Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The one thing about a lot of the modern outdoor “experts” is they seem really douchey. I put a lot more faith into the old school guys (many who had military experience) and came from the school of hard knocks. Compared to the internet and tv personalities we have now; many of which were put there through BS, marketing, and or second generation wealth. Granted there’s still some good dudes (Andy Larsson is one who comes to mind) but they are getting fewer and further between.
I kind of stopped reading the gun press in recent years. I've got no interest at all in things like ARs and plastic pistols. I've shot about every type of gun action there is from flintlock and percussion, to single shot falling, rolling, tilting and break action guns, bolt, lever, pump, semi-auto, sub-guns, machine guns, revolvers, semi-auto pistols, machine pistols... All good fun to shoot but I don't necessarily want to own them all! I kept up on Shooting Sportsmen for a long time as I appreciate fine shotguns... love the Purdey and H&H YouTube channels and wish they published more often. The only contemporary gun writer I sort of follow is John Marshall. He's a friend of mine and writes the Classic Guns column for Dillon. He's 82 or 83 now so it won't be too many years before we lose an encyclopedia of firearms knowledge. Currently my "arms reach" book shelf has books on long rifles... Shumway, Brown, Gusler. This as I've been regressing... for the past decade I've been doing a lot more of the things I enjoyed 35-55 years ago... long distance bicycle touring, made a bunch of sling shots, I recently got a Beeman P1 pellet pistol, and my Federalist Period, Lancaster style, flintlock long rifle.

Once Heller v. District of Columbia succeeded in SCOTUS I cut way back on my RKBAs activity... Don Kates had recruited me and I was heavily involved in that effort on the academic side... critiquing draft journal articles, writing articles, attending conferences, participating in sharing information and ideas with researchers around the US. It was all consuming! We knew in the years leading up to Heller that it would take 10-20 years of court cases post Heller to figure out just what regulation is acceptable... It's looking like 20 years+ may be most accurate given the aftermath of the SCOTUS case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.

I'm also getting back into the 18th century technology I got to experience while working at Colonial Williamsburg's gun shop (worked with Brumfield, Laubach, Wagner, and Suiter... Gusler worked elsewhere at the foundation at that time). Also on my "arms reach" book shelf are books Chris Schwarz of Lost Art Press has been putting out... reprints of 18th to early 20th century books. I just got Moxon's 1703 book Mechanick Exercises. I know Chris from the days when I was heavily into fine wood working... we both presented at an annual woodworking show several different years. Early on I met him at the Lie-Nielson booth when Tom L-N was there... it was an amusing but serious discussion.

Speaking of old tech, I dragged out my froe recently and split a bunch of kindling... OMG... so much safer than using an axe or hatchet! This is my froe... recently reshaped on the grinder to improve performance. I also slapped some more boiled linseed oil on the handle. I love my barbaric froe mallet. 😉
Froe.gif
 
I was friends with and spent some time with P O Ackley, he had plenty to say about Keith, as Keith worked for him for a time. lol He didn't think Keith was too bright!

I really enjoyed my time with Ackley!

SR
Yeah... that came through in his writings. Not a deep thinker but adventurous! 😉
 
The one thing about a lot of the modern outdoor “experts” is they seem really douchey. I put a lot more faith into the old school guys (many who had military experience) and came from the school of hard knocks. Compared to the internet and tv personalities we have now; many of which were put there through BS, marketing, and or second generation wealth. Granted there’s still some good dudes (Andy Larsson is one who comes to mind) but they are getting fewer and further between.
I gave up on the gun press... not interested in ARs, plastic guns, or laminated stocks... and much of the content has been recycled repeatedly over the past 50 years. Another thing that bugs me is the focus on volume over basic skill present in many of the articles, i.e., magazine capacity and quick reloads vs. a single shot well placed. I went through an armed guard training course some years ago and used a S&W Model 13 .357 magnum... 4" heavy barrel with fixed sights. Everyone else had 9s and 40s... Sigs, H&K, Glock, S&W. I was a far more accurate shot and no slower than the semi guys... out scored them all on the written exams also. There were retired cops in the course including a NYC transit cop who had been in three shoot outs. That guy was a hot mess on the range and possibly suffered from PTSD. I have to say that I kind of enjoyed watching the guys around me flinch when that magnum went off. 😉
 
Yeah... that came through in his writings. Not a deep thinker but adventurous! 😉
Actually, Keith was illiterate, mostly he heavily embellished his stories, told them to someone else who wrote them.

Worst one for embellishment was Capstick! In his writings, he outright made things up!

The writer that makes me the angriest is John Taylor, who liked to have the little African boys in his tent!

Then there was Bell, who was nothing but a poacher!

The list goes on... lol

SR
 
It's more a dodge thing sucking in the snow then a diesel thing imo. Never had a dodge pickup that did well in the snow. Buddy had a old ram charger that did ok. Well if im being honest dodges have most always been garbage. If they didn't have a Cummins I wouldn't have ever owned one. Cheap made even the 19 5500 we got at the township was made cheap, although it did pretty well in the snow till the 6 yard v box ran out of salt. Interior was junk. I think the 07 I ran was better built. Really not a dodge guy...

It's just the weight balance and overall weight IMO. All the weight is in the front...you can run around with the bed full of weight, but then you're just fighting gravity on the hills. I haven't found the Dodges to be any different from the other 2 in this regard.

I hear you on quality. I used to have an earlier 3rd gen, and the build quality was absolutely atrocious. This 08 is actually pretty good, they figured out to make a dash that didn't crack by this point. It only has 80k miles on it, but the only real issue was that I had to replace the AC compressor.

I also had to put on a Southbend clutch and 1 piece flywheel, but that happened once the motor found some more power.
 
Actually, Keith was illiterate, mostly he heavily embellished his stories, told them to someone else who wrote them.

Worst one for embellishment was Capstick! In his writings, he outright made things up!

The writer that makes me the angriest is John Hunter, who liked to have the little African boys in his tent!

Then there was Bell, who was nothing but a poacher!

The list goes on... lol

SR
By contemporary standards they, and we, are all flawed... In their day those guys brought some interesting ideas forth and instilled a sense of adventure in many readers. Guns, like all hobbies and vocations, have their traditions, beliefs, and practices... some in conflict with each other, some minor variants of others, some flat out wrong.

I remember the common phrases "brush busting bullet" or "brush busting cartridge" appearing in countless articles and coming from the lips of many associates. In hunting and experimenting in the woods I found that if you hit brush the game better be very close behind it or the shot is not going to be good regardless of caliber (granted I didn't use any 50 BMGs or 20 MMs ;)). I often shot targets in various parts of the woods using a portable target backer and various field shooting positions. I also shot, and shot at, a couple deer where the bullets hit brush I didn't see... what I planned as a double lung shot turned into a liver shot on one and a high shot near the spine on another... missed another deer completely and couldn't figure out why until I carefully followed the bullet's path and found a hole in a sapling.

This bullet hole from my Remington 700 BDL .30-06 led me to never try to shoot through brush but rather shoot through gaps in the brush. I saved this part of the target backer for about 47-48 years thus far as a reminder... My note reads "Hornady 150 gr. spire point. Hit stick. Fired approximately 50 yards hit stick approximately 3 feet from board" I missed the target itself by a foot or so low left as I recall. The bullet was fully mushroomed after hitting the stick...

Brush.gif
 
I love Capsticks writings however he actually outs himself in a lie at least once. In an early book he writes about one of the pioneer white professional hunters had a tracker go for a ride on the nose of a stampeding rhino. In a later book he retells the story where it was his tracker who ride the rhino!

Regardless those PH who survived a career had a lot of harrowing stories even if not all of them were true.
 
Young guys believe everything. My friends brother (I think he’s maybe 22-23) knows a lot of facts about guns but doesn’t know **** about real life application. I can’t even listen to him anymore lol. He works in the gun department of the hardware store and when I hear him drolling on back there I just walk away.

Told me I should ditch my .338 federal hog gun cause a .223 chambered AR is better because you’ve got 30 shots. Ok pal. Pretty hard to kill a hog any more dead than a 225 grain Nosler partition to the head. Lol.
 
Young guys believe everything. My friends brother (I think he’s maybe 22-23) knows a lot of facts about guns but doesn’t know **** about real life application. I can’t even listen to him anymore lol. He works in the gun department of the hardware store and when I hear him back there I just walk away.

Told me I should ditch my .338 federal hog gun cause a .223 chambered AR is better because you’ve got 30 shots. Ok pal. Pretty hard to kill a hog any more dead than a 225 grain Nosler partition to the head. Lol.

I think it's mostly just ignorant people...some of them are young people, just because they haven't had that firsthand experience yet. I have fun with this at work, I can get the younger dumb guys to believe anything...I say crap in a deadpan manner, and they often just lap it up. We're up on a mountaintop during a cloudy day and I got one of them to believe that you could see Hawaii from there on a clear day. 🤣
 
Young guys believe everything. My friends brother (I think he’s maybe 22-23) knows a lot of facts about guns but doesn’t know **** about real life application. I can’t even listen to him anymore lol. He works in the gun department of the hardware store and when I hear him drolling on back there I just walk away.

Told me I should ditch my .338 federal hog gun cause a .223 chambered AR is better because you’ve got 30 shots. Ok pal. Pretty hard to kill a hog any more dead than a 225 grain Nosler partition to the head. Lol.
I tell neophytes to NOT listen to the guys in the gun stores.... especially when they talk about self defense. I've heard many things come over the gun counter, directed to other customers, that would land you in prison... things that run contrary to NYS's Penal Law Article 35 on the use of force and deadly physical force. At a very basic level, I've also advised folks to stick to common calibers like .30-06, .270 Win, .243, .30-30, .38 Special, 9 MM, .44 Mag, etc. instead of the latest and greatest wonder rounds being hyped in the marketing and sales... One, you don't need the wonder rounds if you can shoot well, know your round's trajectory, and sight in for point blank range for the game you are hunting (that will get you to 100-300 yards with no hold over/under needed for many common calibers). Two... good luck finding the cartridges in times of shortages and in small town stores. Teaching my sons how to reload when they were young helped them understand how things work...
 
I think it's mostly just ignorant people...some of them are young people, just because they haven't had that firsthand experience yet. I have fun with this at work, I can get the younger dumb guys to believe anything...I say crap in a deadpan manner, and they often just lap it up. We're up on a mountaintop during a cloudy day and I got one of them to believe that you could see Hawaii from there on a clear day. 🤣
Reminds me of my hunting buddy's mentor when he was a kid. Larry used to tell stories about elephant hunting when in the company of strangers. He'd talk about the long treks through thick cover... Inevitably the listeners would ask if he got one. Larry would respond "Nope, never even seen one." That would lead to the next question "Where were you hunting them?" Larry's response would vary depending on where he was but it would be something like "Delaware County in the western Catskills." 😉 Me... in my youth I was fond of messing with the guys from LI, NYC and NJ who were more into the barroom and cabin drinking than into the deer hunting. For example, a couple seasons I carried a .50 BMG cartridge with me that I'd "accidently" let fall out of my pocket. Eyes would get big when they saw it... I'd proceed to tell them that the bears were so big around there that a .30-06 was useless. That kept those guys pretty much within sight of the road so I had the actual woods pretty much to myself. Later that evening when I came out of the woods they were all in the bar again having dinner. I recall being asked if I saw anything. I honestly answered yes, that there was a herd of deer up on the mountain 4-500 yards from the road as I hunted my way out of the woods but I didn't see any shootable bucks. They hadn't seen anything. 😉
 
I always get giggles when the gun topic comes up and the older generation runs to the wheel gun defense over a semi auto. Neither is any better then the shooter and the shooter is only as good as their experiences and training. I'm a decent shot with a wheel gun or a semi. I thought I was a great shot going through many static courses. I got to shoot with a few of our local police when I worked at the township. Most of them my age, but served in various sections of our military. We did a fire under duress one day. Basically we ran laps followed by live fire with one of the guys screaming at us, making loud noises ect. It's supposed to simulate some of the stresses you go under during a real gunfight. I was flat out pathetic. We didn't even do multi position shooting, just standing at 10 yards and shooting at silhouettes. Out of the 16 round my g19 holds I made fatal hits 3 times, and got 12 on target In total. I learned a lot in that one session.
I can agree with keeping with common calibers. I have a few odd balls but most everything is a standard thats been around for a long time.
 
The Fiskars type splitting axes work fine in straight wood. But in twisted, knotty stuff you need the weight of a serious mall.
Many of the rounds I split by hand require two sometimes three steel splitting wedges driven with a 12lb sledge. 👍 We're talking four foot rounds of twisted gnarly spruce off the butt log. Closest to the root swell.
 
Love those stories!

The “wonder round” that irks me the most is the 6.5 Creedmoor. The gun writers barf over that stupid round endlessly. It was just in a “top rounds for moose” article. Give me a break.

I understand the use for short mag cartridges but we’ve seen so many redundant cartridges introduced in the 21st century.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top