Predators

Predators!

One of the best things about having a gun shop is that I am able to experiment (or just play) with different stuff at a reasonable cost. Some "stuff" works very well, other don't. So, I would like to tell about a new set-up that worked really well.

I tend to be a very traditional hunter, using mostly double shotguns (preferably side-by-side) and even double rifles (in this case reason won and it is an over-under) for most of my hunting, but for the 2017 Michigan Deer Season I wanted to try something different. 

I decided to give a rest to the medium and large bore rifles and experiment for the first time with a screaming quarter bore, the 257 Weatherby Magnum. First introduced in 1944 and said to have been Roy Weatherby's favorite creation, the 257 WM is one of the flattest shooting commercial cartridges, being able to harvest most of the big game animals of North America, short of of the brown and polar bears and bison. While it may not be ideal for elk and moose, with proper bullet construction and placement the 257 will do the job there as well.

As the launch platform for the very, very fast little pill (bullet weight varies from 87 to 120 grains) I select a modern version of the Weatherby rifle, the Vanguard Back Country. I sold the same rifle to a customer early in 2016, a recoil sensitive bow hunter, and he took it to Alaska and successfully hunted dall sheep and caribou, and I was very impressed with the rifle at that time, so I figured, why not?

With such a hot rod, my whole idea was to have a relatively long range pack, as that would align with the potential shots I could get on a new property I was hunting, and since you can't hit what you can't see, I need good optics to top the Vanguard.

My choice of scope was the Hawke Frontier 30, 2.5-15x50 SF with the LR (Long Range) illuminated reticle. I had previous experience with Hawke scopes on several of my air guns, and I like their quality and value, so I knew that this would match the Weatherby rifle well.

The reason for selecting this specific model is that I wanted a 30mm body scope for maximum adjustment range a light transmission. Then I wanted a scope that had a low enough magnification that could be used on a running shot at relative short range and high enough magnification to allow precise shooting at the longer end of the spectrum of shots that I could possibly take (400 to 500 yards). The 50mm objective also helps with the light gathering, and illuminated reticle provides a positive aiming point in low light conditions, the situation one is more likely to encounter during the twilight hours that deer are most likely to be moving (although that is not the case, as you will find out).

One thing that I could not get away from was shooting premium controlled expansion bullets, and that is why I select the Nosler Trophy Grade ammo loaded with 110 Grain Accubond bullets, with a muzzle velocity of 3,400 feet per second.

Sighting the rifle was one of the easiest times I ever had. Virtually no recoil and precise scope adjustment, allowed me to shoot a small group two inches high at 100 yards in minutes, and I ready to go hunting. And the lighted center dot in the reticle was easy to see under full sunlight.

On the day before Opening Day I received a visit from dear friend Mike Vander Muelen. He was visiting some friends in the Traverse City area and was going to spend Opening Day in their deer camp, but had no plans to hunt. I convinced or rather forced him to buy a deer license, and let him use one of my rifles for the day, and since I was a bachelor for a couple days we agreed to meet on the sixteenth and maybe hunt together, and after that have dinner and libations.

November 15th, Opening Day was almost a deluge. It rained overnight and the rain just did not let go until late afternoon. I sat all day on my blind, reading, checking my phone, snacking, but never letting go the hope that eventually a deer would come by. And sometime towards dusk I saw movement, not three or four hundred yards away, but maybe three or four hundred feet away.

A young buck was moving towards my blind on an old logging road, and at around twenty-one yards he just turns broadside! The little red dot from the center of the reticle rested just behind the buck's right shoulder and a third of the way up. At the shot the two hind legs kicked high in the air, and the buck spring forward, and after a run of about thirty yards just flipped upside down. Heart shot.

Young but legal

Next day Mike met me at my shop, Hampel's Gun Co. in the morning, and then we went to my home to get ready for the hunt. Before we left I fired up my Big Green Egg and put a whole rib side on it, so we could satiate our hunger when we came back late in the night!

That almost did not happen. We arrived at my blind around 2:00 PM, and not fifteen minutes later, there comes, through the same old log road, a nice mature Michigan buck, bigger than any deer I've ever shot, and the rifle was on my side of the blind!

But Mike had not hunted in several years (his fault, not mine), and as much as I may torment him, I really like the guy. I could see the buckfever mounting on when he asked for the rifle. I considered teasing him a bit, but he would suffer, so I passed him the Weatherby. He rested the forend on the window frame, looked through the Hawke Frontier, adjusted the magnification, took a deep breath and ... the deer moved closer.

The deer kept coming and suddenly turned broadside, but before Mike could take a shot he jumped over a fallen log and ... moved closer. And then there it was, at the exact same spot I shot my younger buck the day before.

And Mike could take it no more, he aimed carefully and suddenly the Vanguard barked, and the deer took of, the front right leg at a ninety degree angle, like a wing, and we lost sight of him on some multiflora bushes.

And Mike was devastated, almost in tears (this is my story and I tell it anyway I want. If he disagrees he can write it his way!), but I assured him that the running deer was dead, he just did not know about it, and we would find him within a hundred yards, probably northeast of the blind. He did not believe me at the time, but I was proven right at the end.

Mike and his nice buck

Since we are both old grandpas and not fit to hard work (again my story, Mike is right now crossing the country west to east in a bicycle - crazy guy!), I called Steve at Williams & Bay and asked for his help in looking for the dead deer.

We looked, and looked, and when we were about to get discouraged the three of us almost simultaneously saw the dead deer laying among the autumn leaves.

Well, eventually we made it back home and to the green egg, and those were some of the best ribs, venison or otherwise, anyone ever tasted. And the libations where almost as good, especially since the tight fisted Dutchman from Zeeland, Michigan, bought them! (And again, this is my story!)

Clay Shooting: The Beginning

A Bogardus Glass Ball from the Karl Hampel Collection

Note: This article first appeared in Hooks & Bullets Magazine March/April 2017 issue.

The day I first met Kevin Speer, the heart and soul behind Hooks & Bullets, we talked about many different subjects, one of them being my on-going efforts to write something that is readable without too much pain and discomfort to the reader. Another was that Kevin thought it would be nice to have some articles on clay shooting, since many readers showed interest in the subject, but were not familiar with the different forms of the shotgun sports.

But before we go any further I must make it very clear that my shotgunning parallel my writing: I am an enthusiast at both, but not really good, or just good, at either. And although I have published three books and written twenty or so magazine articles, I never shot a single registered shotgun target in my life, so…thread these lines with care!

Nowadays we have an apparently ever-increasing variety of shotgun sports, also called "Clay Pigeon Shooting", but the most common forms are Trap and Skeet. The basic difference is that in Trap the “birds,” as we call the four-inch diameter clay saucers lunched by a machine also called a trap, flies away from the shooter in a somewhat random pattern, while in Skeet the “birds” fly across the Skeet field in trajectories that are supposed to be fixed, unless wind plays tricks on the “bird,” or the shooter.

The other way of telling the difference between Trap and Skeet is by the behavior of their respective shooters: if everybody is hanging together, talking and laughing out loud you are in the middle of Skeet shooters; and if everyone is serious, concentrated, looking solely at their guns, and not saying a word besides “PULL”, the universal command to release a bird, now you find yourself among Trap shooters.

Since I shoot both Trap and Skeet, along with Sporting Clays, Five Stand, Skrap, and in more distant fields Bunker Trap (also called International or Olympic Trap) and Helix or ZZ-Birds, you could say that I must suffer from multiple personality disorder. C’est la vie!

But it amazes me is that with all the variety of clay shooting modalities that we have available in our modern times, many of us either forget or choose to ignore how the sport of shooting flying began.

Shotgunning as we know it today began in the later part of the XVIII century when the first practical shotguns came to light. By practical shotgun I mean a smooth bore long gun that was light enough that it could be handled relatively easily, ergonomically enough that a person could swing it while pointing at a moving target (for all practical purposes, a bird), and with a fast enough lock time (that is the time elapsed between pressing the trigger and the main powder charge being ignited and eventually the shot charge leaving the barrel) that would make it possible to hit a moving or flying target (again, a bird).

Bird hunting as a formal social activity originated in France, but was adopted by and perfected in England or the United Kingdom, and it is more than fair to say that shotguns first achieved perfection in that land, and a master gunsmith by the name of Joseph Manton is regarded as the creator of the first "Best Gun" and the forefather of the world-famous London Gun Trade.

The problem was, and continues to be, if you ever try shooting flying, is that once practical shotguns were available and hunting seasons were over, gentlemen of means, or of no means, still wanted to use them and demonstrate their newly acquired skills to the world, so friends began shooting at each others hats, thrown in the air for safety and to better imitate a bird (there is no historic evidence of that), but I imagine that they soon got tired of shooting at their hats, probably because it was boring and could become sort of expensive, since the beaver pelts to make those top hats had to be imported from America.

So they put their hats to use in a slightly different way. After digging a shallow hole on the ground, and place a live pigeon in it, they covered the hole and the pigeon with those hats. A long string was attached to the hat and the shooter (not a hunter anymore, but a shooter) would call "PULL" for whoever was manning the string to free the pigeon, and then shoot at it. In order to make the sport more challenging pigeons could be released from different positions, generally five.

Apparently those shooter had plenty of old hats (at least that is my assumption as they may have shot them before the pigeons became the accept flying target, again, no historic evidence), and they probably used those old hats, since one of the first famous Trap Clubs in England was called OLD HATS.

As the game evolved the old hats were replaced by wooden boxes that had a trap mechanism to release the birds and compel them into taking to the wing, therefore the name of the sport.

Eventually Trap reached the United States of America and the once abundant passenger pigeon became the target of choice, but once they became scarce (that was before they became extinct), and even in the XIX century animal rights activists began to make noise, the typical and unparalleled American ingenuity put itself to work to find suitable replacements for live pigeons.

First a Captain Adam Henry Bogardus invented the "Bogardus" glass ball in 1866. The glass ball was launched by a spring loaded trap with an arm that looked almost like a big spoon, but they made less than perfect replacement for pigeons: they were hard to see, hits were difficult to spot, so people started to fill them up with feathers, and many times shot would just slide around the smooth glass surface without breaking the targets. To correct that, the glass balls were made with textured surfaces, but the design proved to be a dead end.

Some years later, in 1880, the Cincinnati, Ohio, trap shooter George Ligowsky created the discoid clay pigeon, and we continue to shoot it today, launched from manual throwers or highly sophisticated automatic traps that hold hundreds of birds in their magazines.

From the humble beginnings (or maybe not so humble, as the first live pigeon shooter apparently were either of noble blood or had enough money to spend time with them), the multitude of "Clay Pigeon" sports evolved, but every single time I pull the trigger I envision my shot charge connecting with the feathers of a fast flying live pigeon against the blue sky.

The Flag

The WWII Brazilian Flag

Early this January, around the time that I started operating my new business, Hampel's Gun Co. in Traverse City, Michigan, Pete Zimmerman, a long time Hampel's customer and family friend, came to store to meet me. And at that first meeting he presented me with a most unique and dear gift: the Brazilian Flag that you see in the photo above.

Pete, owner and operator of Rediscovered Shooting Treasures, that provides faithful "Reproductions of Classic Original Factory Firearm Manuals, Instructions, Boxes and Hang Tags", explained to me that both his parents were in active service during World War II, his father being a bomber pilot and his mother a nurse, and that they were based in Natal, northeastern Brazil.

Once his father was done with bombing missions he started flying casualties between North Africa and northeastern Brazil. Just to refresh your geography, the straight line between Natal - Brazil and Dakar - Senegal, is the shortest distance across the Atlantic, and during World War II this airway was called "The Bridge to Victory."

Anyhow, sometime during their war services, bomber pilot Zimmerman and soon-to-be nurse Zimmerman. met and fell in love and were married in Brazil, when they received this flag as a gift.

And so, the Brazilian flag was kept in the Zimmerman family for over seventy year, until it was gifted to me!

I must say that receiving it was a very emotional moment to me, and immediately I knew that I had not only the obligation to continue to preserve it, but also that it would be an opportunity to display a symbol of love and friendship.

Hampel's Gun Co.

Traverse City, 2^nd December 2016

Hampel's Inc., a traditional family owned Michigan company established in 1919, has reached an agreement to sell its guns & gunsmithing business to Meirelles Industries LLC, effective 31st December 2016. The new entity will do business as Hampel's Gun Co. and will operate in the facility located at 104 Mackey Drive, Traverse City, MI.

Mr. Karl Hampel has successfully led Hampel’s Inc. since 1977 and will continue to participate in the future of Hampel’s Gun Co. in advisory and consulting roles.

Rodrigo Meirelles, president of Meirelles Industries LLC, will be leading day to day operations of Hampel’s Gun Co.

“Hampel’s Inc. has an impeccable reputation and is the oldest firearms retailer in continuous operation in North America. We believe that by combining the profound industry knowledge and extensive customer relationships of Hampel’s highly professional staff with our proven track record in marketing and business strategy we have a very robust business,” said Rodrigo Meirelles. “We are honored to have been selected by Karl Hampel and the Hampel family to lead Hampel’s guns & gunsmithing in its second century of successful operations.”

Karl Hampel                                                                            Rodrigo Meirelles

President                                                                                  President

Hampel’s Inc.                                                                           Meirelles Industries LLC