fast. They don’t make many mistakes and you won’t, either, if you plan to take home some venison. You quickly learn to pay as much attention to your woodscraft as you do your marksmanship.

Though I’ve never kept count, I suppose I’ve taken in the neighborhood of 200 deer since I started hunting (exactly how many years ago that is, is none of your business). I’ve never taken one with a shotgun or bow & arrow, never hunted them with dogs, and don’t like to hunt out of a blind near a feeder. Some people do and, where it’s legal, that’s their business.

Think about what you know about hunting big game and I suspect you’ll join me in taking our hats off to the greatest game animal of them all, the whitetail deer.

Skeeter Skelton is at fault for my love affair with the Flat Top Ruger .44. He had one with the 7 1/2-inch barrel and it was his favorite woods gun. I couldn’t wait to read one of his articles that involved some adventure with this neat sixgun. And, naturally, I got my hands on one as quickly as I could. The gun used to illustrate this article is one that I got from my friend, and premier pistolsmith, John Gallagher some years ago

The old Ruger Flat Top .44 will handle any reasonable .44 Magnum load. The single-action grip shape allows the gun to roll in the hand and, thereby, dissipate some of the felt recoil. It is a very comfortable gun to shoot, even with the heavy hunting loads that I sometimes use. My Flat Tops, I have several, have accounted for quite a few deer, javalina, feral hogs, turkey, and a variety of exotic game, over the years.

An indication of the popularity of the Ruger Flat Top is the fact that the company has brought the guns back out in recent years. They are currently available in .357 Magnum, .44 Special, and .45 Colt, all built on the smaller .357 frame and incorporating the New Model action. I don’t know if they’ll ever bring the gun back out in .44 Magnum, but you can bet I’d be a customer.

The original .44 Magnum Flat Top is a classic Ruger revolver. I can’t imagine keeping house without one.

I have a little confession to make. I’ve never been a big fan of AR rifles. Now—wait a minute— I’m not knocking them and think everybody that wants one should own one. I’m just saying they never have really suited me. You see, I grew up shooting rifles that had wooden stocks and, quite frankly, most of them had levers, too.

Along in the early 70′s, I picked up a Marlin 1894 carbine, in .44 Magnum. We shortened the barrel and added a receiver sight to it. This became my companion on drug raids, stake outs, and felony apprehension assignments. It was a nice gun, but something was missing.

All of that was corrected in the early 80′s, when I had a chance to buy a Browning Model 92 carbine, also in .44 Magnum. The Browning was nearly an exact knock off of the Winchester Model 1892 carbine and I like the trim, less bulky feel of it.

My friend, gunsmith Ed Collett, shortened the barrel to 16 inches, so that it would be easier to manage in a car. Even then, the Mod. 92 still held nine rounds. And, when those nine rounds were 240 gr hollowpoints running at about 1500fps, I figured that was adequate for just about any job. Ed also removed the rear sight and installed a Williams Foolproof receiver sight in its place. The whole thing was exactly what I had expected it to be, short, powerful, and accurate.

My .44 carbine was my constant companion during the years that I was Chief Deputy and later Sheriff of Crockett County, Texas. Crockett County being somewhat of a gun culture, nobody thought twice about the sheriff pulling a lever-action carbine out of his car when things started to get dicey. Hell, what would you expect a Texas sheriff to be carrying?

The last time that I fired my .44 carbine for serious purposes was not long before I retired. A punk out of San Antonio stole a Mercedes and was running west on I-10. We chased him up one road and down another until I got tired and figured that we were fixing to see a bad wreck in the very near future. I can tell you that five or six 240 gr hollowpoints will do some amazing things to the front end of a Mercedes. It did, in fact, obtain the thief’s immediate voluntary compliance.

So I’m all for people owning and shooting AR’s. Heck, selectors and suppressors are okay with me, too. But I believe I’ll just stick with this old .44 carbine. We seem to suit each other.

Riding up to Blazer’s Mill, Roberts discovered, too late, that a group of Tunstall supporters were taking their lunch at this popular stop on the trail. About a dozen Regulators, as they were called, were at the mill and had already spotted Roberts’ approach. The Regulators were headed by Dick Brewer and included such New Mexico gunmen as Charlie Bowdre, George & Frank Coe, and Henry McCarty, better known as Billy the Kid.

Not showing the white feather, Buckshot swung off his mule and shucked his Winchester as he did. Frank Coe, who had been on friendly terms with Roberts, came out to talk to Buckshot and try to get him to surrender to this questionable posse. The two men sat on the steps of one of the buildings and talked, but the talk was useless.

Tiring of the wait, Dick Brewer told some of the Regulators to go and take Roberts by force. As they came up, Roberts threw up his rifle and he and Charlie Bowdre fired at the same time. Roberts took a slug in the gut and his own bullet hit the buckle of Bowdre’s gun belt, knocking the wind out of the gunman but doing no other damage.

In a hail of bullets, Buckshot Roberts backed into a building that served as the mill’s office. Throwing down at rolled-up mattress in the doorway, Roberts picked up a .50-70 Springfield rifle to replace his empty Winchester. Gut shot and hurting, Roberts lay down behind the mattress, prepared to give as well as he got.

With bullets flying all about, Roberts noticed the gang leader, Dick Brewer, run and hide behind a nearby pile of logs. As Brewer raised up to shoot, Roberts took the top of his head off with the Springfield rifle. Mr. Brewer was what we call DRT (dead rat there!).

The death of their leader took all of the starch out of the Regulators. Nursing their various wounds, they rode off to find easier people to “arrest.” Roberts lingered for a short time before passing. He was buried at the mill site right next to Dick Brewer, on the banks of the Rio Tularosa—134 years ago, yesterday.

However, my favorite Model 19 has always been the 2 1/2” barreled version. It featured a 2 1/2” barrel with the integral ejector-rod shroud and a round butt. Along with that, it incorporated the ramped front sight and adjustable rear sight that was standard to all Model 19s. I’m sure the idea was to build a Model 19 that would be more suitable for criminal investigators to carry concealed. However, we quickly found out that the little sixgun was capable of very fine accuracy and our qualification scores did not drop drastically, if at all, shooting the shorter barrel.

In the above photo, the gun on the right is a Model 19-3 and the one on the left is a Model 19-4. Both have pinned barrels and recessed cylinder chambers. They were made during the heyday of Smith’s revolvers. For your interest, I have compiled a little timeline on the 2 1/2” Model 19.

• 1955: The Combat Magnum goes into production and the first production model is given to Bill Jordan. This gun ultimately ended up in the collection of Col. Rex Applegate.
• 1963: A run of 50 Model 19′s are made with the 2 1/2” barrel.
• 1966: The 2 1/2” Model 19 becomes a standard production item.
• 1967: The Model 19-3 is produced. The rear sight leaf screw is relocated.
• 1968: The diamond insert grip is discontinued.
• 1977: The Model 19-4 is introduced, changing the gas ring from the yoke to the front of the cylinder.
• 1982: The Model 19-5 is introduced, doing away with the recessed chambers in the cylinder.
• 2005: The Model 19 & Model 66 are discontinued.

In my view, and that of many others, the glory years for the 2 1/2” Model 19 were 1966 to 1982. From that time on, Smith & Wesson began to cheapen their revolvers and a reduction in performance resulted. Fortunately, these great snub-nose revolvers can still be found at gun shows and in the used counter of many gun shops. Handy little six-guns, if you ask me.