Author: Kim du Toit

Luxury Deep-Woods Gun (Part 1)

Gratuitous Gun Pics, Hunting, The Gun Thing

I have often spoken of the need for a decent deep-woods gun — preferably carbine-length barrel, with a hard-hitting cartridge that could take care of any game likely to be found inside a hundred yards.  (From memory, the average distance for game taken in Pennsylvania forests is about a hundred feet.)

Of course, we all know what fits this bill:  the venerable lever-action rifle chambered in something like .30-30 (.30 WCF), which has always done the job with distinction and will no doubt continue to do so for the rest of time as we know it.  Here’s a Marlin 336 as seen at Collectors:

Or if we were to go upscale, so to speak, then there’s always the gorgeous Cimarron 1894 carbine:

Now as all my Loyal Readers know well, I am not one who tinkers lightly with tradition, so as a rule I would just say, “That’s that” and move on to other topics.

Not today.

You see, there’s another kind of deep-woods hunting, this time as practiced by Germans, Austrians and the like for as long as anyone can remember.  And they didn’t use lever rifles, but bolt-action carbines chambered in their equivalent of our .30-30, the 7x57mm Mauser cartridge, which they found quite adequate for hunting in the forests of Western- and Central Europe (which are as dark and deep as any forests to be found in the U.S., as anyone who has seen them will attest).

And as all my Loyal Readers also know, I have a deep, abiding love for the old Kraut cartridge, having taken many, many impala, springbok and even kudu back in the day with its long, thin and deep-penetrating bullet.  (Also one eland, but we can talk about that another time.)  Here’s a comparison between the 7x75mm and the well-known .308 Win:

In my case therefore, were I looking for a deep-woods rifle, I would not be limited to a Marlin, Henry, Uberti or Winchester, oh no not me.  That would be too easy.

I would also be considering a bolt-action carbine in 7x57mm (just to make my life even more complicated than it should be).

So… with all that background, imagine my surprise, as I was meandering along the electronic highways and (mostly) byways of Ye Internettes, when I stumbled into that evil place known as Steve Barnett Fine Guns, and found this:

Have mercy.  A Mannlicher-style full stock encasing an old Mauser?  Be still, my beating wallet.

And beat it would;  for this paragon of musketry costs over six thousand dollars, in that it was built by master gunsmith and stockmaker, the late Dale Goens.

In Part 2 next week, I’ll be talking about this situation in detail.

Sardines? Not Quite

Disaster, Mocking Furriners

OMG the Brits are SO lawless, flocking en masse  to beaches at the first warm day in ages and overcrowding the place:

Well, I guess it depends on your camera placement, doesn’t it?  Here’s the same beach:

Not really that crowded, is it?

Anyway, I don’t care.  I don’t do beaches because it’s hot and you get sand in your thingy.  Give me a decent bit of lawn any day:

Actually, I hate being in the sun, period, and as for sunbathing… don’t get me started.

I try to learn from the mistakes of others.  Besides, you never know what you’ll see in the sun (note the attribution, bottom left):

Ugh, no.  I prefer to avoid sunburn (and unfortunate sightings) in the traditional manner:

Indoors, pint, fish & chips, friends (note:  that’s The Englishman’s hand, no doubt poised to steal a chip from me).

That is heaven, not sweltering in the sun on some manky beach with sand in bad places.

No Big Deal

Behind Enemy Lines, Travels

I see that we’re still not allowed to visit Canuckistan until June, but that’s okay.  Montreal is only worth visiting for the three weeks of summer in July anyway.

Here’s a recent pic of same:

I am going to be taking New Wife up there soon.  She’s never been to Canada, and I love Montreal — other than the fact that it’s in Canuckistan, I could live there quite easily.

 

If I may digress for a moment — and I believe I can — there are quite a few places in the world similar to Montreal, where I could easily live but for the fact that the countries in which they’re located are completely fucked up.

The first example is Wiltshire, England, home to Mr. Free Market, The Englishman and a couple of other Bad Influences:

Of course, there’s meine schönes Wien:

…and Paris — the Paris I knew back in the early 2000s, not the refugee-infested shithole it’s since become:

Ditto London:

All these places, and so many others, captivated me utterly when I was there and I remember thinking at the time, “I could live here.”

Then I’d come back home, and realize that I loved my freedom more.

And our TV is better.

Don’t get me started on guns…

…none of which I’d be allowed to own in any of the above European cities.

So Montreal can wait.

Uglyyyyyy

Marxists

Generally speaking, not many state governors are that well known outside their own borders, for obvious reasons.  But the Chinkvirus mania has made some of them nationally (if not internationally) prominent — albeit for the wrong reasons.  The most famous, after NY’s Vito Corleone Cuomo and CA’s Vladimir Gavin Lenin Newsom, has been Michigan’s Irma Grese Gretchen Witless Witmer, the latter not being helped by the fact that she actually does look like a concentration camp guard.

Another rising star among the infamous is Portlandia Oregon governor Kate Brown, who while not as evil-looking as Witmer, still has that basilisk-apparatchik appearance first made famous by Hillary Bitch Clinton:

Why do all Marxist women end up looking like cheap copies of Rosa Luxemburg?  Even (to switch countries for a moment) New Zealand’s Prime Lesbian Minister Jacinda Ardern is, in addition to being a gun-controller, quite ghastly:

(What amazed me about the above is that with a name like Jacinda Ardern, I originally thought she was Black.  My bad.)

The only thing which can mitigate the appearance of these Marxist harpies is that occasionally they can have redeeming physical characteristics which can take one’s gaze from their face.  Case in point:  Gretchen Whitmer:

Even the Senior Troll Speaker of the House, ol’ Red Nancy herself, is similarly constructed (seen here with another gun controller):

Nevertheless, it can safely be said that no matter how attractive the superstructure of these Commies, nothing — and I mean nothing — should distract us from the utter foulness of their totalitarian philosophy.  I’m not saying, of course, that they should end up like their figurehead Rosa Luxemburg — shot dead and their bodies tossed into a canal — but the sooner they and their political leanings are discredited, marginalized and forgotten, the better for all of us.

Afterthought:  my apologies for all the strikeouts above.  Clearly, I need more coffee.