My wife hunted with an 8mm German Mauser for many years. Took some nice deer with it too. I hunted with an M1 Garand (with bayonet) one year. I shot 16 times at one deer. Last time I used a semi auto to hunt deer. I hunted with an M-16 in Iraq. Had 29 kills (17 gazels, 10 dogs, an Ibex and a cat). I killed a Caribou with an SKS in Alaska. It was a big cow at about 40 yards and a soft point bullet. I hit her behind the shoulder and she went down after about 20 yards.

 

lol. ok I gotta ask...How do you miss 16 times with a M-1 Garand? All of the Garands I've shot have been very accurate. At least as accurate as any of the 30-06 commercial sporters like the Browning and the Remington autoloaders. If you had the bayonet attached that may have been the problem. I've been told they can throw off accuracy. I've never shot one with a bayonet attached. Now M-1 carbines are another story. I've never shot an M-1 Carbine that could hit the broad side of barn.

One old guy I know hunts with an M-1Garand exclusively. Supposedly the same rifle he had carried in WWII. He found it again at a gunshop in the 50s or 60s and remembered the serial number. So the story goes anyway.

 

The bayonet was more of a joke when we were walking through the swamp, it wasn't attached when I was shooting at the deer. I was driving on a dirt road when I saw it. It was a good size buck, antlers out past his ears. It was on the right side of the road about 40 yards out. When I hit the brakes it started running towards the road and crossed about 20 yards in front of the truck heading out into an open field. First I had to stop the truck. Then I grabed the rifle, ran across the road which me and the deer did at about the same time, down the ditch and up the other side so I would be shooting from the edge of the field (game wardens frown on shooting from the road). While I was running I was putting the 8 round end block magazine in (at the time there wasn't a limit on number of rounds you could have in a gun, now it's 5). By the time I got to the edge of the field, the deer was hauling ***. The field was a full half mile of plowed dirt. By the time he had reached the other side of the field I had emptied 2 magazines.

No, this is not the way I hunt and I would never do this again, it's just the way it happened.

 

lol ok in that case you're excused. At least the bolt didn't slam into your thumb as you were trying to load in a hurry. I've done that on numerous occasions with a Garand. They call it "M-1 Thumb" I believe. Wow! does it ever smart. Hurts bad enough to make your eyes water. Makes one appreciate the later M-1 variants that used detachable magazines. One thing I like about the Garand is the sights. I always shot well with them.

 

It was a good shooter. I had a match grade barrel on it. I traded it for an AR-15 before I got too much money into it. I did get my thumb slamed in the receiver several times. That was one of the reasons I switched to the AR.

 

have any of you guys ever checked out gun broker ? It's a pretty cool sight (site). It's like an ebay for guns, and you can find pretty much anything, even full autos, if you have a class 3 and a ffl. For anything else, you just have it shipped to a dealer with an ffl. You can even look up dealers in your area, and see what their ffl fee is. It's usually $25, but I've found them in my area as low as $10

 

Great web site sparky, now I have something elst to keep me from doing my work.

 

My dad was on the All Army Rifle team, master class back in the early 50's. They shot Garands and he got to pick through racks of match rifles to find a couple that worked well for him. Those things really shot well. What a cool job, go out and shoot all day.

 

i recently bought a lee-enfield mk. 1 v III. i cleaned it out. and put a few rounds into it. i had a 1.5 inch group at 75 yards. i thougth that was pretty darn good. im gonna use it this huntin season bout half the time. cuz i wanna see what my new .300 mag will do. lol

 

Just keep smashing yourself in the shoulder with a sledge hammer, you'll get the idea!!!
I'm looking forward to getting a Remington 700 P (PSS) in .308, I heard the .300 wsm really beats the crap out of the gun.